Kevin Barton
(Landscape & Geophysical Services)
The Mystery of the ‘Rovaniemi Cross’
Walking along the snowy bank of a frozen river in Northern Finland an iconic profile became evident. It was the ringed head of what appeared to be a Celtic cross (Figure 1a). Why was this on a riverbank in Lapland? There appeared to be no signage. The carved stone was indistinct. I decided to take some photos which resulted in a collection of 28 overlapping images which I later processed using photogrammetry to visualise the carving (Figure 1b). I present my virtual journey from Finland to England, Norway, Ireland and back to Finland in a quest to solve the mystery.
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Kevin is an archaeological geophysicist. He was Co-Director of the Heritage Council-funded ArchaeoGeophysical Imaging Project in the Rathcroghan Complex which carried out Ireland’s first multi-method remote sensing survey. He has surveyed over 100 sites dating from the Neolithic to the 1940’s and has pioneered hands-on community engagement in remote sensing.