Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags - 01.01.1959, Qupperneq 124

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ÁRBÓK FORNLEIFAFÉLAGSINS
SUMMARY
Ancient Grnves at Gilsárteigur in the East of lceland.
In 1957 the author of this paper excavated two ancient graves some 100 m
north of the farm houses of the farm Gilsárteigur in the East of Iceland. The
graves were close to each other but one of them was so severely damaged
by a bulldozer that very little can be said about it except for the fact that
it was orientated NW—SE, the head of the buried person in the NW-end.
The bones represented a woman of about 30 years of age, 158 cm high. With
the bones was found a small iron lcnife.
The other grave was barely touched by the bulldozer and could be studied
in greater detail. It had the same orientation as the first one. The bones re-
presented a man, 24—25 years of agq, height about 174 cm. He had been
laid on his left side in a wooden coffin, the outlines of which were visible as
black lines in the soil. The only object found in the grave was a small
iron knife.
The author is of the opinion that these graves must be from the early
Christian era, when Christian burial customs had been adopted, though there
were as yet no real churchyards and paganism was not altogether abandoned.