This paper explores the influence of merchants operating out of Germany in medieval Turku by comparing the evidence of documentary reports and the quantity and distribution of imported pottery. The documents make it clear that German merchants were present in the town and generally keep themselves aloof from the local citizens. But the pottery tells a different and more subtle story of interaction and involvement in which all parties are potential drivers. The author calls into question the ethnic and exploitative models for a Hansa culture, preferring a post-colonial interpretation that allows us to see the formation of cultures that are hybrid and local in context.

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The concept of archaeological heritage management (AHM) has been key to wider archaeological research and preservation agendas for some decades. Many universities and other education providers now offer what is best termed heritage management education (HME) in various forms. The emphasis is commonly on archaeological aspects of heritage in a broad sense and different terms are often interchangeable in practice. In an innovative working-conference held in Tampere, Finland, we initiated a debate on what the components of AHM as a course or curriculum should include. We brought together international specialists and discussed connected questions around policy, practice, research and teaching/training, at local, national, transnational and World Heritage levels. In this article we take the Tampere discussions further, focusing especially on the meaning, necessity, implications and prerequisites of interdisciplinary HME. We offer our thoughts on developing HME that reflects the contemporary aspects and needs of heritage and its management.

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The relics of Turku Cathedral are remains belonging to the bodies of holy persons, different from ours, even today, although the cathedral is the see for the archbishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, and relics are not on public display. Among the relics of the cathedral, there is a fragment of a radius, which according to its authentica, belongs to St Henry. Relics and reliquaries were in the core of medieval piety, and the cult of saints had infused throughout the society. Due to their central position in culture, relics offer glimpses at a range of material, social and cultural phenomena related to medieval embodiment.The Department of Archaeology at the University of Turku began to study the finger relic of St Eric and other items in the assemblage of Turku Cathedral in 2007. Relics and reliquaries are being opened and documented and organic as well as inorganic samples are being taken for a range of scientific analyses. So far the project has concentrated on building a chronological chart of individual artefacts. The majority of the relics date to the fourteenth century, although much more recent datings have also been obtained. The challenge of the project is not to stop when a better understanding of materials, their origins and age has been accomplished, but to use the results as a steppingstone into a study of the practices of medieval relic veneration. Medieval bodies and those material processes which authenticate relics, or distinguish saints’ bodies from other human remains, are thus at the heart of this article discussing embodiment.