Mom and her child unearthed odd-shaped rock in garden. They found an ancient artifact
As a mother and her child were gardening in Poland, they filled a bucket with dirt.
They brought it inside, and as they dug through the soil, discovered an odd-shaped rock.
Curious as to what it might be, they brought the perplexing find to an archaeologist with the Masovian Voivodeship Conservator of Monuments, according to a May 25 Facebook post.
He was shocked.
The angular, carved stone was the head of an ax — and ancient.
Archaeologists dated the ax to around the third millennium B.C., during the Neolithic period, according to a May 28 news release from the the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.
It likely belonged to the Neolithic Corded Ware culture, according to the release, and is made of flint.
The flint is either a raw material or erratic, meaning not obviously ax-shaped, which makes it harder to identify and rare to discover, archaeologists said.
There are signs the ax has been chipped and the outer surface has been smoothed, according to the release.
These types of axes were commonly found loosely or buried at grave sites, archaeologists said, and the people who used them were once called a battle ax culture for how many axes were found with the dead.
Two similar artifacts were found in another region of Poland two years ago, according to the release.
The archaeologists said the mother and her child showed great intuition by recognizing something special about the stone. It’s not only relatively unique, but also very valuable.
Artifacts from the Corded Ware culture are typically identified by an imprinted cord on pottery and other objects, and can be found between southern Scandinavia all the way to the Alps.
The ax was found outside Legionowo, a 17-mile drive north of Warsaw.
Google Translate was used to translate the news release from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.
This story was originally published May 28, 2024 at 10:01 AM with the headline "Mom and her child unearthed odd-shaped rock in garden. They found an ancient artifact."
