A strange discovery was made at the Field Museum of Natural History in the United States.
Chicagoan Almost a hundred years ago, a bronze sword from Europe was acquired for the collections of the Field Museum of Natural History. The sword was long believed to be a skillfully made imitation of a genuine Bronze Age sword, but new research has revealed the sword to be genuine, according to the museum in the bulletin.
The sword was found near Budapest, the capital of Hungary, on the Danube in the 1930s. The sword was re-examined when the Hungarian archaeologists who were involved in the planning of the museum’s future exhibition became interested in it.
Extensive studies were carried out on the sword, which included not only archaeologists, but also a chemist. Upon examination of the sword, its composition was found to be very close to other known European Bronze Age swords. For example, tin and copper were in the same proportions as in genuine Bronze Age swords. The sword is believed to be around 3,000 years old.
New the information surprised the museum curator of William Parkinson.
“Usually the story goes the other way around. An object we consider authentic turns out to be a fake,” he says in the museum’s press release.
Why then was the sword thought to be an imitation for nearly a century?
“Someone entered the information on the sword incorrectly,” Parkinson surmises Archaeology.orgin by.
The sword can be seen by the public at the “Europe’s First Kings” exhibition, which opens on March 31.