It would be very interesting to see what the workers saw when they found it. I'd forgive someone for thinking it was just a sunken log, going by the photo in the article, so I'm wondering what they saw that made them call the archaeologists.
This is pretty normal in the construction business. More often than you’d like the artifact ends up getting quietly disposed of to avoid potentially delaying the project for years.
The axe with its wooden shaft intact is just fascinating, now we know what they looked like 4,000 years ago. Hopefully one day we'll discover intact swords so we know what they really looked like.
