Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2004, Page 107

Excavation in Klaufanes, Northern Iceland
tered with a thin layer of yellow and
greyish ash. In one part of the partition
wall there was a gap and there it was
obvious that the ash layer continued
between the stones. Eldjám explained
this by guessing that the gap meant a pos-
sible doorway through the wall. No indi-
cation of that could be seen from the
kitchen part where the ash could clearly
be traced butting up against the partition
wall.
Some sort of a fireplace was close to
the southwestem comer of the kitchen
part. It was 0,5 m square and the ash from
it covered the floors and went up against
the partition wall.
Judging from the (drawing of the)
section, that was taken between the long
fire and partition, no tephras were visible
over the min. The ones below were pre-
historic and therefore did not help dating
the rain. According to the section draw-
ing the floor layer(s) of the floors of the
building seem to have been rather thin
and Eldjám describes it as a thin floor
layer but without mentioning how thin it
was.
Eldjám excavated partly what he calls
Ruin II but said the results of that were
very little. He does not give a detailed
description of the min but describes a fire
place and a thick ash layer within it. His
guess was that it might have been a
smithy.
Main conclusions in 1940
At the end of the excavation Eldjám con-
sidered the main conclusions to be very
clear. He said that the shape of the skáli
and the longfire proved that the building
Fig. 4. A drcrwing of the skáli in Klaufanes that was published in the Sagas (Svarfdœla) 1956.
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