Metal detectorist, 60, strikes gold after digging up 3,500-year-old Bronze Age sword in 'really unusual' discovery

A metal detectorist struck gold after digging up a Bronze Age sword in a 'really unusual' discovery.

John Belgrave, 60, had become separated from the main group of treasure hunters while at a rally in the village of Stalbridge, Dorset in 2020 and was heading to high ground to look for them when he made the 'find of a lifetime'.

His device activated as he walked along and when he dug down he uncovered a complete rapier sword dating back to 1,400BC, making it over 3,500 years old.

The 2ft long copper bronze relic had been deliberately broken into three pieces and placed in the ground alongside the ashes of a wealthy landowner.

The sword is so rare, that only two have been found in Britain before but both were incomplete. It is believed to be of such national importance that the British Museum would like to have it. 

The hilt or handle had unusually been cast in bronze and was shaped to mimic a wooden handle. 

It had similarities with solid-cast hilts of Nordic swords from Scandinavia even though it was another 2,100 years before the Vikings came to Britain.

Only two similar rapier swords have been found in Britain before and they were incomplete.

As well as the rare rapier, a palstave axe head and a decorative arm bangle was also given as an offering in the ceremonial burial.

The Dorset Museum raised £17,000 to buy it with the proceeds being shared between John and the landowner

John, a retired pensions consultant from Purley, Surrey, paid £20 to go on the rally on private farmland.

He said: 'There was a group of between 40 to 50 detectorists there and they had searched the land before but they were excited because some new land had been opened up for the rally.

'I tagged along and didn't know anyone there. Somehow I got left behind and lost and so I walked to high ground in a field and that is when I got a strong signal for this find of a lifetime.

'It was clear there was metal there but I thought it would just be an old can or something.

'I dug about eight inches down and found an odd-shaped object that was caked in clay.

'I didn't know what it was at the time but it turned out to be a solid hilt of a sword, an exceptional item.'

He then found the two broken sections of the blade along with the axe head and the bangle.

John said: 'I knew when I saw the axe head that it was a Bronze Age hoard. They are quite common.

'My head was in a spin.

'This was a single deposit made by or for a high status individual at the time.

'The blade of the sword was still sharp, the view of the British Museum is that it was deliberately broken and deposited in the ground as part of a ritual burial and offering.'

In the Middle Bronze Age there would have been a farming community and settlement in the area.

It was long before the Durotriges inhabited Dorset and built Maiden Castle, one the the largest Iron Age hill forts in the country, and 1,400 years before the Romans arrived.

Elizabeth Selby, director of collections at Dorset Museum, said: 'This hoard is incredibly special. The rapier sword is really unusual because of the cast bronze handle. The bracelet decoration was quite unusual as well.

'There aren't really any comparable objects like the rapier so to be able to acquire these items is really important for us.

'Finds like this tell us about how people were travelling, meeting and exchanging ideas with others on the continent in the centuries before the Roman invasion.

'There was a farming community there and these people generated enough wealth to be able to barter for or exchange objects that others had made.'