Maritime Archaeology Institute
Maritime Archaeology Field School 2025 in Porkkala, Finland
This web page is the working repository of the Maritime Archaeology Field School 2025 in Porkkala, Finland. The Field School is facilitated by the Maritime Archaeological Society of Finland (MAS.Fi) for the Universities of East Carolina (ECU) and Helsinki (UH) also in close co-operation with the Finnish Heritage Agency (FHA). The Field School will take place between the 1st and 21st of September 2025. Its base-camp is in the "Porkkalan Leirikeskus" i.e. Camp Porkkala and the official language is English. When we are out to the sea, MAS flagship DSV Stella will be our home-base for the day.
The Field School will teach and research the holistic maritime archaeological landscape of Porkkala peninsula from underwater, ashore and on land. Primary research questions include the potential locations(s) of the Porkkala port and village during late iron age and medieval times. The existing archaeological inventory of the area is mostly superficial. Hence the maritime archaeological assessment and interpretation of the previously identified sites is in an important role too. Weekend visits to Estonia, Suomenlinna and other signifficant maritime culture historical sites are included in the program. All field work is done on actual sites "learning by doing" under the supervision of ECU and UH academics.
Contact person for all external inquiries is Markku Luoto, contact details below.
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| Lynn Harris Professor tel.+01-252-328-1967 |
David Stewart Associate Professor tel.+01-252-328-1124 |
Eric Oakley Assistant Professor tel.+01-252-328-1031 |
Kristin Ilves Associate Professor tel.+358-50-556-0340 |
Markku Luoto Chairman of MAS tel.+358-40-844-9511 |
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Preliminary Schedule
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
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1. Camp Porkkala - Arrival & gearing - Walk-around(?) |
2. Camp Porkkala - Orientation - e.g. Dragesviken wrecksite - Precision inventory land/water |
3. Camp Porkkala - e.g. Dragesviken wrecksite - Precision inventory land/water |
4. Camp Porkkala - e.g. Stakaudden wrecksite - Precision inventory land/water
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5. Porkkala => Estonia / Tallinn - e.g. Stakaudden wrecksite - Precision inventory land/water - Ship Helsinki - Tallinn |
6. Estonia / Narva - Toolse Fortress - Narva City/Castle |
7. Estonia / Tallinn => Porkkala - Ship Tallinn-Helsinki |
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8. Camp Porkkala - Excavation wrecksite-1 - Excavation land/water |
9. Camp Porkkala - Excavation wrecksite-1 - Excavation land/water |
10. Camp Porkkala - Excavation wrecksite-1/2? - Excavation land/water |
11. Camp Porkkala - Excavation wrecksite-1/2? - Excavation land/water
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12. Camp Porkkala => Suomenlinna - Coastal navigation to Suomenlinna - Explore Helsinki |
13. Suomenlinna - Tasked or Exploring? - MAS 30 years miniseminar & dinner |
14. Suomenlinna/Porkkala - Tasked or Exploring? |
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15. Camp Porkkala - Continuing Porkkala |
16. Camp Porkkala - Continuing Porkkala |
17. Camp Porkkala - Continuing Porkkala |
18. Camp Porkkala - Closing sites - Documenting "after" - Packing for tomorrow |
19. Camp Porkkala => Tour(?) - FHA collections center - Tour spot 1 - Explore e.g. Mikkeli |
20. Tour(?) - Tour spot 2 - Tour spot 3 -Explore e.g. Hämeenlinna |
21. Departure - Kansallismuseo - To the airport |
Gulf of Finland, Camp Porkkala and other potential places visited during the The Field School
(click on the map to open Google map in a new window)
Legend
Finland:
- Porkkalan Leirikeskus = Camp Porkkala, the base camp of the Field School
- Airport = The Helsinki-Vantaa airport where ECU team will arrive/depart
- Suomenlinna = The 18th century sea fortress where the second weekend of the Field School will take place
- Forum Marinum = Maritime Museum of Turku. Primarily displaying 20th century ships of the Finnish Navy.
- Turku Castle = Mediaval fortress but completely rebuilt after WW2
- Häme Castle = Medieval castle established by the Swedish colonialisation
- Holy Cross Church = One of the oldest mediaval churches in Finland
- Rapola Ancient Hill Fort = Early medieval / Iron Age stronghold of Finns - the largest of it's era in the whole of Europe
- Päijälän Castle Mountain = Early mediaval / Iron Age stronghold which has seen battle around 1100 AD. Very typical of it's kind (over 200 in Finland)
- Astuvansalmi rock paintings = Paleolithic paintings from 3000 BC including extremely rare female hunter figures
- Kummakivi = Unsurveyed site of gigantic balanced rock, rumoured to be an ancient court of justice
- Maritime Center Vellamo = Maritime museum of Kotka, Primarily focusing on 20th century civillian sea faring. Some archaeology too.
- Porvoo = Medieval church and early medieval stronghold + a nice 19th century old town
- Husholmen Medieval Fortress Island = A middle aged stronghold associated with Victual Brothers pirates near Porvoo
- Museoviraston kokoelma- ja konservointikeskus = Finnish Heritage Agency collection and conservation center
- Raseborg Castle Ruins = Medieval fortress of potentially Teutonic origin.
Estonia:
- Tallinn = A 13th century "Hansestadt" - probably the best preserved in Europe - especially the old town.
