Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2002, Page 15

EIN DANI OG BYRJANIN TIL FØROYSKA FORNFRØÐI
13
have to make other arrangements to go all
the way to Denmark. This opened the op-
portunity to stay over for a while in Iceland
as well as in the Faroe Islands.
‘Hvidbjørnen’ arrived at Reykjavík on
September 27th and after a stay of approx-
imately two and a half weeks the Hatt cou-
ple left Reykjavík again on October 15th
onboard the ship ‘Dronning Alexandrine’.
The morning after the departure they
passed Vestmannaeyjar off the south coast
of Iceland, now bound for the Faroe Is-
lands.
While staying in Iceland Hatt managed
to experience the antiquarian environment
of the country and had visited a wide range
of archaeological sites and historical mon-
uments. This was due to the hospitality of
Matthías Pórðarson, the director of the Na-
tional Museum of Iceland, who could also
prepare Hatt for his visit to the Faroe Is-
lands and likewise was able to pave the
road for him into the antiquarian environ-
ment there. Hatt, no doubt, was looking for-
ward to becoming acquainted with not only
the Faroese landscape and its monuments
but also with the leading antiquarians.
What was it like, the antiquarian environ-
ment which Hatt encountered in the Faroe
Islands?
The antiquarian environment
in the Faroe Islands
In 1898, at a public meeting held during
Ólavsøku, the annual celebrations of St.
Olaf, an antiquarian initiative was estab-
lished in the Faroe Islands. It was, primari-
ly, based on a general public desire to pre-
serve and collect material remains of the
t
*\ |'
Fig. 2. The Danish inspection vessel ‘Hvidbjørnen',
which brought the Hatt couple froin Greenland to
Iceland on tlieir way to the Faroe lslands. It was, inci-
dentally, on this journey, with Nørlund, Stenberger
and Hatt onboard, that the vision ofa Pan-Scandina-
vian archaeological project in Iceland was born. Tlte
purpose of the project was to excavate house ruins in
lceland in order to produce material comparative to
tliat ofNorse Greenland. Afew days later Nørlund
proposed the idea to Matthias Pórðarson (1877-1961),
the director ofthe National Museum oflceland, who
agreed to the plan (Nørlund, 1943; Stenberger, 1943;
Stummann Hansen, 2001; 2002a). The project
eventually took place in the summer of 1939. Photo:
Danish Naval Material Command.
Faroese past and its aim was to collect, pre-
serve and display items. Another aspect
was, of course, the importance of such a
collection in creating of a Faroese cullural
and national idenlity (Thorsteinsson, 1975;
Stummann Hansen, 2002b).
At the meeting in 1898 a committee of
eighteen men had been elected, and An-
drass Sámalsson (1873-1954), a member of
the Løgting, the Faroese Parliament, was
appointed to acquire, record and store the
items. Although the collection of items al-
ready had been initiated the same year the
progress seemed to be slow. In 1900, the
committee, for the first time, was granted a
public financial support of 50 Danish kro-