Password "ANCE": How X-Ray Micro-CT Cracked a 1583 Tudor Smuggler's Combination Lock
On the stormy night of December 28, 1583, the Elizabethan merchant ship Ann Francis ran aground on the sands of Margam Beach in South Wales. The vessel belonged to Francis Shaxton, a notorious 16th-century English merchant and smuggler based in King's Lynn who routinely falsified customs ledgers. Over the decades, metal detectorist Peter Hughes recovered a trove of Spanish silver coins from the beach—along with a heavily corroded, cylinder-shaped brass combination lock.
Because four centuries of saltwater corrosion had fused the rotating letter rings solid, forcing the mechanism would have shattered the artifact. Instead, experts from Amgueddfa Cymru (Museum Wales) and Cardiff University placed the lock inside a high-energy micro-CT X-ray scanner (announced November 5, 2026):
- 3D Internal Notch Mapping: By combining thousands of X-ray cross-sections into a digital 3D model, researchers mapped the hidden release notches inside all four rotating brass collars and matched them to the engraved Renaissance letters on the exterior.
- The 4-Letter Secret Code ("ANCE"): When all four internal slots align with the locking bar, the exterior dials spell
A - N - C - E—likely a personal cipher or name fragment (such as Ann Francis or Frances) used to guard smuggled bullion chests aboard ship.
Kublai Khan's 1281 Warship Dice, Egypt's 5 Archer Princesses & Britain's Iron Age "King" Who Was a Queen
Click tabs 2, 3, and 4 in the 3D studio above to inspect three more viral November 2026 discoveries:
- 2. Five Dice & 29 Game Tiles on a 1281 Mongol Invasion Flagship (Takashima Island, Japan, Nov 6, 2026): Investigating a third sunken warship from Kublai Khan's 1281 invasion fleet (destroyed by the famous Kamikaze typhoon), divers led by Prof. Yoshifumi Ikeda uncovered 15 meters of hull from a 30-meter command/supply ship with living quarters. Inside the galley—beside fish bones and a cook's knife—lay 5 gambling dice and 29 wooden playing cards/game tiles used by sailors to kill boredom at sea!
- 3. Five Ancient Egyptian Princesses Were Trained Archers (~1850 BCE, Archaeology Magazine Nov/Dec 2026): Rediscovered in two wooden boxes wrapped in 1890s newspaper in the Egyptian Museum's basement, the skeletons of five 12th-Dynasty princesses from Dahshur—including Princess Noub-Hotep and Princess Ita—were analyzed by Dr. Zeinab Hashesh (Beni-Suef University). Their arm, shoulder, and bowed palm bones carry the unmistakable osteological "Archer's Grip", proving the bows, arrows, and gold-lapis daggers in their tombs were real weapons they trained with in life!
- 4. Famous British Iron Age "King" Verica Was Actually a Queen (Bournemouth University, Nov 6, 2026): Re-examining the gold staters and Roman texts of the Atrebates ruler Verica (whose exile in 42 CE gave Emperor Claudius the pretext to invade Britain), archaeologist Dr. Miles Russell argued that Verica is grammatically and epigraphically a female Celtic name—meaning one of Iron Age Britain's most famous "kings" was a reigning Queen!
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I switch between the 4 different 3D models and zoom in or out?
Click any of the four buttons below the 3D viewport—🔐 1. 1583 Smuggler Lock, 🎲 2. 1281 Mongol Warship Dice, 🏹 3. Egypt's 5 Archer Princesses, or 👑 4. Iron Age 'King' Was a Queen. Use the ➖, 🎯 Fit, and ➕ buttons, the 🔍 Zoom slider, or a two-finger pinch gesture on mobile to zoom smoothly.
Why were the 5 Egyptian Archer Princess skeletons lost for over 120 years?
When French archaeologist Jacques de Morgan excavated the princesses' tombs at Dahshur in 1894–1895, their jeweled gold daggers, crowns, and arrows were immediately put on display, while their headless postcranial skeletons were packed into two wooden crates with 1890s French and Arabic newspaper and stored in the basement of the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square—where they remained unstudied until curators reopened the crates in 2020 and Dr. Zeinab Hashesh's team performed full osteological analysis in 2026.