The Norwich Castle Museum recently acquired a very rare Bronze Age ceremonial dagger that had spent the last 12 years of its long life being used as a doorstop.
Museums are filled with rare and celebrated objects, but that doesn’t mean the items displayed were always held in high regard.
The Norwich Castle Museum recently acquired a very rare Bronze Age ceremonial dagger that had spent the last 12 years of its long life being used as a doorstop.
Its previous owner had come upon it while plowing a field.
Clearly unaware that he had found an important 3,500 year-old artifact, he put it to work propping open a door.
In 2013, the piece was authenticated, dated, and news of its existence spread.
As one of only 6 known examples of its kind, it piqued the interest of curators.
With the help of a grant, the Norwich Castle Museum acquired the piece for nearly 65 thousand dollars.
According to the institution’s senior curator of archaeology, there are two main indicators revealing the dagger was not intended to be used for any purpose other than ceremonial ones.
One is its immense size, measuring three times the length of a typical weapon of that type.
Another is that it was intentionally bent in half and buried, a common practice for the retiring of such objects at the time.
