Orban, the 'Dacian' cannon founder

The Fall of Constantinople was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire which occurred after a siege laid by an army of 80-100,000 soldiers of Ottoman Empire, under the command of Sultan Mehmed II. The siege lasted from Thursday, 5 April 1453 until Tuesday, 29 May 1453 (according to the Julian Calendar), when the city was conquered by the Ottomans. Constantinople was defended by the army of 7000 defenders of Emperor Constantine XI. The event marked the end of the political independence of the millennium-old Byzantine Empire, which was by then already fragmented into several Greek monarchies.

The fortifications of Constantinople in the 15th century

Prior to the siege of Constantinople it was known that the Ottomans had the ability to cast medium-sized cannons, but the range of some pieces they were able to put to field far surpassed the defenders' expectations. One cannon was 9 m long, and able to fire 750 kg over the distance of 2 km. The Greeks called it the Basilica cannon (the royal gun). Instrumental to this Ottoman advancement in arms production was a somewhat mysterious figure by the name of Orban.

The Dardanelles Gun, cast in 1464 and based on the Orban bombard.

The origins of Orban remains uncertain. According to some scholars he was Hungarian; John Julius Norwich, in A Short History of Byzantium (1997), suggest he was German. Laonicus Chalcondyles (c. 1423–1490), a Byzantine Greek scholar from Athens who lived in the time of siege, in his work Proofs of Histories says that Orban was a 'Dacian' - '[...] but the Emperor had a Dacian cannon founder named Orban, creator of weapons and tools for breking the walls. [...] Orban was a man between two ages, with blond mustache and rosy-cheeked'. Chalcondyles named in his works the Romanians as 'Dacians'. 'Orban' is indeed a Hungarian name, but it is frequent also in Belgium and Holland; spelled 'Urban', it has a Latin ascendancy. Probably, Orban was a Transylvanian-born Hungarian or Romanian, but the hypothesis remains unverified.

Mehmed II by Bellini

The master founder initially tried to sell his services to the Byzantines, who were, however, unable to secure the funds needed to hire him. Orban then left Constantinople and approached Mehmed II. Accordingly, Orban's arrival at Edirne must have seemed providential. The sultan welcomed the master founder and questioned him closely. Mehmed asked if he could cast a cannon to project a stone ball large enough to smash the walls at Constantinople. Orban's reply was emphatic: 'I can cast a cannon of bronze with the capacity of the stone you want. I have examined the walls of the city in great detail. I can shatter to dust not only these walls with the stones from my gun, but the very walls of Babylon itself'. Mehmed ordered him to make the gun. Given abundant funds and materials, the engineer built the gun within three months at Adrianople, from which it was dragged by sixty oxen to Constantinople. In the meantime, Orban also produced other cannons instrumental for the Turkish siege forces.

Constantine XI

Orban's cannon had several drawbacks, however: it could only be fired seven times a day; it took three hours to reload; the cannon balls were in very short supply; after each shot, crews soaked the barrel in warm oil to prevent cold air from penetrating and enlarging the fissures; and the cannon is said to have collapsed under its own recoil after six weeks (this fact however is disputed, being only reported in the letter of Archbishop Leonardo di Chio and the later and often unreliable Russian chronicle of Nestor Iskander). Having previously established a large foundry approximately 150 miles away, Mehmed now had to undergo the painstaking process of transporting his massive pieces of artillery. Orban's giant cannon was said to have been accompanied by a crew of 60 oxen and over 400 men (Doukas or Dukas, The Turkish-Byzantine History, (1341-1462)).

The Ottoman army and the Basilica cannon

And when it had caught fire, faster than you can say it, there was first a terrifying roar and a violent shaking of the ground beneath and for a great distance around, and a din such as has never been heard. Then, with a monstrous thundering and an awful explosion and a flame that illuminated everything round about and scorched it, the wooden wad was forced out by the hot blast of dry air and propelled the stone ball powerfully out. Projected with incredible force and power, the stone struck the wall, which it immediately shook and demolished, and it was itself shattered into many fragments, and the pieces were hurled everywhere, dealing death to those standing nearby.

