(TargetLiberty.org) – A Finnish man playing with his new metal detector in his parents’ yard has made an amazing discovery – a Bronze Age sword.
In the middle of July, Matti Rintamaa bought a metal detector and decided to practice with it in his parents’ yard. Within two weeks of getting the gadget, he was trying out his sweeps in the garden when it suddenly beeped. He started digging and came up with a wedge of dull, yellowish-brown metal. Not long after, he found another one. Finally, he had seven – and, when pieced together, they formed the shape of an ancient sword.
A Bronze Age sword scattered in seven different pieces has been found in a garden in the Satakunta region of western Finland, by a detectorist https://t.co/ydTa8YUJxp pic.twitter.com/objgMZnmbt
— European Association of Archaeologists (@archaeologyEAA) October 4, 2021
Rintamaa took the pieces of metal to the Satakunta Museum and asked experts to look at what he’d found. Last week, the museum revealed it was the broken blade of a Bronze Age sword – a weapon that’s at least 2,500 years old and could be as old as 3,700 years.
He also discovered just how lucky he was to find it. Archaeologists believe the sword was originally a religious sacrifice buried in a bog, where the dense peat preserved the bronze blade. Then, it was accidentally scooped up, probably by a backhoe, during construction work and deposited in what’s now the Rintamaa family’s yard.
Matti was sure it would be a while before he found anything else this exciting.
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