This Medieval Sword Pulled From a Dutch Riverbed Is Marked With Intricate Copper Symbols
The artifact was remarkably preserved for a millennium in anaerobic clay on a private estate near the city of Montfoort
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In March 2024, construction workers were digging in a river on a Dutch estate when they spotted a long piece of metal protruding from one extracted lump of clay. It turned out to be a medieval iron sword, remarkably intact and decorated with telling inlaid copper symbols—a crisscrossed circle and an “infinite knot.”
The Linschoten Estate, the private property on which the sword was discovered, lies near the city of Montfoort in the Netherlands. The estate and Monfoort’s government recently donated the sword to the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, the Netherlands’ national archaeology museum in Leiden, where it’s now on display through August.
The Linschoten Sword measures more than three feet long, including its six-inch crossguard, grip and pommel, according to a translated statement by the museum. X-ray imaging revealed traces of wood and leather on the sword’s handle, and its semi-circle pommel is shaped like a Brazil nut, reports Archaeology News’ Dario Radley. All these characteristics suggest the weapon was created in the region between about 1050 and 1150.
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As the Municipality of Montfoort told Historiek in 2024, the sword’s markings make it a beautiful example of medieval craftsmanship, as well as representation of ancient, enduring symbolism. On either side of the sword’s double-edged blade, its creator inlaid a motif of copper flanked by vertical lines: One is a circle containing a layered X, and the other is a circle containing five diamonds arranged to form a cross.
The former motif is reminiscent of a sun wheel, or sonnenrad—which emerged as a Christian symbol in Europe’s Middle Ages—and the latter resembles an old Viking symbol that stood for unbreakable bonds, per Archaeology News.
Did you know? Funerary customs during the Middle Ages
- During the medieval period, it was common for people to be buried with their swords. In some cases, swords were tossed into bodies of water after their owners died.
- Researchers believe that the Linschoten Sword was intentionally thrown into the Korte Linschoten River.
It is thanks to the 1,000-year-old sword’s hiding place in the Korte Linschoten River that the artifact is remarkably preserved. When exposed to water and oxygen, iron corrodes, rusting and eventually breaking apart. But the sword was buried in clay, which sealed out oxygen and therefore protected it from degradation. Immediately after workers removed the sword from the river, they turned it over to Montfoort authorities, who enlisted archaeologists from the regional environmental service to conserve the piece. Per Archaeology News, conservators soaked it in a desalination bath for ten weeks before cleaning, drying and stabilizing it.
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During the 11th and 12th centuries, the Netherlands’ central province of Utrecht was an important commercial center in Europe. In the preceding Early Middle Ages, between the fifth and tenth centuries, Germanic Frisian people had founded a kingdom along the western coasts of modern Germany and the Netherlands. The Dutch language was born—derived from Low Franconian, the speech of the Western Franks—around 700, and Christians began settling in the Netherlands. It was also during this era, in the ninth century, that the Vikings raided the Low Countries—the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.
It is unclear which culture the sword belongs to, but according to general customs of the medieval period, it was likely a “very personal” possession, per the museum. People were often buried with their swords, or their swords were thrown into bodies of water when they died. The practice was common in Northern Europe, among Germanic peoples and especially Scandinavians, who continued burying their dead with weapons for centuries after other Europeans stopped. Because the Linschoten Sword is missing a scabbard—its case—experts believe it was not lost, but intentionally deposited into the river, reports Archaeology News.
As the city of Montfoort told Historiek, the mysterious sword’s decoration and location are reminders of the Dutch Middle Ages’ layered, rich history.
