A YORK man was so convinced of the identity of a mystery Viking object that he made a model to prove his point.

Len Smith was one of numerous people who responded to an appeal to guess the purpose of an object on display as part of the Viking Festival.

The most common guess was that the piece was a ceremonial axe or part of a ship's rigging.

Mr Smith was convinced it was a hand-line for fishing and made a model and tested it to see if it would work.

Elizabeth Hartley, keeper of archaeology at the Yorkshire Museum, said: "We were thrilled with the response to the mystery object and the fact that people had observed different things about it and then applied their imagination. The public have certainly helped us look at the object in new ways."

Updated: 09:43 Thursday, March 13, 2003