Ruins of a 13th Century Building Found in Estonia

During excavations on the city hill of Rosma, charred ruins of one of Estonia's largest ancient structures were discovered, according to ERR.ee.

Archaeologists had initially planned to excavate the former fortress well on Rosma Hill but instead found the charred logs of a massive building. The find is considered unique as the structure in Rosma is only slightly smaller in size than the largest known ancient building in Estonia, which was unearthed on Lihula Hill.

"We are currently working on excavating the walls of the building. Initially, only the upper ends of the walls were visible, and now we are trying to uncover the entire logs and see where they all lead," said Karin Rannaar, a master's student in archaeology.

Dating back to the 13th century, the discovered building spans an area of approximately 50 square meters and could have served as a representative structure or a granary since the floor was covered in charred grains.

"One wall of the building measures eight meters in length... with logs notched into each other and interlocking at right angles. But all of this is unusually large, especially considering the remote location of southern Estonia, where we have very limited information about the surrounding area, as if there were few or no people at all. And yet, suddenly, the largest and strongest fortresses in southern Estonia were built here," said archaeology professor Heiki Valk.

In previous news, The Gaze reported that underwater archaeologists in Croatia discovered remnants of an ancient passage on the floor of the Adriatic Sea, connecting an ancient settlement to an island. The carefully laid stone slabs forming a four-meter-long structure were part of the artificial island-to-shore communication. The university released new footage of the underwater passage, constructed with stacked stones and measuring nearly 3.6 meters in diameter. Radiocarbon analysis of preserved wood found within the ruins established the settlement's approximate age at around 4900 BCE. Flint blades, stone axes, and fragments of pottery were also discovered in the underwater ruins.

Earlier, it was announced that Vitaliy Kozyuba, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, confirmed the presence of a cultural layer on Obolonsky Island, which requires further investigation. Vitaliy Kozyuba personally discovered and confirmed the remains of the cultural layer on the island. Without any tools, scientists found ancient pottery in the area where the soil had been washed away by water.