A Door in Use in Tallinn Appeared to Be Over 600 Years Old
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12697/BJAH.2021.21.04Keywords:
Bremen Tower, door, dendrochronology, oak, tree ringsAbstract
In a medieval tower in the Tallinn Old Town wall there is a wooden
internal door that was suspected of being rather old. The age of the
door was determined using dendrochronology. It was possible to
measure tree rings from the lower ends of the oak planks of the door.
Matching the ring-width series with oak references from northern
Europe revealed that the door was over 600 years old, and still in
place in medieval Bremen Tower in Tallinn, Estonia. The ring-width
series of the door was most similar to oak chronology from the
Daugava River. However, this does not mean that the door timbers
originate from that region. At present, we do not possess Estonian
oak chronologies extending back to that time. Thus, the provenance
of the oak for this door remains undecided. The dendrochronological
date of the door, AD 1394–1411, can be confirmed and can be narrowed
by documentary evidence to AD 1400–1410.