Every object on the Mohács plain tells its own story, which are small additions to the big picture of the series of events, and which bring us closer to understanding what really happened on August 29, 1526. Within the framework of the Janus Pannonius Museum Mohács 500 research group, a multidisciplinary research is underway that has never been done before in Hungary: archaeologists, conflict archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, military historians, and geographers work together to find answers to the most important questions.

Of course, the firearms historian gets lost in the small details. We turn each projectile and weapon piece with admiration, through which we get close to the arquebusiers of the 16th century. The bullet molds form a separate group among the finds of the Mohács plain.

There was a significant difference between the military logistics of the two armies. According to the Ottoman army’s military equipment list for the Janissaries and other court troops prepared for the Hungarian campaign of 1526, the Ottoman army had 4,060 guns (1,000 high-quality, 3,000 common, and 60 wallgun-sized firearms), 3 million bullets, 4,000 powder horns (1,000 high-quality, 3,000 common), 400 leather bags of gunpowder, each containing 15 okka (19.2 kg) of gunpowder, 56 kantar (about 3,000 kg) of cotton rope for slowmatch, 1 jük (a variable unit of weight that depended on the type of product and the load capacity of the animal. In case of camel 180–256 kg, in case of horse or mule 102–141 kg) of tin (probably not pure tin, but a lead-tin alloy for casting bullets), 4 jük of olive oil for conservation of the guns, and 200 bullet molds.

The list shows that the Ottoman army basically provided its projectiles from a central source and did not plan to manufacture them in the operational area. This was probably possible because the bore sizes of the firearms used by the Janissaries were more uniform than those of the more diversely equipped Christian troops coming from several places.

The histogram of the diameters of the projectiles collected on the Mohács plain shows clearly visible peaks for the Ottoman 4 and 5 dirham bore sizes (13 and 14 mm), which may confirm the presence of these uniform calibres. The highest peaks are visible for the 11-12 mm bore size, however, so it cannot be ruled out at all that weapons with smaller bore sizes appeared not only in the Christian but also in the Ottoman army.

In the case of the Christian troops, we do not have a similar report on handgun bullets, but we can be sure that the army arriving on the Mohács plain did not have a similarly developed logistical background, and could have relied much more on making bullets locally when it came to hand-held firearms.

This could also be explained by the fact that since the bore sizes of the weapons of the troops arriving from different countries were not uniform, central supply would have been difficult anyway. The molds found on the battlefield can therefore be more closely linked to the Christian troops than to the Ottoman troops.

But what are these Mohács molds, of which researchers have now found 9 pieces within the framework of the Mohács 500 community archaeological project? They are all made of copper, and the size of the cast bullets ranges between 9-12 mm.

Very similar molds are found in the Weimarer Ingenieurkunst- und Wunderbuch (Weimar Engineering and Wonder Book) codex, written between 1480 and 1520, and a similar one can be identified in Ludwig von Eyb’s Kriesbuch codex. The form – bronze mold halves with iron tongs – gave way to forged iron tongs in Europe by the end of the 16th century, but survived in Eastern-Europe and Ottoman territories until the 18^th-19th centuries.

Weimarer Ingenieurkunst- und Wunderbuch

Von Eyb: Kriegsbuch

The brass jaws are positioned to each other by fitting pins, and the melt had to be poured into a notch corresponding to the negative profile of the bullet through the funnel-shaped pouring opening. After the melt had solidified, the jaws had to be opened so that the finished projectile could fall out of the mold.

The sprue was typically cut off with a knife, preferably tangentially, but it could also be left so that a paper cartridge could be attached to it. We have sources for the use of paper cartridges from the first decade of the 16th century, and round balls with sprues are also found in large quantities on the battlefield.

Each of the molds was made of copper and are from the same type. Each are just mold blocks, without a handle, so some kind of tongs were also needed to operate them. Such tongs have not yet been found. These type of molds are more archaic than the molds used from the end of the 16th century, which were more likely to be made of iron, and the mold and tongs were more likely to be one part.

The locations of the molds are important to us because if we will be able to prove that they are of Christian origin, they can show us in which parts of the battlefield Christian foot soldiers turned around, fought, and camped. Since the mold was an important accessory of the gun, it was probably with the gunman. So, if we put the molds found so far on a map, we get an interesting picture.

Seven pieces were found northeast of the Mohács National Memorial Park near Sátorhely. Based on other artefacts, this site could be the location of one of the Christian camps before the battle. This is logical, since where else would bullets be made if not in the camp?

But two were also found in the vicinity of the Majs village trace, the heart area of the battle. The latter may indicate that Christian infantry fought here in the last moments of the battle, when their battle formation was shot apart by the advancing Janissaries.

This phase of the battle war tragic and bloody. The Christian light and heavy cavalry were stropped by the formation of 4000 janissary firearm armed soldiers and 150 darbzen cannons (3-6 cm caliber light artillery pieces). These were linked together by a chain and most probably there was some kind of light field fortification between them, where the ranks of janissary soldiers fired their volleys into the mass of cavalry stopped by the line.

While the cavalry was trying to break through or flank this line, the infantry was moved forward. The Christian cavalry was repelled, and they left the infantry in front of this deadly formation of gunmen and cannons forming a primitive, imperfect formation, probably a square. This must have been a strong formation as Ottoman cavalry could not penetrate it, so the janissaries were pulled forward to finish them off. This caused the tragic end on the Christian infantry. Very few of them could escape the shots of the Ottoman arquebusiers. At this location hundreds of heavily deformed, impacted bullets were found showing a fierce firefight. The two molds probably belonged to these soldiers.

The story of the molds is therefore a small but exciting addition. Of course, it is not conclusive in itself, but it is still an addition to where we should look for Christian infantry in the Battle of Mohács.

Balázs Németh

Janus Pannonius Museum Mohács 500 Research Group

MATE Institute of Wildlife Management and Nature Conservation