He goes for mushrooms and comes back with a Bronze Age sword: it happened in the Czech Republic

A mushroom finder in Moravia (Czech Republic), Roman Novák, who probably set out to look for a nice basket of porcini mushrooms, managed to find much better: under some stones he came across a sword and an axe from the Bronze Age. The discovery occurred in the woods around the town of Jeseník two weeks ago. “It had just rained,” Novák told radio station ÄŒeský rozhlas, “and I went out for mushrooms. As I was walking I saw a piece of metal under some stones. I shook them off with my foot and realized that it was the blade of a sword. So I dug and found the remains of a sword and a bronze axe.”

Novák immediately contacted the Silesian Museum in Opava (the oldest museum in the Czech Republic), which had archaeologists examine the finds, who determined that they were objects dating back to 1.300 B.C.: they would be weapons of ancient peoples who lived in northern Germany, and the sword found by Novák is the second of its kind found in the area, explained scholar JiÅ™í Juchelka, who heads the Silesian Museum’s archaeology department. It is therefore surprising to find similar finds in the Jeseník area.

The handle of the sword has some ornaments that suggest that it was a ceremonial object, which was therefore not used in combat, and came from the regions inhabited by Germanic peoples, since no such swords were produced in ancient Moravia: it is therefore an imported weapon. At present, however, archaeologists do not know how it might have ended up there.

It is not, however, the best object of its kind, Juchelka explained. The craftsman who forged it, the archaeologist said, “obviously tried to do his best, but the quality of the artifact is not very good. X-ray tests allowed us to discover that there are several air bubbles inside the weapon. This element suggests that the sword was not used for fighting, but rather had symbolic value.”

The small town museum, the Jeseník Ethnographic Museum, makes no secret of its excitement over the discovery. Archaeologist Milan Rychlý, who works for the museum, said that “we have found some fragments of the history that took place here, so now we have to start reconstructing it.” The two museums are now continuing to study the objects, which will then be displayed to the public at their locations, alternately.

He goes for mushrooms and comes back with a Bronze Age sword: it happened in the Czech Republic

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