Posted on 09/06/2014 8:39:58 AM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
BEIJING: A 3000-year-old bronze sword has been discovered in a local river by an 11-year-old child in east China's Jiangsu Province.
Yang Junxi discovered the rusty sword on July 2 when he was playing near the Laozhoulin River in Gaoyou County.
While washing hands in the river, Yang touched the tip of something hard and fished out the metal sword. He took it home and gave it to his father Yang Jinhai.
Upon hearing the news, people began flocking to Yang's home, Jinhai said.
"Some people even offered high prices to buy the the sword, but I felt it would be illegal to sell the cultural relic," Jinhai told sate-run Xinhua news agency.
After considering his options, the father sent the sword to the Gaoyou Cultural Relics Bureau on September 3.
The bureau arranged a joint team of local cultural relics experts to identify the sword. They identified sword's material, length, shape and other major factors.
Initial identifications found the 26-cm-long yellow-brown sword could be dated back to more than 3,000 years ago, around the time of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, said Lyu Zhiwei, head of the cultural relics office of the bureau.
"There was no characteristic or decorative pattern on the exquisite bronze sword. Made in a time of relatively low productivity, its owner would have been an able man with the qualification to have such artifact," he said.
"The short sword seems a status symbol of a civil official. It has both decorative and practical functions, but is not in the shape of sword for military officers," he said. It is the second bronze artifact found in the region after a bronze instrument was excavated in the nearby Sanduo Township.
The sword was found in the Laozhoulin River, which crosses the ancient Ziying River which was excavated in the Qin Dynasty (221 BC-206 BC).
It also interlinks the ancient Han Ditch as the "predecessor" of China's Grand Canal, the world's longest artificial waterway with a history of more than 2,400 years.
The 1,794km canal runs from Beijing to Hangzhou in China's eastern Zhejiang Province. It was entered into the World Heritage list in June 2014.
The city has conducted several rounds of dredging in the Laozhoulin River, which might surface the sword from the river bottom, said Lyu, adding the township government has prepared a further archeological dig into the river and in the nearby areas.
The relics bureau and municipal museum of Gaoyou City have sent the collection certificates and bonus for the boy and his father in honour of their deeds of protecting and donating cultural relic.
Like a good democrat;
turn in your parents, turn in your kids, turn in your wealth ...
Dang, some thief must be really po’ed, he thought it would be safe in the river for a little, but a kid came across it.
Common sense sword control.
How could it be “rusty”? Rust is associated with iron.
Chinese phony Brass for sale to Western Tourists.
Gryffindor called, wants his sword back
Very cool.
Sword Ping!
Between this
"Some people even offered high prices to buy the the sword, but I felt it would be illegal to sell the cultural relic," Jinhai told sate-run Xinhua news agency.
and
The relics bureau and municipal museum of Gaoyou City have sent the collection certificates and bonus for the boy and his father in honour of their deeds of protecting and donating cultural relic.
Fear of prosecution by the State propagandized as 'honor'...
Beginning to see that here, we are...
That's just over 10 inches - not much of a sword. Perhaps they meant 26 in.
No it wasn't. It may have been a lot of things, but a bronze sword isn't rusty. [sigh]. Journalists, however...
Ten inches long. Wouldn't this make it a knife?
3000 years ago the Chinese were even smaller than they are today...:)
That's about 10.24 inches long. Must have been some kind of midgets back then. ( Maybe Chinese centimeters are different.)
If the handle is about 4 inches (handwidth) then the sword looks to be about 25-26 inches long, not 26 cm.
Yah. 26cm? It looks bigger than that, even if the grip was made for a fairly small single hand. Judging by the photo, if the grip is even only 5 inches (fairly small) I make the over length then as over 25 inches. So a 26 inch length could be about right.
Also... Love the finger grips for the first two fingers. They’d be less pronounced under whatever material was used to wrap the grip but that sure seems to be what they are. Not unlike some modern finger grips for pistols.
The short sword seems a status symbol of a civil official. It has both decorative and practical functions, but is not in the shape of sword for military officers,
Did someone throw a civil servant in the river??
Under the zero tolerance policy, he was expelled from school and sent to sensitivity training. /s
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