Armoury

The Armoury opened on 12 May 2006. Its collection includes European and Oriental weapons dating from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century.

The oldest crossbow on display dates from 1534. Some crossbows in the collection have inlaid figurative decoration. The armour includes a full plate suit dating from around 1530 and a Polish hussar cuirass from the late seventeenth century. There are also nineteenth-century cuirassier helmets and breastplates, as well as a closed helmet and a morion from around the turn of the seventeenth century. Halberds and partisans were used by infantry and castle guards. Long lances belonged to the cavalry.

Handguns and long guns form the largest group of weapons: rifles, shotguns and pistols with matchlock, wheellock, flintlock, percussion and needle-fire mechanisms. They include small-calibre hunting guns known as cieszynki, made in Cieszyn in the second half of the seventeenth century for shooting birds and small game. Edged weapons include sixteenth- and seventeenth-century swords, rapiers and smallswords, followed by later cavalry swords, sabres and cutlasses. Polish military examples include the 1917, 1921 and 1934 sabre patterns. A seventeenth-century executioner's sword once belonged to the town of Pszczyna.