Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2006, Page 36

Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2006, Page 36
Steffen Stummann Hansen and John Sheehan Figiire 5. Aerial photograph of church site at Mykines on the island of Mykines. Photo: Faroese Cadastral Office (Matrikulstóvan) 1958. The form of the present-day churchyard on the island of Svínoy is also of interest in the context of Leirvík and its related sites. Here, a curvilinear stone- built wall encloses the churchyard and it is very probable that this reflects the sub- circular enclosure of an underlying earlier church site. The diameter of the enclosure is estimated to have been approximately 20 m, practically the same as that of the benhús site at Leirvík, as noted above. Nearby, within the settlement of Svínoy, is a bpnhús placename. Circular stone- built walls, similar to the Svínoy exam- ple, also enclose other churchyards on the Faroe Islands including, for instance, the old churchyards at Hvalvík (Fig. 6) and Tjornuvík, both on Streymoy. Tjornuvík, of course, is also the location of a well- known Viking-age cemetery of the tenth century (Dahl and Rasmussen, 1956; Dahl 1971a, 65)9. None of the relevant Faroese sites have been subject to a professional Interestingly, the grave-goods from here include a ringed pin of the type that is well represented in Viking Dublin, and this was interpreted by Dahl as an indicator that the earliest Viking Age settlers in the Faroe Islands may have derived from the Scandinavian settlements in Ireland rather than from Scandinavia itself (Dahl 1971a, 65).

x

Archaeologia Islandica

Direct Links

If you want to link to this newspaper/magazine, please use these links:

Link to this newspaper/magazine: Archaeologia Islandica
https://timarit.is/publication/1160

Link to this issue:

Link to this page:

Link to this article:

Please do not link directly to images or PDFs on Timarit.is as such URLs may change without warning. Please use the URLs provided above for linking to the website.