Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2004, Page 112

Elín Ósk Hreiðarsdóttir
one phase. No indication of that seems to
have been apparent in the skáli part.
Considering the above mentioned
observations, few things seem to support
Eldjám's original conclusion that the
skáli in Klaufanes which he describes
and publishes is really a portrait of a sin-
gle phase building. On the contrary most
clues seem to indicate that the building,
as we know it, is at least from two differ-
ent phases. It is most likely that the skáli
originally was one undivided space and
that later on, the north-eastem part (so-
called kitchen part) was closed off and
rebuilt with the stone partition. If this is
tme it is clear that the rebuilt fíreplace in
"the kitchen part“ is from the same phase
as the stone wall and is connected to the
later usage of this space. The ash layer
that stretches from the fíreplace and up
against the stone wall is younger than the
wall.
Little of the field data from the exca-
vation has survived and that limits in
many ways the review that is possible to
do on the methods and conclusions of the
original excavation. Having said that, it
is clear that the methodology is some-
times rather poor. When it is considered
that about 60 years have passed since the
excavation was carried out and the fíeld
conditions were rather basic, many of the
methological problems become more
understandable. Despite that I will men-
tion a few things where lack of accuracy
and precision can still be faulted, espe-
cially in Eldjám's drawing of the skáli.
He draws the wall by an estimation built
on the section he took in the wall (width
of outer walls 1,25 m, the width of
stonewall 1,3-1,9 m). An examination of
Eldjám's drawing shows that the width
of the outer walls is shown too thick. On
the drawing the width of the outer walls
is much greater than the width of the par-
tition wall even if it is compared with the
greatest width of the stonewall (1,9 m).
The outer walls of the drawing are
shown about 1/3 wider than they should
be according to Eldjám's measurements.
When the width of the outer walls has
been corrected it is easy to see how much
the stonewall stands out from the outer
walls (fig. 5).
Another point that stands out when
Eldjám's drawing of the skáli is exam-
ined is a curve on the inner edge of the
outer wall close to the north-eastem end
of the kitchen part. The explanation for
this cannot be proved but it is easy to
imagine that this curve was originally the
boundary of the skáli and when the
kitchen part was rebuilt the building was
extended a little bit. Of course this is only
a possible explanation but one that is
supported by the shape of the skáli. The
building is, as Eldjám points out correct-
ly, widest in the middle but gets narrow-
er towards the ends. Judging from the
drawing, the skáli looks very asymmetri-
cal, i.e. it stretches much longer to north-
east than to south-west. If the skáli only
reached to the point where the curve can
be seen in the kitchen part, the building
was originally much more symmetrical
and the longfire located closer to the mid-
dle. These ideas will remain unproved
but they show that it can be debated if the
skáli really looked like that which is
shown on Eldjám's drawing in his article
about the excavation.
The aim of this paper has been to
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