Artillery

The Mamluks had their first cannons (called midfa) by 1365-66 at the latest, and possibly by 1340 or 1342. Though references remain rare until the wars of succession of 1389-90, the sources thereafter attest a steady increase in the use of artillery until, by the reign of Qansuh al-Ghawri (who established a foundry in Cairo a few years after his accession) they were being produced at a prolific rate, quantities of 15, 70, 74 and 75 newly-manufactured cannon being recorded by a contemporary source (Ibn lyas), including 4 some 25 feet in length. Although some were intended for shipboard use, most Mamluk artillery was used for siege-work and to defend the citadel and walls of Cairo, though in the sultanate’s last years a great amount was also sent to defend the coastal cities (about 200 guns being assigned for this purpose in 1516, for example), and in addition Alexandria and Damascus at least had a fair quantity even in the 14th century, possibly as early as 1352 in the case of Damascus. By the very end of this period some amirs, like the nobility of Western Europe, even had artillery of their own, for the Ottoman sultan Selim I observed in 1517 that some of the guns he captured that year at the Battle of al-Raydaniya had been collected from ‘the houses of the amirs’. (Others had been supplied by the Hospitallers of Rhodes.)

The manjaniq or trebuchet remained in use alongside gunpowder artillery throughout the Mamluk era, proving more effective than the latter in siege-work and therefore retaining pride of place until about the mid-15th century, despite probably being present in smaller numbers on most occasions. Thereafter, however, they seem to have virtually disappeared, though they were still to be found in Alexandria, and were still being made in Cairo, even as late as 1514.