Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2004, Qupperneq 20

Klavs Randsborg
English/British in the demise of the
Norse Greenlanders holds true, it is also
a country which ultimately fell victim to
the capitalist expansion of Europe.
APPENDIX
The description below is by Missionary
Hans Egede. It concerns the fíne
Medieval Hvalso church (Qaqortoq),
Southern Greenland in 1723 (Egede
1738, 113f.). The description is arnong
the earliest of the Norse sites and ruins in
Greenland and set in a scene of a joumey
by boat from the present-day
Nuuk/Godtháb area at the Norse Westem
Settlement southwards to the Eastem
Settlement.
From the strait where we were laying,
more than 150 people were following us
the whole day. The weather was nice and
calm, and we travelled inside of some
beautiful flat and green islands, and after 3
miles’ [1 Danish mil/mile = 7.533 km]
joumey towards the evening, we came to a
place towards the East in a small fiord
where our old Norwegians had lived, and
by the Greenlanders [Inuits/Eskimos]
called Kakoktok, and [which] was a very
lovely site and a fine grass meadow. On
this same site were to be seen two walled
stmctures, of which the one has been a
church, and was 8 favne [1 Danish
favn/fathom = six Danish fod/feet = 1.88
m] long and about 32 fathom wide inside,
and the wall almost one fathom thick. In
height it was 2 to 3 fathoms. It had two
doors on the southem side, and one large
door in the westem end. In the northem
side there had only been one window, but
in the southem side four, wide towards the
interior, and n arrow outwards. In addition,
even one large window in each gable. The
wall was still strong, but except for the
southem comer it was cracked, and some
stones, as well as parts of the gables, fall-
en down. The stones in the entire stmcture
were for a part very large, smooth and
even, as if they were hewn, and the whole
building well and artfully built, although
without decoration. The church was sur-
rounded by a large and wide churchyard
wall, and was fully covered and over-
grown by a coppice of juniper trees. The
other walled stmcture was six fathoms
long and three fathoms wide on the inside,
with a single door, and was in a poorer
state than the above. Apart from these two,
there was further away in the fíeld another
building of stone to be seen, but [this] was
quite mined and collapsed.
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