A Pair Of 4,000-Year-Old Bronze Age Axes Were Anonymously Mailed To An Irish Museum
Two 4,000-year-old ax heads were anonymously mailed to an Irish museum. According to the National Museum of Ireland (NMI), the package was received in late June.
The sender left an unsigned note in the package saying that the artifacts had been found with a metal detector in central Ireland. There were no further details or contact information in the note.
Now, the museum is asking the sender to reveal their identity. Museum officials hope to learn more about the location in which the ax heads were discovered.
“The ax heads were thoughtfully packed in foam cut-outs and cardboard, ensuring their safe arrival,” the museum said. “Our experts at the NMI have identified these items as flat ax heads from the Bronze Age, a significant archaeological find that offers a glimpse into Ireland’s distant past.”
The metal tools date between 2150 and 2000 B.C.E., which is a few hundred years after the early Bronze Age started in Ireland. This period was defined by metalworking practices, including the forging of bronze, which is made from copper and tin.
Matt Seaver, the assistant keeper of Irish antiquities at the museum, stated the ax heads were some of the earliest metal axes that were used in Ireland.
The metals used to make them may have originated from a place like “the copper mine in Ross Island,” located in the southwestern county of Kerry. It was Ireland’s first copper mine.
Currently, the museum is involved with an international study of metalwork from the Bronze Age. The new ax heads could lend some important information to the study.
If experts knew the exact location in which the ax heads were unearthed, they could also gain an understanding of the ancient cultural practices and settlement patterns in the area.
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“For instance, hoards or collections of objects were often deliberately placed in specific locations for reasons that could range from ritualistic to supernatural,” said the museum.
They believe the sender wants to remain anonymous because of the law restricting the use of metal detectors to search for artifacts. In Ireland, written permission from the government is needed for metal detectorists to be able to look for archaeological objects legally.
Still, museum officials declared that the donor would not get in trouble if they decided to come forward.
Any information about the ax heads that is willingly provided will only be used to fill in the blanks surrounding the discovery.
This isn’t the first time that artifacts have been delivered to museums anonymously. In 2016, another unnamed donor mailed a box of Viking jewelry and Bronze Age axes to the Irish museum.
More recently, a mysterious package was sent to the Royal Łazienki Museum in Poland. It contained a dozen tiles from the 17th century that were once part of a Baroque bathing pavilion in Warsaw.
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