Russian cannons have mysteriously been found in the waters of The Bahamas by an exploration company, raising questions about their history and how they landed up at the bottom of Caribbean waters. Allen Exploration (AllenX) has found a cluster of 24 individual iron cannons and some of these are from the Crimean War of 1853-1855. Researchers are stumped to see these cannons in the northern Bahamas, considering they were manufactured thousands of miles away in Russia. 

A scientific report on The Bahamas' "most unexpected underwater revelations," published in Allen Exploration Ocean Dispatches 6, tries to answer the question how these missiles once used by Russia against an alliance that included the Ottoman Empire, France, Britain, and the Kingdom of Sardinia, ended up in the Caribbean waters. 

Discovery of Russian cannons in The Bahamas is shocking 

AllenX described the discovery as stunning while telling about how they ultimately discovered these Russian cannons. The company conducted an 
archaeological survey in 2023 in an effort to document the remains of a Spanish galleon called the Nuestra Señora de la Maravillas. The galleon got lost in 1656 and wreckage was found scattered in a massive area. This is where the researchers found the Russian cannons.

"We've found all kinds of archaeology out here. Everything from gold chains and amethysts the size of your thumb to clay tobacco pipes. But imperial Russian guns fired in anger over 170 years ago? That's stunning," Allen said in a news release.

How do we know the cannons are from Russia?

Among the several guns found, the barrel on one of them had a double-headed eagle—the coat of arms of the Russian tsars. A broken-off trunnion, a mounting or pivoting point in a cannon that is cylindrical in shape, had a unique crest, three lines of Cyrillic text, on it. Since trunnions are normally plain, the artistry on some of them led AllenX to zero in on its origin and they traced it back to 19th century Russia.

How did Russian cannons reach The Bahamas?

Interestingly, the team of researchers believes that not the Crimean War, but a war fought years later was responsible for the cannons ending up in the Caribbean waters. This was the Second World War, and these cannons were supposedly meant to help the British manufacture planes, ships and ordinance. 

After Russia lost the Crimean War, the British and France took home Russian cannons from the Siege of Sevastopol. While France melted them, the UK put them up on display as memorials. However, after the Second World War broke out, the British needed scrap iron to create other wartime equipment. Records state that Crimean War trophies were often used to help create more wartime equipment, and so the explanation that these cannons were brought for the same likely holds true. The discovery of broken barrels among the cannons further backs this claim. 

However, a lot more iron was scrapped that could be used. What happened to the extra scrap isn't clear. 

"Exactly what happened to those metal mountains has been an epic mystery of World War II Britain ever since," Michael Pateman, an author of the report and director of The Bahamas Maritime Museum, said in a press release. 

AllenX team believes that the latest discovery hints at the possibility that the officials wanted to hide the wastage and so the extra iron scrap was shipped to far-off waters. 

However, more research is needed to understand what exactly happened.