Letters on a cannon

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Not long ago I spotted the old cannon shown in the picture at Golconda Fort. It bears the markings ‘A’ and ‘VOC’. The letters VOC are the abbreviation used by the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the former Dutch East India Company, which functioned between 1602 and 1799. The ‘A’ stands for one of the several distinct groups of Dutch investors, who together comprised the VOC.

Incidentally, I have seen another example of this Dutch cannon marking on an artillery piece on the island of Diu, which is close to the southern coast of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat. The example in Diu can be found in the garden commemorating the Indian soldiers who captured Diu from the Portuguese in 1961.