Kari Uotila, Muuritutkimus

Keywords: town archaeology; 3d documentation; free museum

The archeological research was focused on the medieval city center of Turku, on the riverside, near the medieval market place. Since the 14th century the area has been the focus for commerce in Turku. From the end of the 14th century onwards, brick and mortar houses were built here. The old medieval town was destroyed in the fire of 1827, a fire that destroyed almost the whole town. After the fire the 400 – 500 year old buildings were demolished, the old streets were covered over and the whole town got a new town plan.
At the excavation site most of a 300 m2 building has been excavated, and about 500-550 m3 of different archaeological layers has been removed. Timeline of these layers are from the early 14th to 19th centuries. Most of the filling layers are from after the fire of 1827. At that time the vaults under the brick houses were broken in and filled with the debris from the floors above. These filling layers are about 2 – 3 m thick.
The rooms and corridors of the two lower levels of two town houses has been excavated. The houses are right next to the medieval street, a street that runs partly under the present building. This medieval street was about 3 m wide and the houses next to it 2 – 3 stories high brick buildings.
Documentation on site was done totally with laser scanning (Riegl). Vizualisation was done with 3dcamera (Matterport).
In hot summer 2018 excavation area was a free pop-up museum area for five weeks. Almost 5000 visitors had possibility to visit ruins in Turku goes Underground 2018 museum project. In spring 2019 project was elected as an archeological achievement of the year 2018.