Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags - 01.01.1949, Page 117

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Icelandic farm house from this ancient type to the very different final
stage represented by the stone and turf farm house of the turn of the
last century is in many respects obscure. There is no doubt, however, that
a sufficient number of excavations of the numerous deserted farms found
all over the country would yield the material necessary for the writing
of the history of that development. The present article is to be regarded
as a contribution to such a history.
Both of the farm ruins described were excavated by the author. One
is situated in a place called Forna-Lá in West Iceland, the other in Sandár-
tunga in the valley of Þjórsárdalur in South Iceland. The former is
dated approximately to the period 1450—1550 by an imported (Norwegian)
copper pot (p. 107) found in the ruins; the latter was deserted after a
catastrophic eruption of Iiekla in 1693, when great quantities of volcanic
ash destroyed the vegetation in the neighbourhood of the mountain. Both
ruins are of the same type: 4 and 5 small rooms, respectively, grouped
on both sides a passage leading from the outer door through the complex.
At Forna-Lá one of the rooms seems to have been a coivshed, but the
two baek-houses were clearly a kitclien and a living rooni (the socalled
baðstofa). Under the fioors throughout the whole building runs a system
of stone covered channels to drain off leakage; these channels empty under
the outer door. In Sandártunga the living room (baðstofa) with three bed-
steads is easily recognizable (I), but none of the other rooms shows any
characteristic signs of a particular use. The passage-house type of farm
is indeed very well known all the way down to modern times, but it is as
yet unknown among the ruins of the Saga-time, and its origin is un-
certain.
Both ruins belong to a period in Icelandic history that is marked by
the utmost poverty, especially at the time of the Sandártunga farm house.
It is to be expected that the incredibly wretched condition of the people
should be reflected in such dwellings as that of Sandártunga, and small
and primitive they are indeed, the houses of those people, who by their
utmost effort could hope to do no more than satisfy the most elementary
needs of life.
In an appendix Dr. Sigurdur Thorarinsson cites the contemporary sour-
ces on the eruption of 1693 and describes the position of the pumice layer
in relation to the ruins, which he finds to parallel exactly the situation
at Stöng farm in Þjórsárdalur and at Þórarinsstaðir, described in Árbólc
for 1943—48. Thus Sandártunga confirms Thorarinsson’s opinion that
these mediaeval farms too were davastated by volcanic ash.