He reeled in a big one.
A man fishing along a river in Poland was left stunned when the big catch he reeled in turned out to be a 700-year-old sword.
The Capital Conservator of Monuments group, in Warsaw, touted the July 2 discovery along the Vistula River as a genuine artifact from the Middle Ages, submitting the nearly three-foot-long weapon to the State Archaeological Museum for study.
A 700-year-old sword was pulled out of Poland’s Vistula River on July 2. Facebook/Sto¿eczny Konserwator Zabytków
The ancient sword may be from the period when Warsaw was first founded. Facebook/Sto¿eczny Konserwator Zabytków“It was supposed to be this big fish — but it turned out to be this big a sword!” the group said in a social media post showing off the weapon.
“As you can see, the Vistula hides some real treasures,” the conservators added.
The group noted that while the sword was rusted, it was still surprisingly well preserved, with a symbol of a cross clearly visible along the shaft.
The blade measures around 31 inches. Facebook/Stoſeczny Konserwator Zabytków
The medieval weapon was packaged and sent to the Archaeological Museum for study.
Anna Magdalena Łań, a chief specialist with the city of Warsaw, said the blade could date back to the time of Warsaw’s founding in the early 1300s.
“A more precise date may be determined thanks to the cross mark, which is the ‘signature’ of the blacksmith who made it,” she told Fox News Digital.
The sword wasn’t the only relic uncovered in Poland last month, with excavators stumbling upon the excellently preserved burial site of an elite knight beneath a shutdown ice cream parlor in Gdańsk.
But unlike the burial site, which was located in what was once an ancient city known to store such treasures, Łań said that the location the sword was found in should pique the interests of the archeological community.
“A sword this old, found in what is now Warsaw, is unique,” she said.
