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rooms, for example, in the middle of the Eastern Block and in the floor of the ground floor of the Southern
Block (Fig. 31) whole bricks had been laid in parallel rows. Elsewhere for the floors uncovered in the
excavations mostly varied material had been used – bricks of different sizes, their halves and fragments,
in some places large-size stone plates were inserted. The floor of the ground floor of the north-eastern
corner of the core of the castle is covered with large-size bricks that have been laid on a 4 cm thick layer
of sand. They have been arranged in pairs making squares, and the brick direction has been changed in
every proximal square (Graudonis 2005, 72; Jansons 2007, 52).
Ceramic tiles could be used also for covering of walls, but in the Middle Ages this was done very
seldom. Wall tiles came into more extensive use only in the 17
th
century. No tiles fastened to walls have
been uncovered in Turaida Castle, therefore it can be presumed that all the finds had been applied for
flooring purposes.
Conclusion
In order to erect a huge brick castle thousands of bricks and roof tiles were needed. Currently, only
a small part of them has been preserved in the walls of Turaida towers and brickwork. Part of them were
torn out of the collapsing brick walls and in the 19
th
century they were used for construction of estate
buildings. Still others broke down and crumbled as the walls collapsed, and along with debris rolled
down the steep slopes or slid down into the gully. A small number of whole bricks were obtained during
the excavations in the last quarter of the 20
th
century when the masonry debris was cleared away. At that
time many of the whole old bricks were used for restoration works, but a large number had crumbled
into tiny fragments and could not be retrieved. Only a few more interesting samples of building ceramics
can be viewed in the museum’s exposition or are stored in its collection. Samples of them can be seen in
this catalogue.
Since bricks and roof tiles have been made of similar shapes for several centuries, dating of them
according to shape can be only approximate. Unfortunately, the finding conditions and layers of the most
part of Turaida building ceramic finds were not precisely documented during the excavations. Also the
previous investigations in other Latvian medieval castles have provided only approximate evidences which
are insufficient for elaboration of a more precise chronology of building ceramics. Therefore, for the time
being the finds shall be referred to a time period of several centuries. Hopefully, in the future information
about the building ceramics of other Baltic castles will be summarised, so that new conclusions can be
made. Also, the possibilities of technical sciences have been still used little in our country. For example,
elsewhere in Europe the method of thermoluminescence dating of ceramic objects was applied already
several decades ago (Gläser-Mührenberg 1996, 62). Probably, in future new discoveries in exact sciences
will bring the opportunity to update the information about ancient bricks, roof tiles and floor tiles of
Turaida Castle.