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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
Āraiši Lake fortress is one ot ten lake fortresses in Latvia.
It is familiar like an archaeological monument already since 1876. Later (1959-1964), when lake settlements of this kind were discovered in another nine lakes of the Vidzeme region, Āraiši was selected for more extensive research. A research team from the Institute of Latvian History worked here for ten seasons, excavating three quarters of the total area of 2500 m2 lake fortress, as well as the route connecting it with the shore.
It was established in the course of excavation that Āraiši Lake Fortress had been built and inhabitet in the 9th-10th century by the community belonging to the largest ancient Latvian tribe - the Latgallians. The fortress was built in the lake for defensive purposes, on a low island subject to inundation, and was fortified in a manner similar to hill-forts. The cultural layer consisted of five sequential settlement phases without any chronological interruption. Well preserved in the saturated cultural layer were the remains of wooden buildings, so it was possible to determine the plan of the individual buildings and of the settlement as a whole, and the methods of construction.
Āraiši Lake Fortress is the first extensively excavated and reconstructed archaelogical site of this kind in north-eastern Europe. |
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