Swedish girl pulls out pre-Viking era sword from lake
Last Updated Friday, October 5, 2018 12:23PM EDT, https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tec...-from-lake-1.4122767
This photo taken in July 2018 and released by the Jonkopings lans Museum on Friday, Oct. 5 2018 shows a pre-Viking era sword in Jonkopings, Sweden. (Annie Rosen/Jonkopings lans Museum via AP)
COPENHAGEN - Her name conjures up Old Nordic tales about heroic accomplishments and that's exactly what Saga this summer did when she stumbled on a pre-Viking-era sword in a southern Sweden lake.
Saga Vanecek, 8, was helping her father with his boat in the Vidostern lake when she stepped on an 85-centimetre sword in a holster made of wood and leather. The sword is believed to be about 1,500 years old.
Mikael Nordstrom of the local Jonkoping County museum said Friday that the little girl's find prompted others to seek out long-lost treasures in a lake that had been diminished by drought.
A brooch from between 300 to 400 A.D. was eventually found.
Nordstrom said archaeologists are trying to understand why the items were there. For sacrificial purposes is one suggestion.
it's official!
With today's press release we can finally reveal what Saga found in Lake Vidösten this summer... a sword from the Iron Age! Estimated to be about 1500 years old, complete with its scabbard (sheath) made of wood and leather, it is the first sword of its kind to ever be found in Scandinavia!!! Press from newspaper, radio, and TV interviewed Saga today regarding her sensational find. Very exciting...
Here is a bit of a story about the day Saga found the sword....
The Saga of Saga’s Sword
Just minutes before the opening kick of the battle between France and Crotia in the 2018 Soccer World Cup in July, there was a reminder of a possible battle from over a thousand years ago. It was July 15th that 8 year old Saga Vanecek stumbled upon something special in the muddy clay on the bottom of Lake Vidösten in southern Sweden. She picked up the object, lifted it high above her head, and shouted as if she was Pippi Longstocking, “DADDY! I FOUND A SWORD!”
As she held it high, gravity bent the fragile, over thousand year old weapon, and it was then that Saga’s dad realized that it actually was a sword. The next day, an archaeologist was on the scene, with goosebumps on her arms, as she took photos of the sword, and laid it in water to make sure it didn’t decompose from being in the air for the first time on over one thousand years.
Sword experts have weighed in and believe the sword to be about 1,500 year old, from the Iron Age.
Now, questions are many, and fantasies abound as we wonder what happened so long ago which led to a sword, in its scabbard, being lost to the bottom of the lake. Did someone fall overboard, or through the ice during a winter trek? Was a weatlhy noble buried in the lake, as from a scene in Game of Thrones? The mystery will forever be known only to Lake Vidösten…