Six-year-old boy finds ancient viking sword on school trip

A six-year-old boy discovered an ancient Viking-age sword whilst on a school trip in Norway.

The sword - thought to be around 1,300 years old - was uncovered by Henrik on a class trip to Gran which is in Hadeland, in Norway.

He noticed a rusty piece of metal sticking out of the ground and picked it up to show to his teachers.

After looking closer at it and realising that it might not just be a piece of rusty metal, his teachers contacted a team of local archaeologists who later confirmed that it was an important historic discovery.

Archaeologists from the Cultural Heritage authority in Innlandet think the sword might be a single-edged iron sword from the late Merovingian Period, or early Viking Age, around AD 550 to 800.

Single-edged swords were only made to be sharp on only one side and were often called scramasaxes or saxes.

The area the sword was found in - Hadeland - translates to "Land of the Warrior" in Norwegian and many important Iron-age and Viking objects have been found there over the years.

The archaeologists are hoping that by studying it they can learn more about how the sword was made and used by the people at the time.

The sword has now been transferred to the Museum of Cultural History (Kulturhistorisk Museum) in Oslo, where it will be cleaned and preserved so that it can be studied further.