SUPPOSED FAKE SWORD IN MUSEUM TURNS OUT TO BE AUTHENTIC 3000-YEAR-OLD WEAPON

In archaeology, hoaxes abound. Scholars can ascertain the authenticity of an artefact by examining its appearance, provenance, discovery, materials, style, and other relevant factors. Sometimes a phoney item can successfully pass for the real thing for years before the fraud is discovered. However, the opposite occurred once. A metal sword in the collection of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago was regarded for nearly a century as just another fake. New scientific research, however, has shown that the sword is, in fact, an authentic 3000-year-old weapon. 

In Budapest, Hungary, near the Danube River, the sword was found in the 1930s. At the time, scholars believed it to be an authentic but beautifully crafted replica of an ancient sword. Hungarian archaeologists requested to look over the sword while they were getting ready for an exhibition at the museum called First Kings of Europe. They achieved this by utilising a device known as an X-ray fluorescence detector. The metal object that is the subject of the study is exposed by the machine's x-ray emissions. As a result, the object's atoms' electrons jump and then fall, releasing their own radiation.

The materials contained in the object can be determined by the researchers by measuring this radiation. It came out that the sword was a composite of tin, copper, and bronze. Unlike replicas, this composition is strikingly similar to other swords from the Bronze Age. Researchers were taken aback by this distinctive combination of metals, indicating that the sword was real. The museum's anthropology curator, Bill Parkinson, stated in a statement that, “Usually this story goes the other way round. What we think is an original turns out to be a fake.”

The weapon is determined to have originated out of the Bronze Age, which is generally understood to have spanned from 3300 to 1000 BCE. European nobility had access to opulent goods thanks to metalworking and extensive trade networks. It's impossible to determine if the sword was formerly owned by a monarch, but it might have been thrown into the river as a part of a memorial to a war or as a part of a funeral rite. It is currently on display at the Field Museum's The First Kings of Europe exhibition entrance.