The bombard technology from which Orban drew had been established between 1400 and 1450 in Western European siege warfare, with some pieces like the Dulle Griet, Mons Meg and the Pumhart von Steyr still extant from the period. He, along with an entire crew, is assumed to have been killed during the siege by one of his superguns exploding, then not an unusual occurrence (Volker Schmidtchen, 1977). One of a growing band of technical mercenaries who plied their trade across the Balkans, he offered to the two Emperors one of the most highly prized skills of the age: the ability to cast large bronze guns. The Orban's cannon symbolized the end of outmoded medieval techniques of castle construction and siege warfare and opened a terrible new chapter in military history. The use of massed artillery bombardment would prevail.

Basarabi Cave Complex

Basarabi Cave Complex is a medieval cave complex located in the town of Basarabi, Constanţa County, Romania.


The complex of cave monuments in Basarabi was discovered in 1957 during the limestone quarry activities. The complex used from the second half of the 9th to the half of the 11th century consists of a number of galleries, dwellings, crypts, tombs, six chapels and a quarry from the same epoch, where limestone was cut out. All the composing elements of the architectural complex are dug into the chalky limestone hill at different levels, into the vertical walls of the ancient quarry.


The main conclusions regarding the location, the role and the significance of the cave monuments were already drawn, though studies about them are not yet finished. Dobruja was under Byzantine Empire rule during those centuries, rule again established at the mouth of the Danube after a short period of its political and military decline from the beginning of the 7th cent. A representative elements series of this archaeological complex is specific for the Dobrujan Romanian population. The limestone deposit exploiting system in open-air scales and terraces, used since ancient times in Roman quarries (including Dobruja) was unknown to migrant populations. Many of the excavated tombs were built according to older, Roman traditions. Two types represent ceramics: the local, Dridu type and the imported Byzantine one, inheriting older, Greek and Roman traditions. Regarding building conceptions, religious frameworks, with apses, central and side naves, though little, keep exactly the plan of Roman-Byzantine basilicas (including those in Dobruja) from the 4th-6th cent. A.D. The entire ensemble, with its rich figurative and symbolic decoration, represents an especially important document for our history, until now unique in eastern parts of Europe.


Decoration consists of human figures, orants, riders, animals, birds, laic and religious symbols etc. A large interest group is represented by fantastic figures like monsters and dragons. These ones, together with also on the walls represented halberds are of northern, Viking origin, a fact also confirmed by anthropological analysis of two skeletons. The same northern origin, accepted by all scientists, is proven by the image of a Viking ship. Beside other elements excavated from the 10th-11th centuries in Dinogetia (Tulcea County), specific also to Vikings, these discoveries were linked to the trade route between Scandinavian areas and Constantinople, known under the name “the route from the Varegs (= Vikings) to the Greek”.


A special attention must be given to the large number of inscriptions carved into the walls, using the Greek, proto-Glagolitic, Glagolitic alphabet and Runic signs. It is proven, that Greek, proto-Glagolitic and Glagolitic alphabets were used by a Romanic population. Recently even a number of Romanian language inscriptions were deciphered, containing specific religious idioms. The language of the Asiatic Runes and mixed inscriptions is still unknown. It may be Proto-Bulgarian, as suggested by a lot of Bulgarian scholars, or Turanic, as implied by Romanian scholars. It is said that the names included are of Romanian (Latin) origin, such as "Petre" and even the possibly Nordic "Rainpilpe".


After the cave complex was discovered, between 1957 and 1962 first protection measures were taken, with a wooden structure covering and protecting it against rain and wind, but this didn't much lower temperature differences. Between 1971 and 1974 final preservation and conservation works took place, especially in the area of the cave churches and galleries. But only three protection-building segments of seven were completed, covering a surface of 924 m². In 1975 these works were stopped as a result of financial difficulties. In 1981 local authorities and an architecture institute elaborated a project to protect segments 4 to 7 of the complex. The main functional elements were to be covered by a building to assure its protection and museum functionality, with platforms for visitors and exhibition spaces, consolidation of the chalky limestone slope, reconstitution of original elements in special rooms and inside the galleries.