Collections

The archaeological collection of Tallinn University consists of the following sub-collections:

• Archaeological collections (incl. artefacts and ecofacts: items, numismatics, animal and human bones), with an approximate amount of 1.5 million finds, which include 107,000 coins, 1,400 treasured objects, and ca. 20,000 boxes of animal and human bones.
• Archaeological archive or documentation collection and library (incl. excavation documents and maps, speciality publications and manuscripts).
• Collections supporting research (incl. reference collections of bones, seeds, plant remains, also soil, charcoal, wood and metal samples).

The archaeological research collection is constantly growing, reaching 1,000 to 20,000 artefacts per year. Such a large variation in the receipt of new finds is due to the difference in excavation volumes. In addition to the material gathered from archaeological excavations, the collections are also expanded with finds from landscape inspections and randomly found artefacts.