These images show an ornate 3,000-year-old ritual dagger that was found embedded in a piece of clay that had fallen off a cliff and was discovered in remarkable condition on a beach.
The knife, believed to have belonged to a civilisation of sun worshippers, is reportedly from the Hallstatt period and dates back to the Early Iron Age, between the 8th and 6th centuries.
The metal dagger was discovered on Sunday, 30th March, by members of the St. Cordula Association for the Saving of Monuments, on a Baltic Sea beach in northern Poland, with video footage showing it being handled after it was found.
Muzeum Historii Ziemi Kamienskiej/Newsflash/NX
Jacek Ukowski, the President of the Association, can be seen pictured with young colleague Katarzyna Herdzik with the dagger.
Ukowski said: “This is my most valuable discovery. Accidental. The cliff was torn off; the block must have fallen from above. I entered this place with a metal detector because it started to ring there.”
The weapon is approximately 2,800 years old, dating it back to the early Iron Age, and has elaborate decorations along its 24.2-centimetre (9.52-inch) handle and blade.
It has been donated to the Muzeum Historii Ziemi Kamienskiej (Museum of the History of the Kamien Region), with Grzegorz Kurka, the museum’s director, saying: “A true work of art! In terms of workmanship, it is of very high quality, beautifully ornamented. Each engraved element is different.”
He added: “As for finds in Poland, I have not come across such a dagger.”
He said that the dagger had been discovered on the western part of the Polish coast but refused to reveal the exact location.
Kurka said that the blade was “covered with linear crescents and crosses resembling stars.
“In the middle of the blade runs a decoration perhaps symbolising constellations, and the whole [piece] is complemented by diagonal lines.”
He said that the decorations indicated potential links with a sun-worshipping people and that it was probably a ritual tool. He also said it was possible that it may have belonged to a wealthy warrior.
Kurka added: “The discovery of this dagger is also a testimony to the extraordinary history of the region and Western Pomerania over thousands of years.”
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Story By: Joseph Golder, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Newsflash
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