He dived in the river and found a sword similar to a Viking weapon

The sword comes from the 9th-10th century. It was presented on Friday, November 29. It had previously undergone renovation.

– This is a very unusual sword, as far as I know, there are only three or four of these in the country – said Robert Sadowski, director of the Military Museum in Białystok.

There are mineralized fragments on the restored sword. – In the middle part you can see how time worked. When a fight was fought with these swords, it was the central part that most often took the hits and inevitably some micro-cracks, scratches and chips were formed, which caused the material to react in this way for a thousand years, said Sadowski.

Although the sword was found by an employee of the Military Museum, before it was formally handed over to this institution, it had to undergo a legal procedure conducted by the provincial conservator of monuments. Only when it became the property of the museum, it was sent for conservation – to specialists from the Institute of Archeology of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. The work took almost five months.

Dr. Ryszard Kazimierczak from the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń said that everything indicates that it is a weapon manufactured at the end of the 9th or the beginning of the 10th century, most likely related to the Viking culture or the Baltic population. – The sword is unique because of the form, shape and degree of preservation of this organic substance, which we can see on the handle – he said.

He added that the maintenance included, among others: on the painstaking removal of mineralized coatings so as not to destroy the original form and shape of the sword. The entire process took place in a “wet environment” to prevent overdrying. Historians assume that in the place where it was discovered, the sword was lost while crossing the Supraśl River or during an armed skirmish. Perhaps its owner died there.

In the summer of 2022, Szczepan Skibicki, an employee of the Military Museum in Białystok, came across a unique artifact while diving in Supraśl. Previously, there was a patch of sand in this place, which was washed away by the river current. Skibicki took out the sword, secured it so that it was always in a wet environment, and notified the facility's management. – Finding him can be compared to hitting six in the lottery – he told reporters on Friday.

In August 2022, when the find was shown to journalists after being recovered from the river, the sword was placed in distilled water to prevent it from being exposed to air. The collection of the Białystok institution also includes another sword of a similar type, found in the 1970s, near the drainage of the Supraśl River. This is an early medieval sword from the 11th century.