Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2009, Page 24

Þóra Pétursdóttir
ICELANDIC VIKING AGE GRAVES:
LACK IN MATERIAL - LACK OF
INTERPRETATION?
Pre-Christian graves have long been objects of archaeological research in Iceland.
However, despite the amount of research devoted to this material it is arguable
that the graves themselves have rarely been the actual focus. More often grave
goods and morphological aspects have been used to throw light on other issues,
such as the landnám, origins, trade and economic conditions. This focus, followed
by an emphasis on comparative research, has led to a reluctance to see the mate-
rial on its own terms, and a tendency to believe that it is somehow deficient, and
hence holds scant informative/interpretive potential. This paper argues that the
proclaimed poomess of the material is rather a result of this approach, and that a
change of focus may reveal otherwise.
Þóra Pétursdóttir, Fornleifastofnun lslands, Bárugata J, 101 Reykjavík.
E-mail: thora@instarch. is
Key words: Viking Age, Iceland, Death, Grave Goods, Burial Practice
Introduction
There are at this point over 320 recorded
Viking Age graves in Iceland, found on
approximately 160 localities across the
country. These remains have long been
objects of mystical curiosity to people,
but can also boast a long tradition of
scholarly interest and research reaching
back to the dawn of Icelandic archaeolo-
gy in the mid 19th century. Many scholars
have thus alluded to this material in their
work and others have performed thor-
ough studies on categories of artefacts of
which the majority comes from graves.
The most extensive work in this relation
is of course Kristján Eldjárn’s doctoral
thesis Kuml og haugfé: Ur heiðnum sið á
íslandi, fírst published in 1956 and repub-
lished in 2000.
Antiquarian curiosity and research
in the early days of Icelandic archaeol-
ogy was to a great extent driven by the
strong Nationalist/Romantic atmos-
phere culminating around the struggle
for independence in the last three dec-
ades of the 19th century. Strong confi-
dence in the Icelandic Sagas was a
coherent theme in this research and to
verify the historical record became a
major objective (cf. Friðriksson 1994).
Graves as well as other monuments
were related to identifiable Saga char-
acters and further interpretation of the
material was rarely attempted unless
Archaeologia Islandica 7 (2009) 22-40