A metal detectorist has discovered a 2,700-year-old bronze sword standing upright in the ground in northern Poland.
The Pomeranian Provincial Heritage Conservator announced the discovery on Facebook in early June. The weapon was found by hobbyist Marcin Wiśniewski in the Gdańsk Forest District, near the Baltic coast. It dates back to the Late Bronze Age, between 900 and 700 B.C.
Images released by officials show the well-preserved bronze sword rising from sandy soil during the excavation. Wiśniewski, who had previously found a Bronze Age hoard in a forested area outside Gdańsk, informed heritage officials about the discovery.
After the report, staff from the Department of Archaeological Monuments recovered the artefact using archaeological methods while working with the finder, according to a translated statement from the Pomeranian Provincial Heritage Conservator.
Officials said the discovery was not the first Bronze Age sword found in the area now known as the Gdańsk Forest District.
A heritage statement said two antenna-hilt bronze swords were discovered in a peat bog at Rynarzewo during the 1920s.
Those artefacts were later transferred to the Provincial Museum in Gdańsk but were lost during the Second World War.
Marcin Tymiński, press spokesperson for the Provincial Office for the Protection of Monuments in Gdańsk, said officials were informed immediately after the discovery.
Tymiński said specialists would provide further details about the sword after it was transferred to a museum and examined.
The Provincial Heritage Conservator will decide which museum will receive the sword, he added.
Ancient weapon discoveries in Poland are uncommon but have occurred in recent years. Last year, archaeologists recovered a collection of early medieval weapons from a lake in west-central Poland, believed to be linked to the country’s first rulers.
Earlier, a 700-year-old medieval sword was recovered by an angler from Poland’s Vistula River.
