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Iron fording and building ironwork in the territory of Latvia
63
IRON FORGING AND BUILDING IRONWORK
IN THE TERRITORY OF LATVIA IN THE
13th–18th CENTURIES
Review of the sources and literature
Archaeological finds – building ironwork in the collection of Turaida Museum Reserve
lies at the basis of this catalogue. Already in 1953, separate iron artefacts at Turaida Castle were
revealed near the keep or the Main Tower when archaeologist Adolfs Stubavs (1913–1986) car-
ried out some excavations in connection with the restoration of the top floor of the tower. Still,
most of the building ironwork and their fragments – more than a thousand – were excavated
in 1974 and 1976–2000 under the supervision of archaeologist Jānis Graudonis (1913–2005)
(Graudonis 1978; Graudonis 2003). Some iron artefacts were found also later when performing
rescue excavations in Turaida Castle courtyard in the first decade of the 21st century.
Written records. It is possible to trace only some written evidence for specifying the dat-
ing and application of separate items of building ironwork found in the territory of Turaida
Castle. Unfortunately, in the Livonian documents there is hardly any reference to iron building
details up to the second half of the 16th century. Some information is provided by the Riga
smith’s guild regulations of 1382 and 1578 (Stieda, Mettig 1896). In the 16th century registers of
the Riga town finance office (
Kämmerei
) expenses for different iron building details, especially
nails for repairing the city fortifications, were entered (Bulmerincq 1902, 209, 226 ff.). Some
iron fittings are mentioned in several household expense records of Livonian estates. For ex-
ample, in the expense records of Tiesenhausen estate of 1580 there is an entry on the purchase
of door fittings, in 1592 – of 3000 roofing nails; Bērzaune church inventory of 1583 contains a
recording on some orders made to the smith, including iron glazing bars for the new windows
The catalogue contains 200 briefly described pictures of building ironwork from the ruins
of Turaida Castle. The selected artefacts represent samples of different shapes, sizes, and time
periods. It is to be underlined that this is a selective catalogue as it includes whole artefacts and
only a few artefact fragments and such building details where inferring their functions was
possible. As estate buildings in the territory of Turaida Castle ruins existed also in the 19th and
20th centuries the upper horizons of the cultural layer revealed separate building ironwork;
nevertheless, it is not included in the catalogue.