See and experience

Sammallahdenmäki was included on the UNESCO World Heritage list in December 1999 as the first prehistoric archaelogical site in Finland. The burial cairns were included on the list as the most representative site of Western Bronze Age culture in Finland and the entire Scandinavia. The Bronze Age relics and the well-preserved rocky landscape form a valuable whole.

World heritage is our shared treasure

The Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage aims to preserve the mankind’s unique cultural and natural heritage for the future generations. The Convention forms a basis for international co-operation in protecting and saving the cultural and natural heritage. The Convention was signed in 1972 and in 1987 Finland joined in. The countries that have signed the Convention can propose sites for the World Heritage list. In 2023, in total of 1157 sites were listed. The sites are divided into cultural and natural sites, but some of the sites have features of both categories.

In Finland, seven especially valuable sites are a part of mankind’s world heritage. The protection of world heritage is based on UNESCO’s Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. One of the Finnish sites is a natural heritage site, Kvarken Archipelago, and six are cultural heritage sites: Old Rauma, Fortress of Suomenlinna, Petäjävesi Old Church, Verla Groundwood and Board Mill, Bronze Age Burial Site of Sammallahdenmäki and Stuve Geodetic Arc.