Detectorist finds very rare 3,000-year-old ceremonial axe

Peter Jensen was searching the field on behalf of archaeologists for the remains of a Royal Air Force Stirling aircraft that was shot down over the area by German bombers on 4 November 1943. Much to his surprise, however, he found and partially excavated an interesting massive bronze artefact instead of another of the aircraft's aluminium parts. He therefore quickly summoned the archaeologists present, who uncovered a bronze statue of a man with a helmet and horns in the object.

The statuette represents the so-called double-sided Danish Janus and dates from the Bronze Age. Each of the faces has its own horns. One was found broken off in the soil. Similar horned helmets are known from Swedish petroglyphs, from carvings in the Iberian Mountains or on small bronze figures from Sardinia. This is the first find of this type in Denmark. The statuette was deliberately made as a work of art for ceremonial purposes.

A ceremonial axe about 30 cm in size was soon found near the broken corner. At that point, the archaeologists stopped their work and decided to retrieve the entire block of earth and the objects in their original position for examination in the Moesgaard Museum's laboratory conditions. A CT scan revealed the exact shape and location of the axe, as well as the presence of two figurines with snake bodies and horse heads - a popular Bronze Age motif. After three days of meticulous documentation work, the objects were removed from the block, further stabilised and conserved.

The ceremonial axe was a masterpiece of metallurgy in its time. Ceremonial axes from the Bronze Age are among very rare finds. Such large ones are rarely seen. Due to its specific iconographic shapes and decoration, it is the only one of its kind found in Denmark. The find will probably be exhibited next year in the newly renovated exhibition space of the Thy Museum.

Roman Němec

Sources: archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com, archaealogy.org, thehistoryblog.com