{"id":307129,"date":"2026-02-24T04:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T04:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/307129\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T04:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T04:41:09","slug":"university-of-haifa-student-discovers-crusader-sword","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/307129\/","title":{"rendered":"University of Haifa student discovers Crusader sword"},"content":{"rendered":"

A sword dating to the 12th-century Crusader period was discovered buried in the seabed off northern Israel\u2019s Dor Beach, Haifa University announced in a Sunday statement.<\/p>\n

The discovery was made by Shlomi Katzin, a student at the University of Haifa\u00a0<\/a>\u2019s Department of Maritime Civilizations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While at the beach, Katzin noticed a group of divers swimming in the area with a metal detector. Believing them to be antiquities thieves<\/a>, he drove them from theareabefore spotting the sword protruding from the sea floor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to the statement, Katzin notified Prof. Deborah Cvikel from the Maritime Civilizations Department of the find. Cvikel, in turn, contacted the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), which gave Katzin special permission to remove the sword from the water to prevent further damage.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince their invention, swords have been among the most important tools in human history,\u201d said Dr. Sarah Lantous of the University of Haifa. \u201cIn the Middle Ages, the sword became a symbol of knights and chivalry, as well as a symbol of Christian faith. It was also one of the most common weapons used by Crusader knights<\/a>, whose lives depended on them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TancredTancred and the Crusaders of the first Crusade take possession of Bethlehem, where they massacred virtually every inhabitant. Original Artwork: Engraving after a painting by Revoil. (credit: Hulton Archive\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

She noted that swords were considered highly valuable, and as such, were carefully preserved and maintained, and that \u201cdiscovery and study of such a personal and symbolic object are rare.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMoreover, they provide us with a unique opportunity to learn about the lives of the Frankish knights in the Holy Land,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Cvikel echoed the sentiment, noting that the sword\u2019s discovery \u201csheds light on the Crusader presence along the country\u2019s shores,\u201d and that only a handful of similar swords from the Crusader period have been discovered in Israel to date.<\/p>\n

Sword undergoes CT scan\u00a0<\/p>\n

The sword, measuring approximately one meter long, was transferred first to a conservation lab at the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies (RIMS) at the University of Haifa, and then later to Elisha Medical Center in Haifa for an advanced CT scan<\/a> to examine the blade\u2019s condition without causing it further harm.<\/p>\n

From the scan, researchers learned that the blade is a one-handed sword of European make, and had likely belonged to a Crusader warrior. The CT images also show a crack in the sword\u2019s blade, and that only a small portion of the original iron had survived the ravages of time and the sea.<\/p>\n

The CT scan \u201callows us to peer through layers of time and stone,\u201d according to Dr. Eyal Berkovitz, medical director of \u00a0Medica Diagnostics and a faculty member at the University of Haifa\u2019s School of Medicine,<\/p>\n

\u201cUsing the CT, we were able to see what the human eye cannot, the internal structure of the sword and its precise physical condition, all in a non-invasive scan that preserved the integrity of this rare find for future generations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ziv Biton, CEO of Elisha Medical Center, shared that the hospital’s medical staff is proud and honored to have taken part in the project, opening a \u201ctime tunnel to the past in the form of a Crusader sword.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the past meets the future within the walls of our hospital, there is nothing more rewarding.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A sword dating to the 12th-century Crusader period was discovered buried in the seabed off northern Israel\u2019s Dor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6232,2520,154363,19720,153975,13226,154362,85,46,6233,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-307129","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-antiquities","9":"tag-archaeology","10":"tag-artifacts","11":"tag-beach","12":"tag-crusades","13":"tag-ct-scan","14":"tag-haifa-university","15":"tag-il","16":"tag-israel","17":"tag-israel-antiquities-authority","18":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}