Ritually bent sword from Bronze Age/Iron Age transition found in Denmark

Ritual deposits including a ritually bent sword have been discovered in a bog near Veksø northwest of Copenhagen, Denmark. The small cache of objects date to the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age, around 500 B.C., and the sword actually incarnates the transition, being made of bronze with iron rivets.

They were discovered by Claus Falsby on his first outing with a metal detector. He contacted museum organization ROMU which manages archaeological responsibilities for central and western Zealand. ROMU archaeologists immediately went to the site and excavated it, discovering additional objects. In total, the cache now consisted of the bronze sword with iron rivets in the handle sinuously bent into a s-curve, two small bronze axes (known as celts), two or three large ankle bangles called vulrings, a fragment of a large fibula and an object of unknown purpose.

Then Claus Falsby and his metal detector went back a few days later and got incredibly lucky again. Just 230 feet away from his original find, he discovered a large bronze necklace with a herringbone design that is only the second example of its kind ever found in Denmark. This type of neck ring is believed to have been manufactured on the Baltic coast of what is now Poland and it likely wound up in Veksø through trade.

Located about 12 miles from the Danish capital, Veksø is on a hill surrounded by peat bogs that archaeologists believe were lakes in the Nordic Bronze Age (ca. 1750-500 B.C.). Some exceptional archaeological finds from the Early and Middle Bronze Age have been found around Veksø, including an iconic pair of horned helmets dating to around 1000 B.C., but Late Bronze Age artifacts are much more rare.

“This is what I would describe as a very rare find. From the first and middle part of the Bronze Age, we have a great many of these deposit finds, where bronze objects appear in the bogs. But we don’t know that many from the last part of the Bronze Age. The sacrificial tradition, which has been so visible and dominant, and which relates a lot to the society that has existed throughout the Bronze Age, it is in retreat here at the end of the Bronze Age,” says Emil Winther Struve, who is an archaeologist at ROMU and has responsibility for archaeological excavations in Egedal Municipality.

Despite the drastic cultural changes occurring in the transition between the eras, the Egedal find is evidence that the elite continued the traditions that had been so much more popular hundreds of years earlier. They were still able to afford incredibly expensive materials and objects and were still willing to destroy them and sacrifice them for religious purposes.

The objects from the new find have not yet been examined and analyzed. But Emil Winther Struve can conclude something. Among other things, when they have been put in the bog as a sacrifice. The bronze sword with iron rivets, with the two materials in the same object, is almost a physical manifestation of the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. It is possible that the sword’s iron rivets constitute the earliest known iron find in Denmark. This means that the objects were laid down around 500 BC, i.e. just over 2,500 years ago. At the same time, the design of the sword suggests that it was not produced in Denmark, but probably imported from the south. Specifically, north of the Alps, where the Hallstatt culture at the end of the Bronze Age grew and became dominant in Europe.

“Their swords are shaped in a completely different way than before, perhaps because they are used differently. Earlier swords were flimsy and were perhaps used for stabbing. But now they become rougher, more solid and have a different weight, so you can use them more violently and to chop with. The Hallstatt culture, which spreads relatively quickly, has a warrior ideal and an aggressive structuring that requires conquest, war and conflict. The sword may have a picture on it,” says Emil Winther Struve.

The objects are now at the National Museum where they are undergoing conservation and analysis.

* This article was originally published here