Bronze Dagger Discovered in Slovakia

HLOHOVEC, SLOVAKIA—The Slovak Spectator reports that a person who discovered a ten-inch blade in southwestern Slovakia, near the River Váh, handed it over to a local museum. Matúš Sládok of the Trnava Office of the Monuments Board said the blade’s handle had not been preserved, and only traces of the rivets that held the blade to the handle remain. “They are typical for the emerging Tumulus culture, which began to dominate the central European region in the sixteenth century B.C., that is during the Middle Bronze Age,” Sládok explained. A similar short sword or long dagger was found in southern Slovakia among other bronze objects, he added. This weapon may have been placed in the river during a religious rite, or it may have been lost while its owner waded in the river, Sládok concluded. To read about a 2,700-year-old bronze dagger found in a burial in Kazakhstan, go to "Iron Age Teenagers."