Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2005, Page 103

Excavations at Hólskirkja, Bolungarvík
time. Here, gravestones where present
are very useful, because of the inscrip-
tions and iconography which can be used
to understand such attitudes - an exem-
plary study of such research was done on
Orcadian gravestones from the 17th to
19th centuries (Tarlow 1999). But fur-
ther, looking at body position and coffíns
and coffin fumiture can add another
dimension, especially in the context of
how people might have conceived of
death, i.e. in metaphorical terms of 'rest'
or 'sleep'.
A fínal issue concems death and
religion; while the effects of the
Reformation on burial customs in the
16th century remains largely unknown
and an important area of research, in
terms of later periods, it is the late 19th
and early 20th centuries that see the
developent of new, non-conformist
denominations in Iceland, centred on
Reykjavík (Pétursson 1980; 1981; 1984;
1997). A question which archaeology
would be most useful to address, howev-
er, is the extent to which variabilty in
burial customs prior to this period might
reflect an influx of new ideas and more
secular views on death. Such studies
archaeologically have been most suc-
cessfully performed on gravestones
where textual and iconographic informa-
tion is of great potential (e.g. Deetz
1996). It is clear that changes do occur in
burial practice between the medieval and
post-medieval periods in Iceland - typi-
cally, the depth of graves increases, and
the coffins become more elaborate; but
the timing of these changes is unclear and
seems to be much later than the
Reformation. What is interesting is to try
and understand how the various religious
changes which occured between the
Reformation and the present day are
related to changes in burial practice.
Although the excavations at Hólskirkja
cannot answer these questions alone,
together with past and future investiga-
tions of post-medieval churchyards, at
least an answer to this and the other ques-
tions posed can be started.
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Hugason, Hjalti & Aðalsteinsson, Jón
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