Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags - 01.01.1954, Page 63

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1. kuml, en það er lega þeirra. 1. kuml var þar, sem hæst bar og
eðlilegast grafarstæði var, en 4. kuml í brekkunni þar fyrir neðan,
sýnilega af því, að æskilegasta rúmið var þegar skipað. Þetta hygg
ég áreiðanlega rétt skilið.
Að lokum þykir mér rétt að taka fram, að á gröfum þessum er
norskur blær að öllu leyti, og mundi mega benda á hundruð grafa
í Noregi, sem gjörsamlega samsvara þessum. Sverðin tvö úr þessum
fjórum kumlum virðast ekki benda til sérstakrar sverðfæðar hér á
landi, þótt víst sé, að spjót og axir hafa verið algengust vopna.
S UMMARY
A Viking Burial-field at Sílastaðir, Eyjafjörður.
In 1947 the present author excavated a group of four graves from the Viking
age on the farm Sílastaðir in Eyjafjörður, North-Iceland. The site was accident-
ally discovered by the farmer, who was taking under cultivation some land just
outside the old homefield, some 300 metres from the farm-buildings. One of these
graves was badly damaged by the bulldozer used (grave 1), but the remaining
three were fairly intact safe for the top which had been scraped off by the bull-
dozer, so that the original height and appearance of the small gravemounds is not
exactly known. Certainly they were quite unimposing.
GRAVE 1. This was the grave disturbed by the fieldwork. It had contained
the skeleton of an elderly man, resting on his back, somewhat more to the right,
almost as the skeleton in grave 2, shown on fig. 3. Indeed, this seems to be the
typical position of all four corpses in Sílastaðir. The man’s head was in the
western end of the grave, and at his feet his horse had been buried. Originally
a considerable number of objects were in the grave (fig. 2):
a. Double-edged iron sword, fragmentary, of the type Jan Petersen, De norske
vikingesverd, fig. 98.
b. Iron axe of the type Vikingesverd fig. 37.
c. Iron-axe, fragmentary.
d. Iron spear-head of the type Vikingesverd fig. 21.
e. Iron knife.
f. Whetstone, fragment.
g. Small iron buclcle.
h. Small piece of flint.
All these things were scattered about, but the remaining few were found in
their original position:
i. Iron buckle, near the man’s waist, a belt buckle.
j. Iron shield-boss of the type Rygh B62. The shield had been placed over the
man’s head.
k. Remnants of wood.