Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags - 01.01.1995, Page 117

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Summary
In 1995 a limited excavation was carried out at Nes by Seltjörn in the municipality of Sel-
tjarnarnes just outside Reykjavík. The site is a farm-mound on which there is a stone mansion
built for Iceland's first official physician in 1761-65. Earlier investigations of the mound had
established that the site was occupied shortly after the landnám tephra was deposited in 871/2.
The farm was the seat of local magnates in the 13th century and retained its importance down
to the 19th century. It is known that a church associated with the farm was in existence at least
as early as 1200. It was endowed with a third of the Nes farmer's estate and served only him
and his tenants.
The aim of the 1995 excavation was to locate the remains of the last church at Nes which
was broken down by a storm in 1799, two years after it was decommissioned and the parish
was attached to the new cathedral in Reykjavík. The last church at Nes was built of timber in
1785, replacing a turf church from 1675, and was an unusually magnificent church in its day,
adorned with a 9-m-high belfry. Detailed surface mapping and resistivity readings confirmed
earlier suspicions that the church foundations were situated about 40 m east of the 18th cen-
tury mansion. A trench cut just west of the church foundations revealed the remains of two
cemetery walls and several graves and midden material from the farm mound. The graves
were at the eastern end of the trench. One of them contained a coffin with an elevated lid.
Coffins of this type were introduced into Iceland in the early 18th century; it is suggested that
the graves revealed in the trench must all be early modern, probably from the late 17th and
early 18th centuries. They seem, however, to predate the older of the two cemetery walls,
which is made of turf with a stone lining at the base and a facing of rough slabs on the out-
side. This wall may represent repairs or partial rebuilding of the cemetery wall which written
records attest took place in the middle of the 18th century. No burials were found west of this