Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2002, Page 36

Bruno Berson
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE STUDY OF THE
MEDIEVAL ICELANDIC FARM: THE BYRES
Since the end of the nineteenth century numerous farm sites dating from the mid-
dle ages have been excavated in Iceland. More than 50 have now been partialiy
or fully excavated (Margrét Hermanns-Auðardóttir 1989). The focus has always
been primarily on the dwellings, and while a number of animal shelters have been
excavated their characteristics, development and significance remains poorly
understood.
This paper gives an overview of archaeologically investigated
medieval byres in Iceland, discussing the nature and limitations of the evidence,
the principal characteristics of the buildings and their value for research for
medieval Icelandic society and economy.
Bruno Berson, 60 rue Jules Charpentier, 37000 TOURS, France,
bbno@wanadoo.fr
Keywords: byres, medieval Iceland, animal husbandry
The sites
The first excavation of a byre took place
in Lundur in Borgarfjörður in 1884
(Figure 2). The antiquarian Sigurður
Vigfússon took interest in the ruin when
he heard local traditions that it was a hea-
then temple. He carried out a hasty exca-
vation and became convinced that he had
found the ruins of a Viking age temple
(Sigurður Vigfússon 1885). More than
fifty years later, in 1939, a Scandinavian
archaeological expedition investigated a
number of sites in Þjórsárdalur and
Borgarfjörður. The site at Lundur was
chosen for re-excavation, led by the
Finnish archaeologist Jouko Voionmaa
(1943). Voionmaa came to the conclusion
after carefully excavating the structure
that it was not a temple but an ordinary
farmstead dwelling. Based on the exca-
vation of a similar structure at Gröf,
which clearly was a byre with attached
bam, Kristján Eldjám proposed in 1964
that the structure at Lundur was neither a
temple nor a dwelling, but a byre con-
nected to a barn (Kristján Eldjám 1964).
This identification has since been gener-
ally accepted.
The structure was built of stone-lined turf
walls and divided into four rooms. The
byre was in the south part of the building,
measuring 9 x 3,5 m on the inside. It had
three aisles, the central one being fully
paved from the north to the south and
sloping toward a doorway on the south
end gable. The stalls were along the walls
on each side of the paving, but divisions
Archaeologia Islandica 2 (2002) 34-60