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80-year-old gets finders' fee decades after pulling ancient sword from Swedish lake

TT/The Local
TT/The Local - [email protected]
80-year-old gets finders' fee decades after pulling ancient sword from Swedish lake
File photo of historic Scandinavian swords (not including the one referred to in this story). Photo: Berit Roald / NTB scanpix / TT

A man who found a 3,000-year-old sword while swimming has been given a fee by the state for uncovering the relic.

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But the 25,000 kronor (roughly $2,630) finders' fee comes 66 years after the man made the unusual discovery.

Now aged 80, he first found the sword while swimming in the river Svartån in Tranås, Jönköping, back in 1953, SVT Nyheter Jönköping reported.

But he has only just received the payment after Jönköpings Museum expressed interest in taking in the sword, which dates back as far as 1500-1100 BC.

In the summer of 2018, another ancient sword was pulled from a lake, by a Swedish-American girl who was staying at her family's summer house. That relic was dated to the years 650-770 AD, and the girl received 15,000 kronor from the state for finding the sword.

Vocabulary

sword -- (ett) svärd

finders' fee -- (en) hittelön

a find/discovery -- (ett) fynd 

compensation -- (en) ersättning

to swim (especially in open water, for recreation) -- bada

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