Catapult Projectile from Montfort (Starkenberg) Castle

The area of Montfort, in upper Galilee near Acre, Israel, was occupied by French Crusaders in the eleventh century. In the early thirteenth century, it was acquired by the Teutonic Knights, a German crusading order, who strengthened the fortifications and renamed it Starkenberg. Mamluk forces took the castle by siege in 1271, leaving it in ruins. In 1925, Arms and Armor Department founding curator Bashford Dean had high hopes that an excavation of the undisturbed site might unearth examples of arms and armor from the crusading era. Field work, organized by Dean and privately funded, was carried out in 1926. Relatively few martial artifacts were found, but the site did yield important architectural elements, pottery, glassware, and many other items from the daily life of the castle’s former occupants. Among the military finds were several stone projectiles, including this example, which may have been hurled from a catapult into the castle by its besiegers in 1271.