Mystery surrounds 3,500-year-old bronze hand discovered in Switzerland

Archaeologists have revealed the discovery of the earliest metal representation of a human body part found in Europe. The 3,500-year-old object is a hand, slightly smaller than life-sized, made of more than a pound of bronze. It has a cuff of gold foil glued to the wrist, and a socket inside that would have allowed it to be mounted on a stick or pole.

The find was originally uncovered in 2017 near Lake Biel in the province of Bern, by treasure hunters using metal detectors, who turned it in to authorities along with a bronze dagger and rib bone they found nearby.

"We had never seen anything like it", says Andrea Schaer, head of the Ancient History and Roman Archeology Department at the Bern Archaeological Service. "We weren't sure if it was authentic or not – or even what it was".

By radiocarbon dating a piece of the glue used to attach a layer of gold foil onto the sculpture's wrist, they determined the object dates back to the middle Bronze Age, or between 1,400 and 1,500 B.C.