Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2007, Qupperneq 88

Mogens Skaaning Hoegsberg
Fig. 7. The rectangular church ruin at the presumed Hvalsey farm. This is the bestpreserved Norse
Greenlandic ruin. This type of church is believed to have been built after circa AD 1300. From
Roussell 1941, 19.
(Garðar 1) was largely correct when it
comes to the church itself. The enclo-
sure south of the church is another mat-
ter. With regards to the church building,
there are foundations which indicate the
shape and size that Norlund ascribed to
Garðar 1, including the oddly short chan-
cel. Very short Romanesque chancels are,
however, known from other Norse Green-
landic stone churches and they seem to
have been typical of the older generation
of stone churches there (Krogh 1982,
123). One unclear point here, however,
relates to the piece of foundation which
runs across the opening between nave and
chancel. Norlund believed this foundation
to belong to Garðar 2 (fig. 5), but nowhere
states why this must be so. This particu-
lar piece of foundation remains one of the
most interesting aspects of the cathedral
because its presence can be interpreted in
multiple ways. The first possibility is that
it was an original feature of the building,
meant to be a further strengthening of the
arch between nave and chancel. While
no such foundations are known from any
other Norse Greenlandic churches, they
are known from Europe (pers. comment,
Thomas Bertelsen).
The other possibility is that it
was a later addition to the building. A
drawing from one of Knud Krogh’s exca-
vations in Igaliku in the 1970’s indicates
that this might be the case. Krogh made a
small excavation by the eastern gable of
the nave, but the excavation only exposed
a part of the foundation in the northern
side of the building. For this reason the
interpretation of the drawing remains
inconclusive. Depending upon how one
chooses to interpret the drawing, it could
be taken to show that parts of the founda-
tion were added later, seemingly proving
Norlund’s theory. There is just one prob-
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