Saga - 1974, Blaðsíða 60

52
HÖRÐUR ÁGÚSTSSON
„Supported against this wall is a carefully constructed
oven of stones supplemented with turf, four-sided in cross-
section. The front af the oven is in line with the north-
west door jamb and measures about 0.80 m. in breadth;
its rear wall, which coincides with the north-west long
wall, is of the same breadth. Both sides of the oven
measure about 1.10 m. Its height now is 1.10—1.20 m.,
and at the most would have one or two courses more; in the
front wall, which is well built of flat stones, there are six
or seven courses, in the rear wall seven or eight, mostly
of spheroid stones. The sides and the lower courses of the
front wall consist of single stones only, so that the same
stones form the inner and outer walls, whereas in the
front wall there seem to have been very broad stones in
one row as well as smaller stones in two or three rows in
the upper courses. Here the thickness of the oven wall is
0.5—0.6 m., whereas elsewhere it averages 0.25—0.35
m. Presumably this is an indication of the construc-
tion of the oven top, which doubtless was vaulted,
though now it is almost entirely collapsed. There was
probably no chimney. Out towards the door of the room
there is a four-sided stoking hole, about 0.35x0.35 m., in
the south-east corner of the oven. The oven contained
nothing else than a little sand mixed with charcoal, though
it was not excavated right to the bottom owing to the risk
of collapse. On the outside all the oven stones are black
with soot. Up against the two sides, south-west and south-
east, were large numbers of very small pebbles in size
from that of a hen’s egg to a fist, a few slightly larger.
These stones, all of them thick with soot, were found lying
from the upper edge of the oven down to floor level; pre-
sumably they were piled loosely on and around it.”23
(Sjá mynd VI og 8).
Á árunum 1963—67 stjórnaði Þór Magnússon, þjóð-
minjavörður, uppgreftri á fornum rústum í landi Hvítár-
holts í Hrunamannahreppi. Eitt af fyrstu húsunum, sem