A Door in Use in Tallinn Appeared to Be Over 600 Years Old

Abstract

In a medieval tower in the Tallinn Old Town wall there is a woodeninternal door that was suspected of being rather old. The age of thedoor was determined using dendrochronology. It was possible tomeasure tree rings from the lower ends of the oak planks of the door.Matching the ring-width series with oak references from northernEurope revealed that the door was over 600 years old, and still inplace in medieval Bremen Tower in Tallinn, Estonia. The ring-widthseries of the door was most similar to oak chronology from theDaugava River. However, this does not mean that the door timbersoriginate from that region. At present, we do not possess Estonianoak chronologies extending back to that time. Thus, the provenanceof the oak for this door remains undecided. The dendrochronologicaldate of the door, AD 1394–1411, can be confirmed and can be narrowedby documentary evidence to AD 1400–1410.