Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags - 01.01.1965, Qupperneq 82
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ÁRBÓK FORNLEIFAFÉLAGSINS
í skáninni voru gras- og stararstönglar og mikið um smárætur,
og blandin var hún gosösku og vikri. Líklegt þykir, að um sé að
ræða mýrartorf, og virðist mega ætla efnið aðborið.
Greiningu skánarleifa önnuðust náttúrufræðingarnir Sturla Frið-
riksson og Þorleifur Einarsson, en rannsókn á beinum héðan og úr
Skarðsvíkurkumli hafði með höndum próf. Jón Steffensen. Vegna
gerðar spjótsins má helzt ætla, að kumlið sé frá tíundu öld. Bendir
vopn þetta til, að hér hafi drengur verið heygður.
SUMMARY
Two VikinQ Age grave finds.
On the 5th of July 1962 a bulldozer laid bare a Viking grave in Skarðsvík on
Snæfellsnes, damaged it to some extent, and a little mound on top of it was swept
away as well as the upper part of a sand layer that extended aeross the burial
deposit. There were discovered a skeleton of a boy, about fourteen years old,
which lay on an almost flat surface of lava gravel and turned NEE-SWW
approximately, a double edged iron sword of type M with remains of a wooden
scabbard and strap mounting, fragments of a shield boss of iron, a blade of a
small iron knife and a bone pin, perhaps used for fastening clothes. A few bones,
somewhat damaged, and an iron spearhead along with three fragments from the
socket and the socket neck had been pushed outside the grave. Dated to the lOth
century.
About a month later tbe second grave related of in the article, also from the
Viking period, was investigated. It lay on a low hill not far from a deserted
farm site in Hólsfjallahreppur, called Gömlu Grímsstaðir. Bones of three persons and
animals had been seen scattered there, some of them on the grave site, which
became well marked off as such when in early July 1962 the farmer of Gríms-
tunga in Hólsfjallahreppur found on it a small iron spearhead of Viking age
shape. Wind erosion had destroyed the grave to a great extent and only some
stones in a cluster at one end and a patch of grass-grown earth at the other
were left as cover. The bones had blown away or been removed and only a
meagre remainder lay scattered on or near to the surface. An axis turning N-S
can be attributed. Apart from some animal bones there belong to this burial
bone remains of a young adult and an individual about twelve years old, both of
undetermined sex, and of an adult, who may have been a woman. Likely to date
from the lOth century.