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).