A group of Icelander goose hunters picked up a sword believed to be a millennium old.
According to BBC and local news site The Visir News, five men who were hunting for geese in Skaftarhreppur, Iceland, spotted the rusted sword, believed to have washed up during a flood, on Friday.
Arni Bjorn Valdimarsson, one of the goose hunters, posted a picture of the rare treasure on Facebook. He then received a call from Iceland’s Cultural Heritage Agency, and the artefact was bequeathed on Monday.
“This was just there in the sand and we did not dig it up or anything,” Valdimarsson told the Visir News.
Kristin Huld Sigurdardottir, the agency’s director, told the news site that only 20 swords were unmasked in the previous years, making it a symbolic object nowadays.
“We believe that the sword is from the late tenth century.It’s very special to have such preserved sword, ” Kristin said. The agency plans to excavate the area where the sword was found to hunt for more artefacts. Gianna Francesca Catolico