Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:

• A local resident walking his dog on land managed by Forestry England noticed a piece of bronze tucked among tree roots.
• The walker picked up the object, which turned out to be an ax head made sometime between 1400 and 1275 B.C.E.
• A special side loop on the ax head helped secure the blade to the handle.

John Smith’s dog might not be a bloodhound, but it still helped him find a 3,300-year-old lost treasure in Gloucestershire’s Forest of Dean. When Smith’s dog took him off course during a routine walk, the local resident had a look around and soon noticed the glimmer of a Bronze Age ax head lodged among some tree roots.

“My dog ran off, rooting around, so I went to go and get the dog and, as I looked down in the roots, I saw the ax head—it just sparkled the most beautiful green color,” Smith told the BBC. “It was just wedged in one of the holes, so I pulled it out and there it was.”

There it was, indeed: an ax head that’s since been dated to between 1400 and 1275 B.C.E. Crafted in the palstave style, the bronze is a copper alloy containing about 10 percent tin. Smith handed the ax over to Forestry England, and from there Cotswold Archaeology took possession to investigate the find, which is now on display at the Dean Heritage Centre.

Cotswold Archaeology reported that the five-inch-long ax head has a narrow, tapering rib central to both faces and was originally cast in a mold. By the Middle Bronze Age, two-part molds allowed for a more sophisticated design, such as this one, according to Kayleigh Spring, the objects conservator at the Dean Heritage Centre.

The casting seams are seen on both sides. The cutting edge is blunt and the sides slightly convex, curving gently and regularly back from the cutting-edge tips to the stop ridge. A single side loop at the center of the stop ridge allowed users to tie a cord from the ax head to the handle for a more secure connection. The loop is a key indicator of the ax’s palstave-style design.

“I knew it was old because of the intensity of the green,” Smith said, “so I thought I’ve got to get it out and hand it in and let everyone else enjoy it.” The verdigris color is caused by the natural oxidation of the metal when it’s exposed for thousands of years.

There are several possible reasons that ax head ended up in the tree roots. Humans have inhabited the Forest of Dean since the Stone Age, and Bronze Age residents might have been busy clearing the land for farming. But there’s also a history of ax heads being involved in ritual settings and burials in the region. “We can only speculate why it was there,” the center wrote in a statement. “It may have been dropped, lost, or deliberately buried.” It all leaves a mysterious twist to the find.

“It’s incredible to think that tools like this have survived for thousands of years, hidden beneath our feet,” said Leoni Dawson, Forestry England community ranger. “Finds like these help us connect with the people who lived and worked in these landscapes long before us.”