Rågskär
DatedEst. 3500–2800 BCE
No licensed photograph yetWe have no photograph we may publish for this site, so the interpretive 3D view leads instead.
Overview
About this site
Overview
Rågskär is an island in the Gulf of Finland (Swedish Finska viken), in the municipality of Borgå, in the region of Nyland, southern Finland. It is a registered archaeological site, listed in the catalogue as a megalith with a typological estimate of 3500 to 2800 BCE.
No description of the monument itself is recorded.
Read on Wikipedia2 min readCC BY-SA 4.0
Where it sits in time
The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.
The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.
Article
Rågskär
SettingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Swedish): Rågskär, BorgåCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Swedish): Rågskär, BorgåCC BY-SA 4.0
The island lies about 31 kilometres east of Helsinki. It has an area of 17.1 hectares and a greatest length of 0.6 kilometres from north to south, and rises about 20 metres above sea level. The catalogue places it at 60.1884, 25.5056.
More than 2,000 Swedish and Finnish records, and a handful of Norwegian ones, are catalogued under the general heading 'megalith'.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Swedish): Rågskär, BorgåCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Swedish): Rågskär, BorgåCC BY-SA 4.0
More than 2,000 Swedish and Finnish records, and a handful of Norwegian ones, are catalogued under the general heading 'megalith'. They cover the many kinds of stone setting left by the Nordic Bronze Age and Iron Age: standing stones, round and triangular settings, stone circles, ship settings and cairns, usually forming part of a grave field.
The site at Anundshög near Västerås illustrates the range. It covers an area of about 215 by 205 metres and has 42 remains: 12 burial mounds, 10 round stone settings, 5 stone ships, 14 standing stones and one runestone. Many of the 'megaliths' of the north are not Neolithic monuments of the western European kind but grave markers of later periods.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Nordic standing stones and stone settings
The Atlas files over 2,000 Swedish and Finnish records, and a handful of Norwegian ones, under the general heading "megalith". They are the many kinds of stone setting that the Nordic Bronze Age and Iron Age left behind: standing stones, round and triangular settings, stone circles, ship settings and cairns, usually forming part of a grave field.
The clearest guide is the site at Anundshög near Västerås. It covers an area of about 215 by 205 metres and has 42 remains: 12 burial mounds, 10 round stone settings, 5 stone ships, 14 standing stones and one runestone. The largest mound is 64 to 68 metres across and 9.2 metres high, and a hearth at its base was radiocarbon dated to between 210 and 540 CE. Such a mixed site is typical: many of the "megaliths" of the north are not Neolithic monuments of the western European kind, but grave markers of the Bronze Age, the Iron Age and the Viking Age.
In Scandinavia a standing stone is a bauta (bautastein). The Heimskringla of Snorri Sturluson says that the custom was to burn the dead and raise monoliths for them, and in Sweden menhirs were raised as markers for warriors' graves until the thirteenth century. The ship settings, with outlines of ships made of stones, belong to the same world: they were erected from about 1000 BCE to 1000 CE.
Dating is usually by typology, since few of these settings have been excavated. Where charcoal has been found, as at Anundshög, radiocarbon dates give the period.
A setting of unknown type is given a broad range from the Bronze Age to the Viking Age.
When visiting, look for settings in grave fields on dry ridges, and notice how the shapes (round, triangular, ship-shaped) change from one group to the next.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Stone circle, Wikipedia: Ship setting, Wikipedia: Bautastone, Wikipedia: Anundshög, Wikipedia: List of menhirs · CC BY-SA 4.0
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 3500–2800 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for megaliths in Finland; this site has not been dated itself. Finnish megalithic monuments belong to the Nordic megalith tradition which emerged predominantly between 3500 and 2800 BC.Source for this date
Where it stands
Finland
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 60°11′18″ N, 25°30′20″ EFor a GPS or map app: 60.18835, 25.50560
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
- MegalithAndersholmen3500–2800 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Hamnholmen 12000–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Storholmen2000–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Pedarsändan2000–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Klobbudden2000–500 BCE
- MegalithSkallerhamn3500–2800 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Lervik2000–500 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Sandvik2000–500 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q24315183wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Rågskär, Borgå" (Swedish), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors
- Wikipedia (Swedish): Rågskär, BorgåCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q24315183CC0