Piispankivi – rajamerkki vai sittenkin jotakin muuta?

Abstrakti

Piispankivi is a monumental stone structure in Bothnian Bay, built on the island of Iso-Huituri in the coastal area of the town of Tornio. Its cubical stone filled feature is appr. three metres high and has four appr. six metres wide walls. Explanations for the purpose of this man-made structure derive from the name of the structure: Bishop’s stone. According to the prevailing interpretation, Piispankivi would be a part of a chain of boundary markers between the dioceses of Uppsala and Turku, which extends to Western Lapland. The structure would have been built as a boundary marker around 1346 or shortly after the bishops of Uppsala and Turku met in the Bothnian Bay to agree on regional and tax matters.

In this paper we propose another explanation. In our view old maps, documentation of border disputes from the 16^th to 18^th centuries, and traditional border demarcation practices at sea do not support the interpretation of the Piispankivi as a sign of the diocesan boundary, instead they reveal arguments against it. We would suggest an explanation based on the structure’s monumental symbolism, which is supported by the massiveness of the structure and the large amount of work it required at sea, far from settlements. We consider it most likely that the Piispankivi would have been erected by the Bishop of Uppsala and built by local peasants in the 1370s or later as a massive monument in the disputed border region to mark the archbishop's territory with its taxing rights against the power aspirations of Novgorod. At present, Piispankivi is one of the oldest ancient monuments preserved in its original form in Northern Finland.