Hello all! I went to Estonia a couple of years ago and visited the medieval part of Tallinn. Besides the awesome old buildings, medieval architecture and ridiculously cheap and good food I got to visit some of the local museums. Basically the only ones that had armour inside were the Kiek in de Kök and the Town museum. Here's a picture gallery from the Kiek.

Finally I took the time to put up some of the photos I took there. I was in a real hurry when taking these pics, so they're not of the best quality. If you plan on taking pics, I suggest you take them in the evening because it was really hard to not get the reflections from daylight coming from the windows there. Anyways there were some really interesting pieces there. Baleen armour, three very different types of mail, an awesome axehead, a fioreish wooden club and a great insight to armour because of broken joints. BTW I just can't believe how they displayed that Kiek armour. It was only a couple of meters from the door and I was just dreading the moisture that came out of the open door! There was no restrictions to touching the armour ect. Shudder. Although it's a couple years since I went there I'll try to answer any questions you might have.

Here's the pics: http://kuvablogi.com/blog/13620/1/

Hi Risto..........Just wanted to say thanks for this great link ! I have just spent the last couple of months downloading an awful lot of (mostly new) A & A images. I have been filing them by ' Museums' . If I told you how many photos I've downloaded I don't think people would believe me, but it has been a very educational and interesting virtual journey.
So far I have 580 museums on file, and while some only have a few shots in them the largest wins easily with around 1,500 photos and that is the " MUSEE DE L'ÁRMEE (Hôtel des Invalides), Paris ". But I know that there are hundreds more Museums and Castles to "explore".
What fascinated me though is the shear quantity of armour spread across Europe but as westerners we tend to focus on the west side of Europe plus the UK ( apart from Museums in the USA) Because we don't get the same access to Eastern Europe, by way of languages via the web plus books, etc, we cant comprehend the shear number of Museums, Castles and Chateauxs that have Arms and Armour displayed.

Those two links you provided were very interesting. Do you have links to any Museums with A & A ( Say, Vendel to 17th C.) that are in Finland ?

Cheers and all the best !

Merv[/b]

Thank you so much for sharing this with us. It seems that almost every collection has its own unique items, sometimes minor but nevertheless important for research. Being an avid axe collector myself, I found that decorated axe particularly interesting - it is fabolus! I've seen several axes of this type but generaly they are deeply corroded and do not show any kind of embelishment. Ususaly referred as "viking" axes, they spread all over the Baltic Sea and along the Volga River, dated to 10th-11th centuries CE. On this axe, the stylized Ibex shows strong viking influence.
The two crossed berdiches are different: the one on the left looks more Turkish (slender & longer blade, no decorative holes), the one on the right is clearly Russian, though both may be Russian. And as for the armor, it is clearly seen what you said, as the fresh rust stains are evident.

I'd just like to compliment you on the detail you were able to capture on the mail shirt. I found that when I was taking photos of arms and armour in museums, I was inevitably competing with the lighting, which made it difficult to take good photos. How did you deal with this?

Risto,


Thank for providing access to some great pictures. Can you fill in any of the blanks on that baleen armor? How old was it, what ethnic group made it, anything like that. I may be revealing the depth of my ignorance but I have never heard of anything like that before.

Thanks again,



Ken Speed

Very nice pictures, mate. I have to second another poster's comment about the detail you captured on the maille shirts. :cool:

I'll definitely have to visit this area when I go there this fall. I do have a couple questions though. For one, are you a native English speaker? If so (and even if not, as long as your native tongue is anything but Estonian :p), what was the language barrier like while you were there? Was it difficult to get around, or were the people there more or less multi-lingual?

Hisham Gaballa wrote, " It is basically lamellar armour, only with lamellae made of baleen rather than iron. :)"
in response to this question of mine, " Can you fill in any of the blanks on that baleen armor? How old was it, what ethnic group made it, anything like that. I may be revealing the depth of my ignorance but I have never heard of anything like that before"

Hisham, Look, I'm going to assume you were trying to be funny and didn't read the questions I asked, OK?

Ken Speed

Hello all! Sorry for the late reply, because the title oddly shows 0 replys in this thread, which obviously is wrong!

EDIT: Ah, I just noticed that the topic was moved. My bad.

First, Merv. That sounds great, I´ve thought about something like that my self. There is relatively little to no armour in Finnish museums. Mostly what you see is from the 30 years war or some Iron Age shield bosses. So, very little medieval armour. Finnish museums don't like to publish their stuff on the internet, but are very helpful if some of the citizens are interested in getting information on particular museum objects. Usually taking photos using a flash is forbidden and you are only allowed to take photos for your own use and publishing them anywhere is forbidden. That's the reason I haven't posted any of my Finnish museum pics here. They had none of those restrictions in Tallinn. But if you are interested in Finnish museum pics, give me a PM and we'll see if we can work something out. ;)

Sa'ar, have you seen this axehead? That is one of the most splendid axes found in Finland.

Craig, I think I was just lucky with the lighting although a lot of angling and zooming was needed and whole lot of pics! Some of the items were not behind a glass and that helped a lot. I didn't post pics of some items I didn't think were that interesting.

Ken, if I remember right, the baleen armour was situated in a section of the exhibit where they showed inuit stuff like bows and arrows etc. And they were supposed to be from the 18th century or something like that. Maybe even 19th century. Norhern russia I think, but that description covers quite a lot of ground. :p Hisham is quite right, it's just lamellar armour that uses baleen instead of iron. I've seen a lot of fragments before, but never a whole armour!

Jon, I'm not a native English speaker but there should not be any problems using English in Tallin as tourism is a big thing there. A lot of finnish people go there and survive easily with Finnish. Small nation->multilingual people.

BTW. I don't think that the kettle hat which is displayed with the flat section mail is antique. It didn't say it wasn't but it didn't say it was. and seemed a bit new to me.

Thank you Risto!
What a majestic assemblage. The silver inlay technique is interesting - looks like Middle Eastern Koftgari.
In the 2nd pic we can clearly see the forge-welded line where the socket/body of the axe meets the edge.

Thanks for the info, mate. And thanks again for the great pictures! I'm really looking forward to visiting there. :D

Thanks for the pictures. I've been searching for pics of that kettle hat for years. I have had a few friends go to Tallinn but they have come back with out pics for me. Any chance you have more? It is the one with the flat mail.

Thanks for the offer. I'd appreciate the pics.
I cataloging as many posible surviving examples of plate armour from the age of the transition from mail to plate--roughly 1250-1430.

My first thought on seeing your pic was is that the same helm. It looks quite different in the one picture I have seen. Tat pic was shot form a downward angle. Your pic, shot at a lower angle makes the bowl look suspiciously tall. I'm dying to see the other shots to maje some judgements about it.

I'd welcome any other pics of less well known transitional plate armour from you (or fom anyone else who woudl care to share)

Thanks so much!

Hi Guys

Risto,

Wow, I just looked at those picture again and noticed the silver sword hilt next to the gold axe head. Do you know anything more about that hilt? The serpentine like figures on the crossguard look like they are done in the Urnes style although i can't see the details well enough to tell for sure. It would be interesting if it was because that style is the final style of the Gripping Beast in Viking art and yet that style of hilt is, I believe, pretty old. I wonder if it was an old hilt that someone had fancied up.

Doug, can you or anyone else tell me what "flat mail" is? I haven't heard the term before.


Thanks,


Ken Speed

Risto,


Thanks for the information. I may e-mail them and see if I can get more information and some different views of it.


Thanks,


Ken Speed