Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2004, Page 106

Elín Ósk Hreiðarsdóttir
very wom and degraded." Finds and
bones are not located or discussed and it
is even uncertain if Eldjám kept them.
No indications of postholes or post pads
are to be found in Eldjám's report and he
does not comment on their absence.
A section was taken over the north-
west wall of the min which gave an indi-
cation of the thickness of the walls, thick-
ness of floor layer(s) and tephras.
The Klaufanes report is just over
eight pages long. In it Eldjám describes
roughly what was done each day, but
other than that he does not really describe
the methods of excavation. In the report
Eldjám publishes a drawing of the skáli
fully excavated but without a scale (fig.
2), a drawing of the section (fig. 3) and a
map of the mins and their surroundings
(fíg. 1). Two photographs of the fireplace
in the skáli are in the report.
The Klaufanes skáli
The skáli in Klaufanes was aligned SW-
NE. The inside length was 17 m and the
greatest width was 4,7 m at the centre.
The full measurements of the skáli are
not given but the thickness of the wall
where Eldjám dug the section was 1,25
m. By that Eldjám estimated the outer
edge of the walls on the drawing.
Therefore he does not seem to have
dug the outer edges of the walls or out-
side the rain except in the section. The
outer walls of the skáli were mainly built
with turf but a stone lining could be seen
in certain places. The building was divid-
ed into two by a stone wall in the north-
east part. Eldjám said that the wall divid-
ed the building into "skáli" and
"kitchen". No doors were found associ-
ated with the building, neither on the
outer walls nor on the partition wall.
Eldjám later said that the door must have
been on the southeastem wall but this
was not based on any new evidence
(Eldjám 1962, 80). In the skáli part there
was a longfire, situated about 3 m from
the partition wall. Seating was up against
the walls and it was lined with stones,
especially on the southeast side were
Eldjám claimed a full row of stones
stretched between the end walls.
The floor of the skádi part was scat-
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