Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2002, Page 14

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A DANE AND THE DAWNING OF FAROESE ARCHAEOLOGY
Fig. 1. Gudmund and
Emilie Demant Hatt on
board the ‘M/S Disko ’ on
their way to Greenland on
June lst 1932. The return
journey from Greenland
approximately four months
later brought tlie couple to
lceland and the Faroe
Islands respectively,
before they arrived at
Copenhagen, via Bergen,
on October 28th. Photo:
private.
the Iron Age in the moorlands of Jutland
(Hatt, 1931; 1936; 1937; 1949). This year
he had obtained a leave from his teaching at
university and had been given a grant from
the Carlsberg Foundation to conduct a pro-
ject in Greenland, in which he was assisted
by Kjeld Milthers (1907-1960), a geologist
recently graduated from University of
Copenhagen. The background for Hatt’s
project was a presumption that the large
size of several of the byres found at Norse
farmsteads in Greenland, demonstrated that
there had been rich vegetation potential for
husbandry, especially cattle, during the me-
dieval period. The aim of the project, there-
fore, was to record the present day vegeta-
tion of a wide area around Qassiarsuk to es-
timate to what extent there still was a po-
tential for husbandry, now especially sheep.
Also accompanying Hatt was his wife
Emilie Demant Hatt (1873-1958), an artist
painter, who had made herself a name in
other fields too. At the beginning of the
century she had travelled among and lived
with the Sami population of northern Swe-
den, and it was to her credit that a wide
number of ancient Sami myths and legends
were recorded (Demant 1922; Skive Muse-
um 1983). Over the years she had also been
a loyal travelling-companion to her hus-
band (Fig. 1).
In Greenland the Hatt couple and
Milthers pitched their camp with Nørlund’s
expedition in Qassiarsuk, and here they
spent the summer. Hatt managed to record
the vegetation in a wide area and also, near
the icecap, found a hitherto unknown Norse
farmstead in a valley, which he named
Nordbodalen (English: Norseman’s Valley)
(Stummann Hansen 1999).
The excavations in Qassiarsuk were fin-
ished on September 23rd. On this day the
Hatt couple, together with a number of the
other members of the expeditions, includ-
ing Nørlund and Stenberger, left Qaqortoq
(Julianehaab) onboard the Danish inspec-
tion vessel ‘Hvidbjørnen’ (English: ThePo-
lar Bear) bound for home (Fig. 2). The ves-
sel, however, would only take the passen-
gers to Iceland and from there they would