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(CNN) — A scuba diver has found a 900-year-old Crusader sword with a three-foot blade off the coast of Israel.  The amateur diver spotted the sword and other ancient artifacts on the seabed off northern Israel, according to a statement from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) published Monday.

He was diving on October 9 when he spotted the sword, which boasts a foot-long hilt, along with stone anchors, metal anchors and pottery fragments. The artifacts were "apparently uncovered by waves and undercurrents that had shifted the sand," the IAA said.

The diver took the sword up to the surface so it wouldn't be stolen or covered up again, before handing it in to the IAA. The sword was found 200 meters (656 feet) from the shore, at a depth of four meters (13 feet), Koby Sharvit, director of the IAA's Marine Archaeology Unit, told CNN on Tuesday.  Its size and shape suggest it belonged to a Crusader, as does the fact that it was found just a few kilometers from Atlit castle, a Crusader fortress, Sharvit added.

Dating from 1096 to the late 13th century, the Crusades were a set of military expeditions by Western European Christians that aimed to retake the Holy Land in the Middle East after centuries of Muslim wars of expansion.