PERTH, Scotland—Scottish archaeologists had to wait a year to get lifted a massive, four-ton sandstone slab, discovered last year in a Perthshire field, to see what was underneath. But what they finally found surpassed all their expectations: the 4,000-year-old grave of a Bronze Age man.

The figure was laid out on a bed of quartz pebbles in sand in a birch coffin, which was inside a larger stone chamber. He was buried with various metal objects including a valuable bronze dagger with a gold band, still in its leather sheath; the carved capstone, which had to be lifted by crane, had sealed the grave so well that organic materials, including wood, bark, and leather, were still intact. The grave’s contents were taken to Edinburgh for conservation and laboratory examination. There was another discovery as well: A mysterious series of pecked carvings, unique in Britain, were revealed as sun rays hit the capstone’s underside.

Read more at the London Times.