Then a note flashed in a newspaper — A 16th century halberd was caught in the river. I don’t really trust journalistic tales — These guys are capable of doing weird things even in three sentences. Nevertheless, there is no smoke without fire.
We read further: an event occurred in Estonia on the Pärnu River. They even covered the approximate location of the find — Karjakula village. We caught the halberd out of the water using a search magnet. Respectable citizens handed over the halberd to officials of the Estonian Department for the Protection of Antiquities, who appointed a reward for the find in the amount of 200 euros.
I estimated from the map — This is roughly the central part of Estonia. I became curious and went further to pick up maps of this place.
The river itself in this place narrows quite strongly, which is called the «spitting river». The 1948 map shows a ford exactly opposite the village, 1 meter deep and 15 meters wide. Don’t delude yourself too much. Most likely in those distant times the river was deeper, but who knows. Let’s dig further… The Tsar’s one-layout clearly indicates the presence of the same village in 1901, which stretches along the high left bank of the river. The right bank is correspondingly low. There are two bridges to the north and south of the village. Therefore, the movement here in the old days was active — people were scurrying back and forth. The village is ancient, no doubt about it; most likely it stood there in the 16th century.
The article notes that the approximate dating of the halberd — 16th century. Don’t go to a fortune teller, it was hot in these parts at that time! The place is located exactly halfway between the city of Pärnu and Weisenstein Castle (now Paide). This castle changed hands several times. He visited the possession of Ivan the Terrible and was recaptured by the Swedes. It was also a tasty morsel for the Poles and Danes. There were plenty of battles and minor skirmishes. It makes no sense to describe them here, I’ll just show the item itself.
Ancient finds are interesting? Read more!
