Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2006, Page 39

THE LEIRVÍK “B0NHÚSTOFTIN” AND THE EARLY CHRISTIANITY OF THE FAROE ISLANDS, AND BEYOND
stantial evidence, been suggested by
Arneborg (2003, 115), then, given that
the settlers of Greenland originated in
Iceland, this site may be taken as further
evidence for the form of Icelandic and, by
extension, Faroese tenth-century ecclesi-
astical sites.
The Brattahlið enclosure prob-
ably measured in the region of 22 m in
diameter. There are other ecclesiastical
sites of this general type on record from
Greenland, for instance: Qorlortoq (0
33), Qorlortup Itinnera (0 35), Inoqqua-
saat (0 64), Eqaluit (0 78) and Narsaq,
Uunatoq (0 162) (Keller 1989, 187-208;
Guldager et al. 2002, 45-48, 55-57,
76-79; Arneborg, pers. comm.) (Fig. 8).
These enclosures vary between 13 m and
22 m in diameter, tend to have entrances
at either the west or south-west, and fea-
ture centrally located churches. Arneborg
has recently been conducting excavations
on three of these sites and it is hoped that
this exercise will result in the acquisition
of close dating evidence for them.
In summary, it is possible to
demonstrate that the Leirvík-type of
ecclesiastical site is found right across the
North Atlantic region, from the Shetland
Isles and Faroe Islands, through Iceland,
to Greenland. From this brief survey of
the evidence it is suggested that the type
may have already been in existence in
this cultural zone by the later tenth cen-
tury. It is difficult in the present state of
knowledge to come to any conclusion
about how long-lived this type of ecclesi-
astical site may have been, but examples
may well have been used and constructed
until well into the post-Medieval period.
It seems likely that there is a general
development of ecclesiastical enclosures
within the region from circular to rectan-
gular forms.
Origins
It has been established that the Leirvík
ecclesiastical site shares important fea-
tures with a series of other sites across
the North Atlantic region. These sites
primarily consist of small churches set
within sub-circular enclosures. What is
the background to this type of sites and
where does it lie? Given that both literary
and historical sources state that the impe-
tus for the Christianisation process in this
region came from Norway (Sawyer and
Sawyer 1993, 103-104), then one might
expect to find a significant number of
parallels for this type of site there. This
is not the case, however, and churchyards
usually have a rectilinear layout in the
Nordic countries. In fact, it is interesting
to note that the earliest church and burial
site in Norway, and possibly in Scandi-
navia, is contained within a rectangular
rather than a circular enclosure. Occur-
ring on the island of Veoy, Romsdal, this
was in use from as early as the mid-point
of the tenth century (Solli, 1996, 103).
There are, nonetheless, some
enclosed ecclesiastical sites of sub-cir-
cular plan in Norway and elsewhere in
Scandinavia, but these are difficult to
date. They have, however, recently been
discussed by Brendalsmo and Stylegar
who concluded (2003, 171): “That the
circular, oval or ‘sub-circular’ church
yards in many cases probably derive
from the Middle Ages seems to be a fair
assumption. But we have no safe basis for
saying whether they are particularly old
...” (authors’ translation). In fact, none of
these sites appear to date to earlier than
c.1200 AD, and others appear to be very
considerably later than this. It, therefore,
seems unlikely at present that these Scan-
dinavian sites are of any relevance in the
context of the origins of the North Atlan-
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