A school trip in Norway took a sharp turn into the past when six-year-old Henrik spotted what looked like a rusty piece of metal sticking out of the ground, then found it was an ancient sword.

Henrik and his class were visiting Gran in Hadeland, a region of Norway where many important archaeological discoveries have been made. After he showed teachers and chaperones the object, they contacted cultural authorities, who confirmed it was historic.

The weapon is a single-sided iron sword known as a scramseax, also spelled scramasax. It was designed to be sharp on one side to increase the weight behind its cutting ability.

The sword likely belonged to a warrior from the early Viking Age, according to the source material, though it may also date to an earlier period. It could have been of Norwegian origin, or it may have been forged in France, as the earliest possible date falls before the Viking Age, in the middle of the Merovingian Period.

The sword has now been transferred to the Museum of Cultural History, Kulturhistorisk Museum, in Oslo for preservation.

In medieval Scandinavia, the word Viking described the act of sailing abroad to raid, trade, or both. A warrior at home and not at sea was not referred to as a Viking, and in the Icelandic family sagas, characters are sometimes described as “going Viking.”