Sammallahdenmäki is a
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
burial site in
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
near
Rauma, in the region of
Satakunta
Satakunta (in both Finnish and Swedish, ) is a region ( / ) of Finland, part of the former Western Finland Province. It borders the regions of Southwest Finland, Pirkanmaa, South Ostrobothnia and Ostrobothnia. The capital city of the region is ...
. The site includes 33
granite
Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...
burial
cairn
A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ).
Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehis ...
s dating back more than 3,000 years, to 1500 to 500 BC.
Sammallahdenmäki is one of the largest, most complete, and most important Bronze Age sites in
Fennoscandia
__NOTOC__
Fennoscandia (Finnish language, Finnish, Swedish language, Swedish and no, Fennoskandia, nocat=1; russian: Фенноскандия, Fennoskandiya) or the Fennoscandian Peninsula is the geographical peninsula in Europe, which includes ...
, and was designated by
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
as a
World Heritage Site
A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...
in 1999.
Description
The burial site is located on a long ridge in a remote area off the road between
Tampere
Tampere ( , , ; sv, Tammerfors, ) is a city in the Pirkanmaa region, located in the western part of Finland. Tampere is the most populous inland city in the Nordic countries. It has a population of 244,029; the urban area has a population o ...
and
Rauma.
The 33 burial cairns making up the site are arranged into distinct clusters along the crest of the ridge. Each cairn was constructed from granite boulders quarried from the cliff face below the ridge or collected on site, in typical Bronze Age fashion.
Of the 33 cairns, 28 are dated to the early Bronze Age, and the rest to the early Iron Age. Several different shapes and sizes of these cairns exist at the site. Two unusual cairns are the ''Huilun pitkä raunio'' ("long ruin of Huilu"), which is surrounded by an ancient stone wall, and the ''Kirkonlaattia'' ("Church Floor"), an unusual rectangular cairn covering 16 x 19 metres with a flat top.
The "Church Floor" cairn is the only one of its type found in Scandinavia.
The Sammallahdenmäki cairns were originally built to have a scenic view of the coast and the
Gulf of Bothnia
The Gulf of Bothnia (; fi, Pohjanlahti; sv, Bottniska viken) is divided into the Bothnian Bay and Bothnian Sea, and it is the northernmost arm of the Baltic Sea, between Finland's west coast ( East Bothnia) and the Sweden's east coast (West ...
(a hallmark of early Bronze Age burial mounds), but over time, uplift has occurred and the ocean is no longer visible.
The cairns may relate to rituals of sun worship, a religion that spread across Scandinavia during the Bronze Age, and demonstrates kin group land ownership, which is associated with the advent of farming.
Discovery and Excavation
The stone cairns were first mentioned in a catalogue of ancient sites in 1878, along with a vague description of an excavation (of which no details survive).
Four of the cairns were excavated by archaeologist
Volter Högman in 1891, including ''Huilun pitkä raunio'' and ''Kirkonlaattia''. Of the 8 cairns that have been excavated, 6 of them date to the Bronze Age and 2 to the early Iron Age.
See also
*
Kuninkaanhauta
References
External links
Sammallahdenmäkifrom
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
SammallahdenmäkiSammallahdenmäki, Lappi
from the Finnish National Board of Antiquities
World Heritage Sites in Finland
Rauma, Finland
Archaeological sites in Finland
Landmarks in Finland
Buildings and structures in Satakunta
Tourist attractions in Satakunta
History of Satakunta
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