1,000 year-old Viking sword found in Iceland

Ætluðum á gæsaveiði en enduðum með því að finna sverð sem að ég held að hafi verið í eigu Ingólfs Arnarsonar

Posted by Árni Björn Valdimarsson on Sunday, September 4, 2016

Image: The Cultural Agency of Iceland

A large number of archaeological finds are often the work of accidental discoveries; wherein people and sometimes experts stumble upon an amazing historical artefact out of nowhere.

In a similar case of accidental discovery, a group of goose hunters from Iceland got a lot more than what they bargained for while on a routine outing. Despite their apparently unsuccessful goose hunting trip which ended with no bird hunted; the locals stumbled upon a large Viking sword which is thought to be more than a millennium old.

The group of five hunters were trying to hunt geese in the southern Icelandic region of Skaftarhreppur when they made the historic discovery. Experts believe that the sword had actually spent centuries under water and only arrived on land due to the massive floods that hit the region last year.

Excited by their discovery anticipating fame and possibly a handsome reward one of the hunters Arni Bjorn quickly posted the images of the Viking sword on his Facebook page. Bjorn made the claim that the double-edged sword may have once belonged to Ingolfr Arnarson.

Those who are familiar with the Viking history of Iceland know this name very well, as Arnarson is widely recognized as the first ever Icelander and the person who set up the first settlement on the Iceland more than a thousand years ago.

According to the Icelandic law, any archaeological find found on or inside the ground are automatically the property of the Icelandic state.