Around Satakunta: The Big Three of Eura

In Finland, there are certain sites that every archaeology student hears about during the very first lectures at the university – and surprisingly enough, many of them lie quite close to each other within the borders of Eura. While Eura has put a lot of effort into showcasing their ancient history and there's a plenty of information online to plan a day-trip, I still wanted to share a few prominent sites to get started with. In case you have time only for a few sites, you might want to go with these "big three"!

The Kings's Grave – largest burial cairn in Finland.

Kuninkaanhauta

Kuninkaanhauta, literally the King’s Grave, is the largest burial cairn in Finland. It’s located right along the road, so everyone passing by is sure to notice this pile of stones rising up to 4,5 meters in height. It has never been researched from the inside but based on the location it has been dated to the early half of the Bronze Age 3500 years ago.

If you have never seen cairns before, this one surely is an imposing place to start. It’s also a good place to start touring other Bronze Age sites nearby, as seen on this guide (page 15).

Address: Paneliantie 9
ETRS-TM35FIN: 6797558, 230520

There's no parking area for Kuninkaanhauta, but as the site is so close to the main street, you can easily find places to leave your car for a few minutes. There's also an information sign about the site across the street from the cairn.

Käräjämäki

Court circle of Käräjämäki.

In my first exam about archaeology, I was already asked to tell about the Käräjämäki site. While I remember making only speculations based on the name of the site (literally “court hill”), nowadays the site is much more familiar to me. It’s best known for twelve stones, typically known as a “court circle”, which mark a late Iron Age (600-1200 AD) burial site. One of such graves was thought to have belonged to a chieftain, as the warrior had been buried with rich grave goods, including a great ironed shield, sword and unused sharpening stone made of quartzite.

The site is now a popular tourist attraction with information signs about the history of the area and the results of archaeological research. It lies close to Naurava Lohikäärme ("laughing dragon"), an information center of prehistory, which is also definitely worth visiting in order to get even more out of your Eura experience!

Address: Käräjämäentie 8
ETRS-TM35FIN: 6786772, 238382

There is a small parking area in front of the information sign. A small path takes you to the court circle site on top of the hill across the street.

Luistari

Sign after sign!

Luistari is the most thoroughly researched Iron Age site in Finland and it's best known for it’s vast graveyard consisting of hundreds of archaeologically researched graves from 600–1050 AD. Now the graveyard is a protected heritage site with signs portraying stories of the people once buried there – including the famous "mistress of Eura"! There’s also a small museum exhibiting the excavations and the history of the site, so it's easy to dive into the history of Luistari even without knowing anything about it in advance!

The site has seen a lot of activities lately, as it now has a new website and an active Facebook page. While a lot of new data has been recently published, more papers are still waiting for a publication making the site central to Finnish archaeology for years to come!

Address: Luistarintie 15
ETRS-TM35FIN: 6785049, 238556

The aforementioned address marks the building opposite to Luistari, but if you put it on the navigator, you can follow the Luistari signs as you turn on the Luistarintie road. There's a parking area in front of the small museum.

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As mentioned before, there's a plenty of other sites to see in Eura from the Kauttua hill fort to the hundreds of Iron Age cairns in Harola, so you won't run out of places to see easily! You can find more information about the other sites in the aforementioned Naurava Lohikäärme or guide, which even has a few suggested paths around Eura.

During my research into the prehistory of Eura, I also noticed that there are still a plenty of uncharted areas waiting for a proper archaeological survey. So, who knows what still lies within the ground waiting to be found! In any case, Eura has definitely proven that it's one of the hot spots of Finnish archaeology!

Fragmented axe from a Stone Age site discovered in June.