Chinese boy discovers 3,000-year-old sword in a river

A Chinese boy made a surprising discovery while washing his hands in the Jiangsu Province's Laozhoulin River: a 3,000-year-old bronze sword.

The 11-year-old boy, Yang Junxi, told China's state news agency Xinhua that he was playing near the river and accidentally touched the sword's tip while washing his hands in the water. He brought the sword home, and his family sent it to local officials at the Gaoyou Cultural Relics Bureau to examine its worth. "Some people even offered high prices to buy the sword," Junxi's father Jinhai told Xinhua. "But I felt it would be illegal to sell the relic."

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Meghan DeMaria

Meghan DeMaria is a staff writer at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked for USA Today and Marie Claire.