An Early Medieval sword from the Byzantine Empire has been discovered by a local official from Lesko, South-East Poland, while being on a stroll with a family in the nearby woods.
The sword is said to have been protruding from below the ground and being buried only 10 centimetres below the surface near an educational path through the forest. The finder spotted the object, unearthed it and contacted a friend archaeologist. The artefact has been secured and handed over to Muzeum Historyczne in Sanok.
Experts who studied the find state that it preserved in a very good condition. It turned out that the sword has been manufactured in the Byzantine Empire, and must have been brought to the Subcarpathian region of Poland between the 8th and 9th centuries AD. There is only around a dozen of weapons from this period known from the area of Poland, and most of them were made in Western Europe or Scandinavia. But this is the first such weapon made in Byzantine Empire found in Poland so far. It is believed that the sword belonged to a person of an elite group, possibly a chieftain or a warrior who used to travel to South Europe.
(after Nowiny24)