Museum Worker Finds Medieval Sword While Swimming in a River: 'I Screamed for Joy'
S. Skibicki/
Sword that dates back as early as the 9th century discovered by museum employeeSzczepan Skibicki of the Military Museum of Białystok in Poland found a sword during a swim in the Supraśl river in 2022
An official said the object, which dates back to the 9th century, is one of three or four such swords in Poland
The Military Museum said it may exhibit the sword in December
A museum worker who was swimming in a Polish river two years ago discovered a sword dating back as far as the 9th century, officials said.
In August 2022, Szczepan Skibicki of the Military Museum of Białystok was swimming in the Supraśl river, located in northern Poland, one late afternoon, the McClatchy News reported. It was a body of water that Skibicki is familiar with having previously swam there in his spare time.
However, something unusual happened during that swim: an area that was previously covered with sediment had washed away, said Skibicki, according to a translated Friday, Nov. 29 Facebook post from the museum.
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“At about 120cm [four feet] deep,” Skibicki recalled, as translated from Polish to English through Facebook, “I spotted an interesting object which turned out to be a sword! Then for the first and last time, I screamed for joy under the water!...Thanks to my education and work I knew how to secure it and which services to notify.”
As stated in a Saturday, Nov. 30 press release from Poland's Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Skibicki took out the sword, made sure it was contained in a wet environment, and alerted authorities.
Dr. Ryszard Kaźmierczak of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń believes the sword is from the 9th century used by the Vikings or Baltic peoples.
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“We think there is a high probability that there was a fight by the river, a battle and the sword was in the water with its owner," Kaźmierczak said, per the museum’s Facebook post.
According to Robert Sadowski, director of the Military Museum, the find is one of three or four such swords in Poland, read the Ministry of Science and Higher Education’s press release.
The sword also contains fragments that had been mineralized, according to the ministry’s press release.
"The middle part shows how time has acted,” said Sadowski in the translated release. “When these swords were fought, the middle part was the one that most often took the blows and, by necessity, some micro-cracks, scratches, splinters appeared, which caused the material to react in this way and not in any other way for a thousand years.”
Sadowski also described the sword as a unique find, as he stated in the Facebook post: “This one presented today [Nov. 29], however, thanks to more modern preservation methods, has preserved its structure, and, most exceptionally, the mineralized leather on the handle and head."
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The Ministry of Science and Higher Education noted in its press release that before the sword could be transferred to the Military Museum it had to go through legal protocol overseen by the Provincial Conservator of Monument. Once it became the property of the Military Museum, the sword went into conservation involving specialists from the Institute of Archaeology of the Nicolaus Copernicus University.
The restoration work took about five months, added the ministry, with Kazimierczak saying the process involved the careful removal of mineralized coatings so as to not alter the sword’s original form and shape.
The ministry also noted that the work occurred in a “wet environment” so that the sword did not dry out.
The Military Museum said in its Facebook post that it is hoping to display the sword in December of this year, while adding that an article about the object will be published in 2025 in one of the museum’s scientific notebooks.
Of discovering this once-lost treasure in the water, Skibicki told reporters on Nov. 29, "Finding it can be compared to the luck of hitting six in the lottery.”
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