Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags - 03.01.1987, Page 100

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ÁRBÓK FORNLEIFAFÉLAGSINS
While digging a ditch for a sewage pipe on 17 September 1964 in direction south from
a newly built dwelling house for teachers, this house NE of the above mentioned farm
site, workers came across an einpty channel effectuated in the ground and covered with
flat stones. It lay E-W, only a short span north from the old conduit of sinrilar construc-
tion (1), where flows hot water frorn Skrifla to the famous Snorralaug, Snorri's bath, a
pool made of hewn stones of silica sinter. The National Museum was notified of the find
and Þorkell Grímsson, curator at the museum, went to Reykholt. A reconnaissance pit
(A) was dug towards east from the finding spot. A V-shaped ditch, cut through humus
and a fundament of Ice age gravcl and clay, appeared above the channel. The latter, ca
1 foot deep, located in its middle, had vertical sides, a flat bottom, and showed a slant
down towards west, just as the conduit still in use. Small stones were placed over opcn-
ings in the cover. In the fill of the V-shaped ditch ashes could be seen. The channel was
to some extent sinuous and there were bulges on its sides. Steam arose frorn it. A bluish,
dark crust, ca 1 cm thick and less, produced by the effect of the hot water on the funda-
ment clay, covered the channel from bottom up and speckles of it were on both thc upper
and lower face of the stoncs.
To gain a better view of the area the sewage pipe ditch was deepened. About 6 m north
of the recently discovered hot water channel (2), in a row across the bottom, there lay
slabs of stone under which an empty channel carne to light, having a depth of less than
a finger‘s length and with stcam issuing from it. This channel, here dug at the bottom
of a V- shaped ditch with a fill nrixed with ashes, was subsequently laid bare and invesd-
gated in a reconnaissance trench made towards cast from the place of finding (E), in anot-
her some 24 m west (F), and a third ca 22 m west fronr Skrifla (D). These portions did
not much differ from what was in E.
In the two latter mentioned spots the ditch running above the channel had vertical
sides. Ashes were in the fill and in trcnch E the channel had a stcep slant down to east.
Above the cover stones in E a layer of ycllowish clay came to light, which obviously
served as insulation.
The position of the steam conduit in the terrain, it stretches from the morass of Skrifla
up a slope to east of the farm site, allows to conclude that its purpose has only been to
bring steam from Skrifla to a place near the farm. Such use of thermal hot steam is un-
known anywhere elsc in Iceland. At the westcrn extremity the conduit rnakes a sharp
bend towards south and ends abrupdy in the fundanrent of gravel and clay. As in conduit
2 small stones could be seen placed in holes in the cover. The opening at west and the
area around it was devoid of constructional vestiges but numerous very thin, horizontal
layers of a white coloured clayish substance were in the ground.
This steam conduit, a highly interesdng archaeological feature, bearing witness to clean
habits, seems to date from a remote period. Betwcen trench A and the pool two rcconn-
aissance trenches were dug in addition: Trenches B and C. In trench B, 16 m east of
Snorralaug, both hot water channels came to light, lying roughly parallel and the interval
betveen them narrowing westward, and in trench C, made centrally between A and B,
the investigator laid bare the recently found hot water channel. Finally in trench D, all
three conduits wcre discovered, lying in direction of Skrifla, with the steam conduit nort-
hernmost and deeper in the ground than the two others. No important changes in struc-
ture were nodceable. One must suppose that watcr channel 2 is the older of the two, but
neither offers easy dating and same applies to the conduit for steam. The reason why
channel 2 has fallen into disuse is probably damages caused by an earthquake.