Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2007, Side 39

Nails, Rivets, and Clench Bolts: A Case for Typological Clarity
Figure 4. Clench bolts and a rove. Note that the ends of the shanks protrude from the roves of the
two complete clench bolts. The black bar is one centimeter long. (photograph taken by the author
at the National Museum of Iceland)
Results of Artifact Identification
The following section presents and dis-
cusses the types of artifacts identified
under each of the following current data-
base categories: 'nagli) ‘hnoðnagli,’ and
‘rónaglil I identified the actual artifact
types in each of the entries, noting the
presence/absence of nails, rivets, and/or
clench bolts. Since an individual catalog
entry often contains numerous artifacts
and frequently more than one artifact
type, the number of identified artifact
types typically exceeds the number of
actual database entries. The results are
depicted in the pie graphs (Figure 5),
which calculate the percentage that each
artifact type (nail, rivet, clench bolt) rep-
resents out of the total number of types
within each of the National Museum’s
database categories (‘nagli,’ hnoðnagli,,
and ‘rónagli’).
A sample of twelve ‘nagli’
(‘nail’) entries was investigated to deter-
mine whether they also included rivets or
clench bolts. Nine ‘nagli’ entries were
composed solely of nails. Two entries
contained artifacts that could not conclu-
sively be assigned to a particular type.
One entry (National Museum catalog # B:
1939-88) included a single whole clench
bolt and eight broken artifacts that may
have been either nails or clench bolts (see
Figure 5). The ‘nagli ’ entry that included
a clench bolt consisted of the iron remains
from a coffin. The description of the iron
from this coffin burial begins, “nails with
wood remains on them, eight in number,
however only one whole.”4 The entry goes
on to address the single whole nagli: “the
only whole one is 3.5 cm long and has a
round head at one end but a square rove at
the other.”5 The description contained in
4 “[N]aglar með viðarleifum á, 8 talsins, þó aðeins einn heill”
5 “Sá eini, sem heill er, er 3,5 cm að 1. og hefur kringlóttan haus á öðrum enda, en ferhymda ró á hinum”
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