A shock in an American museum...a "imitation" sword, which was found to be 3,000 years old

Chicago Museum officials were stunned when they learned that the replica European sword, which the museum has been displaying for 100 years as a replica, is authentic and dates back to the Bronze Age, approximately 3,000 years old.

The sword was discovered on the banks of the Danube in the 1930s and was thought to resemble an imitation of a Hungarian Bronze Age weapon.

Researchers assumed at the time that the sword was a replica made in the Middle Ages, or possibly later, before it was shipped to Chicago where it was displayed at the Field Museum, according to ScienceAlert.

For nearly 100 years the sword was on display to visitors as a copy of the real thing, until the museum began preparing for an upcoming exhibition on Europe's first kings.

Here a visiting Hungarian archaeologist took a look at the weapon and immediately declared it authentic.

"We brought it in and (the researcher) looked at it and took 20 seconds to say it wasn't a replica," William Parkinson, curator of anthropology at the Field Museum, told a local news station.

While the assumption was exciting, Parkinson wanted proof and decided to use X-rays to see if the sword had been made using the same compositions of copper and tin as other weapons made during the same time period and from the same region, which also turned out to be accurate.

Experts now believe that the sword was thrown into the Danube sometime between 1080 and 900 BC, which means the sword may be more than 3,000 years old.

It is believed that the sword was thrown into the water as part of a sacred ritual, perhaps to commemorate a battle, and this was a common tradition among many cultures in Europe at the time.

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