Level 1 — Absolute Beginner
Lake Mezzano is a small lake in Italy. It is not far from Rome. A very long time ago, people lived in a village at this lake.
Now divers work under the water there. They look for old things. This year, they found a sword at the bottom of the lake.
The sword is made of bronze. Bronze is a hard yellow metal. The sword is about 3,300 years old, but it is still sharp.
Next to the sword, the divers found a razor. Maybe one man owned both things. Nobody knows why the sword was in the water. Some people think it was a gift to a god.
- lake
- A large area of water with land all around it.
- village
- A very small town.
- divers
- People who swim under water, often with special equipment.
- sword
- A weapon with a long metal blade.
- bottom
- The lowest part of something.
- metal
- A hard material such as iron, gold or bronze.
- sharp
- Able to cut easily.
- razor
- A tool with a blade for cutting hair from the face.
Level 2 — Elementary
Archaeologists in Italy have pulled a bronze sword out of a lake, and they say it is in excellent condition. The weapon is around 3,300 years old, yet its blade can still cut.
The discovery was made in Lake Mezzano, a small lake inside an old volcano about 60 miles northwest of Rome. Divers were exploring the southern shore, a part of the lake that experts had hardly studied before.
In the Bronze Age, a village stood here on wooden posts above the water. Last year, researchers mapped more than 600 of these posts. The lake has protected many objects from that time, including axes, arrowheads, daggers and complete clay pots.
This is the third sword found in the lake since the 1970s. It was lying close to a bronze razor, so the two objects may have belonged to the same person, perhaps an important warrior. Another idea is that someone threw the sword into the water on purpose, as an offering to a god.
- archaeologists
- Scientists who study old objects and buildings to learn about the past.
- condition
- The state that something is in.
- weapon
- An object used for fighting.
- blade
- The flat cutting part of a knife or sword.
- volcano
- A mountain with a hole where hot rock can come out.
- shore
- The land along the edge of a lake or sea.
- warrior
- A soldier or fighter, especially long ago.
- offering
- Something given to a god.
Level 3 — Intermediate
A bronze sword forged roughly 3,300 years ago has been recovered from the bed of Lake Mezzano in central Italy, and the regional heritage office that announced the find says its edge is still keen. Specialists date the weapon to the 13th century BC, in the Late Bronze Age, several centuries before the traditional founding of Rome.
Lake Mezzano fills a small volcanic crater about 60 miles northwest of the capital. Underwater archaeologists were excavating along its southern shore, a zone that had been largely unexplored, when they came across the sword resting in the sediment. It is the third to emerge from the lake since investigations began in the 1970s.
The setting explains the remarkable preservation. A settlement of houses raised on stilts once stood at the water's edge, and when it was abandoned its remains sank into mud that contains very little oxygen, which slows decay. Last year a survey mapped more than 600 wooden posts that had supported the village. Divers have also brought up axes, spearheads, daggers, arrowheads and intact pottery vessels.
What the sword was doing in the lake is less clear. It lay beside a bronze razor, a pairing that suggests the personal equipment of one high-ranking man, possibly an elite warrior. Yet across Bronze Age Europe valuable weapons were often placed in rivers, bogs and lakes as gifts to the gods, and researchers have not ruled out a deliberate offering. Laboratory analysis of the metal could help show where the sword was made and how much it was used.
- forged
- Made from heated metal by shaping it.
- keen
- Very sharp.
- crater
- A large round hole in the ground, such as the top of a volcano.
- sediment
- Mud and sand that settle at the bottom of water.
- preservation
- The state of being kept safe from damage or decay.
- stilts
- Tall posts that hold a building above water or ground.
- intact
- Complete and not damaged.
- deliberate
- Done on purpose.
Level 4 — Advanced
Italy's lakes have a habit of returning what the Bronze Age entrusted to them, and Lake Mezzano has just surrendered one of its finest pieces. Underwater archaeologists working for the regional heritage superintendency have raised a bronze sword of the 13th century BC from the lakebed, its blade reportedly still capable of drawing blood after some 33 centuries in the silt. It is the third such weapon retrieved from the small volcanic basin, 60 miles northwest of Rome, since systematic work began there in the 1970s.
The sword came to light during excavation of a scarcely investigated stretch of the southern shore. Mezzano was home in the Late Bronze Age to a pile-dwelling community whose timber platforms stood over the shallows, and a campaign last year plotted more than 600 of the supporting posts. Anoxic mud has since acted as a vault, conserving not only metalwork such as axes, daggers, spearheads and arrowheads but also whole ceramic vessels that would have shattered on dry land long ago.
Interpretation is, as ever, harder than recovery. The weapon lay in close association with a bronze razor, and the conjunction of blade and grooming implement is a recognised signature of elite male identity in the period: the kit, in effect, of a man who fought and who cared how he looked. That reading would make the objects the possessions of a single prominent individual, lost or left behind when the settlement was abandoned.
The alternative is intention. From Scandinavia to the Alps, communities of the second millennium BC consigned prestigious metalwork to water with a regularity that defies accident, and three swords in one modest lake is a suggestive tally. Whether Mezzano's waters were a place of veneration as well as habitation is precisely the question the excavators now hope to resolve. Metallurgical study of the alloy, and of the microscopic wear along the cutting edge, should indicate where the sword was cast and whether it ever met another blade in anger.
- entrusted
- Gave something to someone or something to look after.
- surrendered
- Gave up something that was held.
- retrieved
- Brought something back from where it was.
- anoxic
- Containing no oxygen.
- conjunction
- The fact of two things occurring together.
- consigned
- Put something somewhere, often permanently.
- veneration
- Great respect or worship.
- alloy
- A metal made by mixing two or more metals.
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