Storm unearths the gorgeous early Iron Age daggers – History

A severe storm on the Polish coast of Poland collaborated with a pair of metal detectors to discover the early Iron Age decorated daggers in the early days of Hallstatt (800-620 B.C.). Jacek Ukowski and Katarzyna Herdzik, respectively president and member of the monument of the St. Cordula Exploration Association, found a dagger on the beach on March 30, where a storm drove a piece of clay from the face of the cliff, exposing the bronze weapon.

Ukowski immediately notified Kamień LandHistory Museum director Grzegorz Kurka to find and hand the dagger over to the museum for safe custody.

The dagger is 24.2 cm (9.5 inches) long and is decorated with intricate carvings from pointed to blade points. The handles are alternately wide and thin ribs. One band near the saddle, another band near the shoulders of the blade, decorated with cross-dye patterns. A triangle wedge around the midpoint of the shank is cut from which the triangle wedge looks like its eyes and mouth. The blade is decorated throughout its full length, starting with the cross and crescent shapes on the shoulders (they almost end almost meeting, more like a circle than the crescent circle), then on the shoulders, then along the crosshair along the center of the blade to the end of the end, thus narrowing to a slender point. The hybrid center lines on both sides are inclined to each other in the V shape through diagonal lines.

“As for the discovery in Poland, I have not encountered such a dagger,” said Grzegorz Kurka, director of the Kamieńland History Museum, where relics have been donated.

Kurka believes that the blade could be a ritual object related to a solar cult or part of a wealthy warrior arsenal and could have been produced at a seminar in southern Europe.

“It’s a real work of art,” he said. “The craftsmanship shows that metallurgical skills are excellent.”

Provincial monument conservators of Szczecin will be notified of which museum to allocate the artifact. Of course, Kurka hopes that the Kamień Land History Museum will retain it. If so, he intends to conduct metallurgical analysis to determine the composition of copper and tin, which may also determine its geographical origin. He will also study its wear patterns, hoping they can point out whether the dagger is used as a combat weapon or for ritual purposes.