Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2007, Page 86

Mogens Skaaning Hoegsberg
Fig. 5. Plan of the church ruin which includes all foundation remains unearthed in 1926, except
for the enclosure south of the church. Norlund’sproposedphase 2 (Garðar 2) is superimposed in
dark colour. From Norlund 1930, 33.
church at foundation level, which puts the
presumed stepping stones below ground
level. The entrance in the south chapel is
conspicuous by its position alone - the
church seems unlikely to have an entrance
at this point where the foundation is at its
thickest. I also hope to show in the fol-
lowing sections that wall A (fig. 6) was
probably standing in this phase, making a
doorway here impossible.
Norlund found traces of clay in
the foundations as well as between the
stones in some of the wall fragments that
were still standing (Norlund 1930, 34).
He was unsure of the degree to which
clay had been used, but Roussell later
suggested that it could have been used as
a sort of bonding material. Roussell beli-
eved that the use of clay as bonding mate-
rial would have worked well as long as
the roof was intact, but that once the roof
collapsed, water would seep in through
the top of the unprotected walls and wash
out the clay. As a result of this, the walls
would eventually collapse, and Roussell
thought this to be the main reason for the
poor state of the church ruin. (Roussell
1941, 104).
Apart from the two phases of
the stone built cathedral, Norlund also
believed that there was an even earlier
church at the site of which no actual
traces were found. The theory about an
earlier church was based on burials found
beneath wall A (fig. 6) in the south cha-
pel (Norlund 1930, 52). Wall A seems to
be part of one of the walls of the enclo-
sure south of the church, which Norlund
84