Skeleton found on Tallinn street is believed to be centuries old
The skeleton Tallinna Vesi found during their excavation works last week is believed to be from an Early Modern burial site. The Heritage Protection Department of the Tallinn Urban Planning Department told ERR that previously, they had found buried soldiers.
Archeologist at the Heritage Protection Department Ragnar Nurk said the bones originate from the Early Modern period, between 16th and 18th centuries.
"It is not a regular burial, but rather an emergency burial site, where, for example, soldiers have been buried based on previous burials," said Nurk, referencing a case from a few years ago when they found a body with a sword attached to it on the construction of Jacobson 13 apartment complex.
The heritage protection officers will finish their research at the site on Thursday and Friday. According to Nurk, there are probably more bones and caskets.
"We will receive concrete results during the research. Since it is not a regular graveyard, it might not be buried uniformly around the entire area. It might have been buried in different parts of sanding at different times."
The burial site is not shown in any written sources or historical cityscape plans. The first noted finding of bones is from the 1930s, is during the construction of buildings or the application of pipes.
"We are only dealing with one burial site that was founded behind the suburbs, far away from Liivalaia-Pronski that had a rather sandy soil. In this case, we can see they have been buried inside of dunes", he said.
During the construction of the Tallinn Music and Ballet School (MUBA), they studied another burial site that originated from the Northern War. A similar burial site was previously found on Ravi tänav.
The Heritage Protection Department of the Tallinn Urban Planning Department has requested the government put the site under protection as an archeological monument.
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Editor: Lotta Raidna
