Surveying Cape Tulliniemi

Soviet dugout on Tulliniemi beach in August 1942.
While the preparations for this summer's excavations are currently ongoing, there is still time for other projects and now that the snow has mostly disappeared, it's time to get the field surveys going! This year we started with the southern coast of Cape Tulliniemi - an area that has previously staid closed from us due to the regulations of the Freeport of Finland. This time the gates were kindly opened for us and we got to walk on the beaches that had not seen visitors for decades.

As you might have read from my previous posts, Tulliniemi is an area that has seen a plenty of history. There has been lively maritime activities around the nearby waters for centuries and while Tulliniemi coast has sometimes provided cover for boats, it has also seen a plenty of corpses washing to the grounds from shipwrecks. There has been a plenty of stories about bones of unfortunate sailors being found on the beaches!

While we kept our eyes open for any man-made constructions and other material remains, our focus for the weekend was on the World War II. As Tulliniemi had been under the influence of both Soviet Union and Germany during the war, we knew that there were a plenty of defensive structures waiting for us. However, even if we had an idea of what to look for based on hillshade models and old aerial pictures, we were soon surprised with over 60 war-time structures waiting to be documented.

Trenches, dugouts, machine gun posts - there were a plenty of structures to measure, photograph and take coordinates of. As no one had conducted an archaeological survey in the area before, it was vital that we were well organized and precise. However it was still just a brief start into documenting all of many such sites around the whole Hanko Peninsula. But now that the first steps have been taken, a plenty of more will follow - some even already this spring!

You can read more about the research project in Hanko on Jan Fast's blog. 

One of many trenches in Tulliniemi.

Location: Hanko, Suomi

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