The road to hell in three German coins (and three decades)

Hi this is Jan again :). Today was our fourth day of excavating  the German transition camp and the finds just rolled in once again.  Almost immediately we found these three German coins in the same tight context. They kind of show the road from peace time to war time in design and years (1904, 1924 and 1939).

Three German coins.

Most of the area of Cape Tulliniemi is a nature reserve where all unauthorized digging is prohibited by law,.

Today the weather wasn´t what the forecast promised but we managed to stay dry for most of the day :). The damp weather was ideal for digging the more fragile items like those of paper or cloth.

The sea was calm on the northern side of Cape Tulliniemi near the German officers camp.

The Finnish senior reporter Markku Veijalainen filmed our work for his upcoming documentary about Cape Tulliniemi. What a great guy!

Markku films, we  dig.

Todays finds included more beautifully preserved paper items (documents etc.), leather straps and boot leather, fragments of uniform cloth and of course the heap of food ration tins keeps mounting :)

 Kettle and Wehrmacht standard ration food cans in excavation layer one.

Fragment of  Gernan uniform cloth. The green color is still as vibrant as it was in 1943.

German medical tubes, the one below was made in Hannover and once contained "Boorsalbe".

With the first week of excavations almost over I will take the opportunity to thank my great staff, archaeology students Jasmin Jyrä, Anni Tolppanen and Jordan Paddison. I would also like to thank Hangö sommaruniversitet, Taideyliopisto, Leica Finland and the people at the Freeport of Hanko, Finland and Yrsa Krüne for the lovely accomodation. Last but not least I would like to give a big thanks to all of you who participated in the excavation this week!!

Happy digging in Hanko :)

Interesting day number three!

Hello everyone, I'm Jasmin from the University of Aberdeen, but originally from Finland. What a lovely day number three has been in Hanko! We changed our excavation to area II which was full of metal, glass and porcelain objects. The place was full of mosquitoes, but we survived thanks to the smell of Summer (Finnish mosquito repellant). Me and Anni opened a test pit close to the actual excavation area and it is looking very promising. I can't wait for tomorrow!

Still readable after 70+ years in the ground.

 Soviet WW2 item, a soldiers mug.

Mauser cartridge with a new makers mark P 207 for "Metallwerke Odertal".

Small German medicine bottle.

The Aberdeen Archaeology Squad. 

Second day at Deutsches Lager, Hanko

What an amazingly sunny second day of digging it was here in Hanko! Hello everyone- it's Anni, an archaeology student from the University of Aberdeen, originally from Finland.

Today we finished the trial excavation of the "Entlausungdsorf" area and had a quick but efficient backfilling session- a big thank you for all the Hangö Sommaruni students for the hard work. Similarly to yesterday we had quite a few finds, some of our favourites you can see at the end of this post. We finished this warm and sunny day with cleaning some of the finds and getting our daily dose of vitamin D.

 Cleaning the finds and enjoying the warmth.  

 The fork part of a German spoon fork. 

 A whistle.

 

 A glass pot with an iron rim.

 Whetstone. 

 A cap from a tube of Blendax toothpaste. 

A medical device - possibly a pipette. 

The First Day At Deutsches Lager, Hanko.

Hi there, I´m Jordan - a 21 year old Archaeology student from the UK, who´s studying Archaeology with Anglo-Saxon and Celtic Studies at the University of Aberdeen. I´m assisting Jan on his 2016 stage of the Deutches Lager excavation, and with a small amount of sleep (due to my inexperience of the continuous light of Finnish nightime) I experienced my first day on site!

A large collection of artefacts were excavated today including those constructed of glass, Porcelain, Iron and Aluminium - as well as a selection of other materials. I´ll now present to you some of mine - and the rest of the team´s - favourite pieces!

 Fragments of massive glass ashtray.

 Finnish coin (1932) fountain (ink) pen nib and a bakelite gas protection related item (1938).

A mystery Bakelite item..

An ornate snuff box.

Part of a "Rucksack" strap (possibly Gebirgsjäger related)

Only one week until the start of the large scale conflict archaeology excavations of "Deutsches Lager Hanko"!!

It is now only one week until we will start the large scale, three week conflict archaeology excavation of "Deutsches Lager Hanko" (27.6.-15.7.2016). The excavation is part of my doctoral dissertation about the archaeology of the former German transition camp. All finds are kept by Hanko Museum.

I will be updating here on a daily basis when the excavations start!

The conflict archaeology excavation will take place on Cape Tulliniemi in Hanko S. Finland. The area is mostly a natural reserve (the green areas)-

Welcome to Finland and Hanko, archaeology students Jasmin Jyrä, Anni Tolppanen and Jordan 'Paddy' Paddison (University of Aberdeen dpt. of archaeology) and of course Anu Varjo (University of Helsinki dpt. of archaeology)! It´s a priviledge to have You here!

I would also like to welcome all the over 30 excavation participants from different parts of Finland and abroad!

The excavation is organised and financed by Hangö Sommaruniversitet. Part of the accomodation costs are covered by "Taideyliopisto" for the "Poetic Archaeology" project! We use Leica Zeno 20 in our research.

Wonderful undisturbed stone-age dwelling site found in Kangasala Finland today

What a context! The site was fund during archaeological surveying by archaeologist Ulla Moilanen. The finds consisted of large amounts of quartz flakes and burnt bone. Congratulations Ulla!

View from the newly found stone-age site at Kuhmalahti, Kangasala. Seems like nothing much has changed here since the stone-age!

One of the many high quality quartz flakes found on the site!

"Aktia-Stiftelsen i Hangö" grant for "Deutsches Lager Hanko 1942-1944"

Today I received confirmation that "Aktia-Stiftelsen i Hangö" has granted our project a quite substantial amount of money for the 2016 conflict archaeology research of  "Deutsches Lager Hanko 1942-1944".

Visits to the German camp with students from local schools since 2014.

Aktia has been supporting our work since 2015 but this time the money arrived at a very crucial stage of the project,with the first publications, the extended large community archaeology digs of the German WW2 transition camp and of course the opening up of the area and guided tours for local  as well as foreign visitors.

Guided tours with "Hanko oppaat" from the summer of 2016.

At the moment I feel both relieved and excited at the same time. Thank You to all in Hanko who believed in the project, participated in the excavations and helped me since that first day in April 2014.

Jan

Day three, excavating "Deutsches Lager Hanko"

Today was the third and final day of the trial excavations of Deutsches Lager Hanko with students from local schools. I would like to thank all of you who participated in the dig this year. Happy holidays to all of You!!

Below are some pictures of a few of the German WW2 finds from today!

Jan

 Happy digging!

 Kriegsmarine tunic button.

More German WW2 porcelain. 

 German ink bottle.

"Odol Mundwasser" bottle.

 Leather strap with buckle.

 Eau de cologne glass bottle.

 Glass eye from a Teddybear or doll!

Unused German condom.

Many German soldier were in a desperate need of a haircut befor leaving on "Heimaturlaub". Long 4-8 cm strands of blond hair from "Deutsches Lager Hanko"