Finger of a saint, thumb of a priest: medieval relics in the Diocese of Turku, and the archaeology of lived bodies

The relics of Turku Cathedral are remains belonging to the bodies of holy persons, different from ours, even today, although the cathedral is the see for the archbishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, and relics are not on public display. Among the relics of the cathedral, there is a fragment of a radius, which according to its authentica, belongs to St Henry. Relics and reliquaries were in the core of medieval piety, and the cult of saints had infused throughout the society. Due to their central position in culture, relics offer glimpses at a range of material, social and cultural phenomena related to medieval embodiment.The Department of Archaeology at the University of Turku began to study the finger relic of St Eric and other items in the assemblage of Turku Cathedral in 2007. Relics and reliquaries are being opened and documented and organic as well as inorganic samples are being taken for a range of scientific analyses. So far the project has concentrated on building a chronological chart of individual artefacts. The majority of the relics date to the fourteenth century, although much more recent datings have also been obtained. The challenge of the project is not to stop when a better understanding of materials, their origins and age has been accomplished, but to use the results as a steppingstone into a study of the practices of medieval relic veneration. Medieval bodies and those material processes which authenticate relics, or distinguish saints’ bodies from other human remains, are thus at the heart of this article discussing embodiment

Kansalaistiede on todellista tieteen avoimuutta

Asiantuntijoiden ja tutkimuksesta kiinnostuneiden yhteisöjen toteuttamat tutkimusprojektit ovat suositumpia kuin koskaan aikaisemmin. Tutkijoita haastava kansalaistiede on herättänyt myös säätiöt toimimaan. Ne ovat ottaneet aktiivisen roolin kansalaistiedettä hyödyntävien hankkeiden rahoittajina ja edesauttavat näin tieteen avoimuuden toteutumista

Developing millennial tree-ring chronology for Turku (Åbo) and comparing palaeoclimatic signals inferred from archaeological, subfossil and living Pinus sylvestris data in Southwest Finland

Archaeological and living tree data were used to construct tree-ring chronologies over the medieval (AD 1183–1430) and recent (AD 1812–2020) periods in Turku, which is historically an important population centre in Southwest Finland and the country. Comparisons between the two tree-ring assemblages, and between the previously built chronologies from the Åland (historical timber) and Tavastia (lacustrine subfossils and living trees) sites, provided ways of under standing the growth patterns and their linkages to climatic, environmental, and edaphic factors. Tree growth in and around Turku was affected by warm-season precipitation and winter temperature. Similar elationships were previously evident also in the Åland tree rings, whereas the data from a wetter Tavastia site did not exhibit similar precipitation signal. The site conditions influence also the correlations which are higher between Turku and Åland than between Turku and Tavastia chronologies. Construction of long continuous chronology is impaired by human-related activities, the Great Fire of Turku in 1827 and logging, which have diminished the availability of dead and living-tree materials, respectively. These conditions lead to hardships of filling the gap between the medieval and recent periods and updating the archaeological datasets with compatible living-tree data, which are both demonstrated by our results