The long and colourful story of a seven-inch gun, once part of Dunedin's coastal defences at Fort Taiaroa, took another turn when it arrived at the Toitu Otago Settlers Museum by crane yesterday.
And there, on Saturday, it will go on public display for the first time in 80 years, as part of the museum's new ''Life on the Edge: Otago Harbour Communities'' exhibition.
Two truck-mounted cranes, with eight and 13-tonne lifting capacities, undertook a delicate tandem lift to move the gun into position inside a side roller door at the museum.
Fairfield Transport Ltd crane operator Craig Reilly said the second crane was called in after he realised it would be difficult to move the heavy gun into position using only one crane.
Exhibition developer William McKee said the gun barrel was prominently placed near the museum's southern entrance, and was likely to be a ''major feature'' of the exhibition.
The seven-tonne rifled muzzle-loading gun began life in Dunedin as Saddle Battery at Taiaroa Head in the mid-1880s.
It was positioned there in response to a perceived threat of invasion from Tsarist Russia, but was not needed.
The gun was removed from the city's defences and replaced by more modern weapons, in 1911, and was on public display at Dunedin's Queens Gardens, until being buried there in the mid-1930s, ''during a phase of anti-military feeling'', Mr McKee said.
The gun had subsequently been ''largely forgotten about'', but its ''enormous barrel'' had been recovered from the gardens in 2006, and restored by members of the Antique Arms Association's Otago branch.
The branch had loaned the barrel to the museum for the exhibition.
The barrel helped to tell the story of a ''now largely dormant military community that once thrived at Fort Taiaroa'', he said.
Association Otago branch committee member Bill Lang, who is also a conservation engineer, created the gun's metal mount and was pleased the gun was going on display.
Museum curator Peter Reed said the gun's arrival had added a ''buzz'' to the continuing preparations for the show, which runs until February 28.
