Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2004, Page 111

Excavation in Klaufanes, Northern Iceland
could trace the ash layer undemeath the
partition wall where there was a gap in
the wall. Eldjám wondered if this gap
meant that there had been a door on the
partition but since ash layers on the
kitchen side of the partition wall clearly
lay up against the entire wall this
remained a problem for him. If we
assume that the partition belongs to a
later phase of the building this can easily
be explained. In this case the skáli origi-
nally was not divided and therefore its
floor layer(s) covered the whole area.
Then later the partition wall was built on
top of this layer to close off the kitchen
part which then had separate usage, thus
explaining why the ash layer from that
side stretched up against the partition
wall.
4. The fourth argument that can be made
to support the theory of the kitchen part
to be a later re-use of the skáli is the fact
that the walls of that part were ".. .espe-
cially visible on the surface" and much
clearer than the rest of the structure
(Eldjám 1943, 22-23).
5. Last but not least, the location of the
longfire supports the theory of an undi-
vided skáli in its first phase. Longfires in
the Viking age skáli are usually located
close to the centre of the space that they
are supposed to warm up. In the
Klaufanes skáli the longfire was in the
middle of the skáli building if it was
undivided. If the partition wall was in the
skáli from the beginning the longfire
seems strangely close to that wall (3 m
away). In that case it would not function
very well to warm up the whole of the
skáli part.
The fact that the fireplace in the
kitchen part had "obviously been rebuilt"
is interesting and supports the theory that
this part of the building had more than
Fig. 5. Drcrwing of the skáli in Klaufanes by author. The stonewall is considered to belong to a
later phase and is marked in by doted line.
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