Le Ba Hanh, Deputy Director of the provincialmuseum, said on April 1 that a group of the museum’s specialists foundthe dagger when it was being kept by Nguyen Van Minh, a resident in XuanHai commune, Nghi Xuan district.
The intactponiard weighs 1 kilogramme and measures 35 centimeters in length. Ithas a 15cm handle fitted by a 20cm-long, 5cm-wide bamboo leaf-shapedblade.
The handle is decorated with the image of aperson of Dong Son style with hats and clothes carved with animal andhalf animal-half human patterns.
According to theinitial assessment, this dagger is believed to be a weapon that the headof a tribe used to show his power during the Dong Son culture.
The Dong Son culture, a prehistoric Bronze Age in Vietnam , wascentred at the Red River Valley from 1,000 BC to 1 BC and theninfluenced other parts of Southeast Asia . It was typical with thefamous skilled bronze objects, such as Dong Son bronze drums.-VNA