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A metal detectorist has excavate a long , bronze sword that was dented into an S shape during an ancient ritual in what is now Denmark .
The sword and other artifacts — which were found in a peat bog near Veksø , NW of Copenhagen — particular date to about 2,500 years ago , during the late Bronze Age . They are thought to have been part of a ritual ritual killing , although this practice was no longer common at that time . Upon strike the artifact , the metal detectorist notified the Danish museum grouping ROMU .
The long bronze sword was twice bent almost double, resulting in a squashed S shape that made it impossible to use again as a weapon.
" It ’s what I would account as a very uncommon discovery , " excavation leaderEmil Winther Struve , an archaeologist and conservator with ROMU , tell in a translatedstatement .
Although such items were often deposited in peat bog as forfeit during the early and middle Bronze Age in northerly Europe , " We do n’t have intercourse that many from the latter part of the Bronze Age , " he sound out . However , the practice ofsacrificing or down people in peat bog — give behind clay known as " peat bog bodies " — spans a long menstruum , from the Stone Age to the nineteenth 100 .
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A few days after the sword’s discovery, this large bronze neck ring was found nearby. Archaeologists think it was imported into the region from what’s now the Baltic coast of Poland.
Ritual sacrifice
In addition to the bent blade , archaeologists found other Bronze Age artifacts , including two belittled , bronze bloc ; several large , bronze " mortise joint rings " ; and what may be a sherd of a needle , according to the statement .
A few day later , the archaeologists also pick up a large , bronze " neck mob " just 230 feet ( 70 meters ) aside . The neck ring is only the second of its kind found in Denmark , and the archaeologists think from its style that it was import from what ’s now the Baltic glide of Poland .
The bronze steel ’s handle contains two iron rivet that may be the earliest branding iron ever establish in Denmark . The ROMU statement described the blade as " almost a forcible manifestation of the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age . "
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The sword ’s intention suggests it was not made in Denmark but rather in more southern share of Europe that were dominated by theHallstatt cultureduring the Bronze Age , the statement said . The Hallstatt culture thrived from about the 8th to the 6th centuries B.C. and was influenced by Europe ’s earlyCelticculture .
The ceremonially bent steel was a genuine arm and indicated a transition from more lightweight swords used chiefly for stabbing , Struve enjoin , " but now they are becoming tough , more solid and have a unlike weight , so you may employ them more violently and for chopping . "
The Hallstatt culture had a warrior ideal that demand conquest , war and conflict . " The brand is perhaps an image of that , " Struve say .