- Estonian Maritime Museum = The home of most Kogs found
- Toolse fortress = Ruins of a 14th century castle of the Teutonic Knights and northern most fortress of the Holy Roman Empire
- Narva = A medieval (twin) bordertown of one of the oldest cultural, language, religious and tribal as well as state borders in Europe
- Lennusadam = Former "Air Harbour" and a maritime museum of mostly 20th century sea faring
- The MAS.Fi flagship DSV Stella's homepage
Interactive Site Map of Porkkala and Excell thereto
The potential research sites (currently identified) are displayed on the interactive map below and in this Excel. 
porkkala_potential_sites.xlsx
On the map below, orange pins contain English (AI) translations of the site descriptions in FHA's heritage registry. That is the same information as in the Excell above. This map/Excell is the ontology of all known and suspected archaeological sites in the Porkkala peninsula area. Hence, it's not a list of final research sites, but merely an index of the potential sites, the attendance of which depends on weather conditions, training syllabus or active research questions.
Short manual:
If there's a 3D-model of the wrecksite in Sketchfab.com, it can be launched by clicking the "broken" icon just below the description text (marked with red arrow in the picture on hte left). The visible link will take to the official FHA heritage site in Finnish languge only.
Topographical map window (Finland)
The topographical map window below also contains an aerial photomosaic view, which can be selected from the tools on the right hand corner of the map window.
Lidar & Orthophoto & Maps tool
(click on the map to open Google map in a new window)
There's a coarse LIDAR material and an orthopohoto layer (along with base and topographical maps) available in FHA's service, which will open in a new window by clicking the picture below. Unfortunately the "orange pins" i.e. the English language annotations can not be copied to this tool => one has to use the windows side by side. The maps / orthophoto / LIDAR can be toggeld on the bottom of the window.
Additional materials per site
- Små Mickelskären Shipwreck, multibeam sonar pictures and the water way authority's anomaly report:
- Engelskobben-1 wrecksite, diver inventory report and some pics:
- Report: 
etsinasukellus_300922_hannu_rokka-1.pdf
- Commnets: "On siellä joku isompikin osa. Isoja parruja on muutama engelskobbenin ja söderskärin välissä vaikka Hannu muuta väittää. En ole käynyt tolla kasalla."
- Dragesviken-3 boatwrek:
Historical context and sources
The written history of Finns is very scarce, as their language "Finnish" only became litterate through the Lutheran Reformation in the mid 16th century. The first description of Estonians, Finns and other Finnic tribes of the Baltic sea is in the very last chapters of the "De origine et situ Germanorum" (English translation) by Publius Cornelius Tacitus, a Roman historian from the first century. Throughout the Roman period and early middle ages Finns appear in maps or in various manuscritp's side notes as Fenni, Finni, Skrid Finnoi (skiing Finns) or "Suomi" - the latter which is Finland in Finnish and other Uralic languages. In the scarce references of Finns they are often placed as the furthest people in the northern Europe and their geographical connection to the rest of Europe vaguely known.
The next more detailled descriptions of Finns appear in the Viking (Norse) sagas of 8th or 9th century, where almost all north European royal houses of the early middle age legitimate their royal status through inheritance by marrying a Finnish Princess. Even the Scandinavian demigods like Thor, Luke etc. were said to have a Finnish grandfather (Fornjót). The more formal records of Finns are found from the Papal letters of the late12th century and from the first tax - or more likely tax relief - records of the mid 13th century, when Finland joined newly established Sweden - possibly to ally against the Mongols of the "Golden Horde" ravaging the middle and northern Europe at the time.
The written records of Finns or Finland from the high middle ages remain scarce, but towards the late middle ages, document numbers reach almost 7000 (2023). The best Finnish effort is the Diplomatarium Fennicum database within the Finnish national archives. This however, contains documents mostly from the nearby state archives like those of Sweden and Estonia. Almost certainly there are yet to by identified documents in the city/national archives of the Finnish trading partners ports of call or origin. Regarding foreign trade outside the Baltic Sea, the Danish Sound Toll Registrys are a signifficant source from 1477 AD onwards. The Lloyds' Register is also a very valuable source from 1764 onwards. Naturaly the large language model artificial intelligence services like Chat-GPT and Copilot are excellent search tools for many things, but they still have a lot of issues "understanding" the "exlusive or" of the thigs past.
- Danish king Valdemar's sailing route description from the AD 1230's: itinerarium_marinum_balticum_regis_danorum_valdemari.pdf
- Teutonic order: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teutonic_Order
- Republic of Novgorod: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novgorod_Republic
- Alexander Nevski: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_on_the_Ice
- Black Death plaque: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death
- Victual Brothers - the Pirates of the Baltic Sea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victual_Brothers
- History of Finland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Finland
- Viking voyages to Bjarmia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjarmaland
- History of Estonia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Estonia
- Timeline of Tallinn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Tallinn
- History of Sweden: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Sweden
- Driva, a Finnish princess to legitimize Swedish kingdom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanlandi
- History of Denmark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Denmark
- Signe, a Finnish princess to legitimize Danish kingdom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signe_(Finnish_princess)
- History of Norway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Norway
- Snøfrid a Finnish princess to legitimize Norvegian kingdom: https://snl-no.translate.goog/Sv%C3%A5se_Finnekonge?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fi&_x_tr_pto=wapp
- History of Latvia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Latvia
- History of Lithuania: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Lithuania
- History of Russia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Russia
and just in case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Europe
Latest update: 9th of December 2024
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