A 2,700-year-old bronze sword, discovered standing upright in the ground, has been found in Poland's Gdańsk Forest District. The artifact, dating to the Late Bronze Age (900-700 B.C.), was spotted by metal detectorist Marcin Wiśniewski.
Mystery surrounds the unusual orientation of the remarkably preserved weapon, which was announced by the Pomeranian Provincial Heritage Conservator in June. After Wiśniewski reported the find, heritage officials and the discoverer worked together to recover the sword using proper archaeological methods.
This is not the first Bronze Age sword unearthed in the Gdańsk Forest District. In the 1920s, two similar swords were found in a peat bog at Rynarzewo. Those artifacts were transferred to the Provincial Museum in Gdańsk but were lost during World War II.
According to Marcin Tymiński, press spokesperson for the Provincial Office for the Protection of Monuments in Gdańsk, specialists will be able to provide more details about the sword once it is transferred to a museum and undergoes study. The Provincial Heritage Conservator will ultimately decide which museum will house the artifact, a decision that has not yet been made.
Ancient weapon discoveries are infrequent but not unheard of in Poland. In late 2023, archaeologists recovered a cache of early medieval weapons from a lake in west-central Poland, believed to be connected to the country's first rulers. Prior to that, a 700-year-old medieval sword was found by an angler in Poland's Vistula River.