Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2007, Page 82

Mogens Skaaning Hoegsberg
gave Bruun a set of instructions which
delineated particular areas of interest
and also specific ruin groups which the
museum found particularly interesting.
Amongst these were the ruins in Igaliku
(Bruun 1896, 182). Bruun did archaeo-
logical work in Igaliku and also drew up
a detailed plan of the church. While he
did make several small excavations at the
site, he did not dig in the church or in the
churchyard (Bruun 1896, 323-343).
Between the journeys of Holm
and Bruun, the year 1886 saw the publica-
tion of H.M. Schirmer’s article Beliggen-
heden af Garðarpaa Gronland (Schirmer
1886). Schirmer was the first to point to
the church and its architectural solution as
a possible clue to the identification of the
ruins in Igaliku as the site of the bishop’s
seat. Although Schirmer overestimated
the architectural richness of the church,
presuming that it had been a basilica and
that it had an apse, his main argument is
sound. Unfortunately Schirmer’s article
was not really taken seriously, and the
identification of Igaliku as Garðar was
not accepted until Finnur Jónsson’s 1898
article Gronlands gamle Topografi efter
Kilderne (Jónsson 1898). Jónsson worked
primarily with written sources and from
an archaeological point of view it was not
established that Garðar was to be found
in Igaliku before Norlund’s excavation in
1926.
In 1910 the Danish architect
Mogens Clemmensen visited Igaliku
when he examined church ruins in the
area of the old Eastern Settlement. Clem-
mensen noted the bad state of the ruin,
but was able to discern two major phases:
an older phase featuring a Romanesque
plan with a nave and a smaller chancel,
followed by a phase with side chapels at
the chancel (Clemmensen 1911, 328).
Contrary to Norlund’s later view, Clem-
mensen did not completely rule out the
possibility that the oldest phase could
predate the establishment of the bish-
op’s seat, although he did find it unlikely
(Clemmensen 1911, 329-30).
After Clemmensen’s visit to Iga-
liku nothing happened until 1926, when
a large scale excavation took place under
the leadership of Poul Norlund from the
Danish National Museum. To date the
1926 excavation represents the largest
and most thorough archaeological inves-
tigation at the site, and in many respects
Norlund’s publication of the excavation
(Norlund 1930) is still the primary work
on Garðar. Norlund approached the site
as being definitely the bishop’s seat,
regarding Finnur Jónsson’s article from
1898 as conclusive on the matter. But
from an archaeological point of view it
was Norlund’s excavation which gave
the final proof of the matter. In the north
chapel of the church the excavators found
a bishop’s grave, identified as such by the
crozier that had followed the bishop into
the grave (Norlund 1930, 66).
The church and the churchyard
were two of the main priorities during the
1926 excavation, along with the excava-
tion of the main residence (fig. 3, no.
8). It should be mentioned that a lot of
other work was done. Several outhouses
were archaeologically investigated, and
new plans were drawn up - not only a
general plan of the site as such, but also
detailed plans of many individual build-
ings, including the church. The results
of the excavation of the church are dealt
with more thoroughly in the following
sections. In 1941 the Danish architect
Aage Roussell discussed the church as
part of his thesis Farms and Churches
in the Mediaeval Norse Settlements in
80