Labyrinths in Estonia by John Kraft & Urmas Selirand
Originally published in Caerdroia 23 (1990), p.32-37
Estonia has at least five, and maybe as many as nine, historic stone labyrinths documented. They are all situated on islands along the coast, in those parts of Estonia that were colonized by Swedish speaking farmers and fishers during the mediaeval period. This pattern of distribution can be compared with Finland where most stone labyrinths are also found along the coast in areas where Swedish speaking farmers and fishers settled in the early mediaeval. The most reasonable interpretation of this pattern is that the idea of building and using stone labyrinths was part of the cultural heritage brought in from the west by Swedish settlers.
Karl von Löwis of Menar mentioned an Estonian labyrinth situated at Tahkuna, on the northern tip of Dagö, in 1912. In 1925 A.M. Tallgren mentioned two labyrinths: the one at Tahkuna and another on the little island of Viirlaid. Peeter Mey wrote an article in the Estonian newspaper Päevaleht in 1931, where he mentions that there was a partly preserved labyrinth on the island of Aegna near the Estonian capital, Tallinn. Mey also mentions that there were labyrinths on the islands of Aski and Prangli in the same area.
A local farmer told Urmas Selirand, director of the local museum on Dagö, about the labyrinths at Kootsaare in 1984, and Urmas excavated one of these labyrinths in 1986. In 1989 Urmas made contact with John Kraft, which led to an exchange of information and plans for a joint "expedition" to excavate the second Kootsaare labyrinth during the summer of 1990.
More at https://labyrinthos.net/C23%20Estonia.pdf
There are more archive articles from Caerdroia - the Journal of Mazes & Labyrinths here
https://labyrinthos.net/caerdroiaarchive.html
and find out more about Labyrinthos here
https://www.labyrinthos.net/digitaldownload.html
Something is not right. This message is just to keep things from messing up down the road