Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags - 01.01.1966, Page 27

BÁTKUMLIÐ 1 VATNSDAL
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14. Svipaðir hringir og þessir eru sýndir í Arbman: Birka I. Tafeln, Taf. 109:4
og 110:1—2.
15. Sama rit, Taf. 112:3, t. h.
16. Birger Nerman: Grobin-Seeburg, Ausgrabungen und Funde. Stockholm 1958,
Taf. 36:210.
17. Kristján Eldjárn: Kuml og haugfé, bls. 333.
18. Sama rit, bls. 338—339.
19. A. W. Brogger: Ertog og ore. Oslo 1921, bls. 87—96.
20. Sama rit, bls. 80—85.
21. Kristján Eldjárn: Kuml og haugfé, bls. 352--353.
22. Sjá t. d. sama rit, bls. 181, og Kristján Eldjárn: Kuml úr heiðnum sið, fundin
á síðustu árum. Árbók 1965, bls. 10.
23. Jan Petersen: Vikingetidens redskaper. Cslo 1951, bls. 489.
24. Landnámabók íslands. Kobenhavn 1925, bls. 31—33.
SUMMARY
A Viking Age Boatgrave in PatreksfjörSvr,
Western Iceland.
In the spring 1964 a boatgrave from the Viking Age vvas discovered on the
premises of the farm Vatnsdalur on the south coast of Patreksfjörður, Western
Iceland. Unfortunately the bulldozer driver who discovered the grave did not
notice anything unusual until his machine had done considerable damage to the
find. The work, however, was stopped, and soon after the grave was investigated
by the author of the present paper. It proved to be one of the richest and most
varied Viking Age burials hitherto excavated in Iceland, even though its worth
was somewhat reduced by the obvious traces of the activity of grave robbers
in former times.
The grave boat had been dug into a sand dune quite near the beach and then
covered by a low mound and a layer of stones on the top. The orientation is
E-W, the stern almost certainly in the west end. Of the boat itself nothing was
left exept the iron nails of which a great number was found. They lay in rows
and even though they were to some extent brought out of order by the bull-
dozer they allow a fairly accurate estimate of the size and proportions of the
boat. It has been 6 m long and bout 1 m wide, obviously very shallow. It was
made from larch (or spruce), six strakes on each side, the boards assembled
with iron nails. On one side near the stem two peculiar whalebone pieces with
cuts sunk into the top were fastened with iron nails on to the inside of the
gunwale. The anchor-line or a tow-line must have been intended to rest in the
cut, and the function of the whalebone pieces is thus to protect the gunwale
against the friction of the line.
In the boat there were bones from seven persons, three males and four females,
all young people. The bones iay in a disorderly heap and it is out of the question
that all these persons have been buried in the boat. Originally only one person,
probably a young woman, was buried there, but the other skeletons must have
been collected from other graves on the same graveyard and placed in the boat-
grave, very likely by grave robbers or anyway by people who for some reason