Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2009, Page 26

Þóra Pétursdóttir
to extemal factors, why the Icelandic
corpus does not contain cremation buri-
als, bigger mounds, richer graves, more
variety and so on. The same also holds
for the archaeologist Kristján Eldjám,
who devoted much of his archaeological
career to this material. In the preface of
his doctoral thesis, Kuml og haugfé: Ú.r
heiðnum sið á Islandi, Eldjárn declared
that it was his aim to conduct archaeolo-
gy in strict terms and hence he would not
endeavour to place the material within
the historical corpus or relate it to charac-
ters or events known from the Sagas
(Eldjám 1956, 9). Nevertheless, Eldjárn
often revealed his skepticism in archaeol-
ogy’s potential in contrast to the histori-
cal record and despite his efforts to bring
out meaning from the material he still
conceived of it as of secondary impor-
tance: “It is only natural that sparse and
scattered archaeological fínds cannot
compete with these splendid and unique
literary records as sources for our oldest
history” (Eldjám 1958, 25).
Eldjám’s study of the pre-Christian
graves is both extensive and thorough
and provides an important frame of refer-
ence to Icelandic Viking age research
today. However, his approach to the
material was grounded on typology and
categorization, systematically “sorting it
out” in order to make it comprehensible
and comparable with reference to the
classic questions of settlement and ori-
gin. The graves themselves, therefore, as
they appear and as constmctions of social
importance, did not really engage him. In
his comparative analysis Eldjám, as oth-
ers, emphasized how the Icelandic mate-
rial in many ways differed from the
Norwegian. The most obvious being the
overall “modesty” of the graves and the
absence of cremation burials. Their
“poomess”, he proclaimed, was however
demonstrated through the quantity of
objects rather than their low quality. The
paucity of grave goods should therefore
not be seen as a consequence of poverty
but rather as a conscious reluctance to
forfeit valuable objects in this way
(Eldjám 1956, 243).
Eldjárn’s work has not really been
criticized to any degree and öne can even
claim that his doctoral thesis, Kuml og
haugfé, has come to earn itself a monu-
mental status, on level with the historical
record earlier, from where it still sets the
agenda for Viking Age research in
Iceland. This canonization was further
reinforced by its republication in 2000,
edited by the archaeologist Adolf
Friðriksson, where graves and material
discovered since the first publication in
1956 were “sorted out” and systemati-
cally added to the prescribed catalogue
and typology.
Whether or not intended to corrobo-
rate or supplement the historical record,
Icelandic research tradition since the late
19th century has more or less circulated
around questions of typology, chronology
and origin, which undeniably are often
grounded in the written sources. This
perpetual contrast with the historical
record as well as with the Norwegian
corpus has resulted in a tenacious skepti-
cism in the material culture and its
informative potential. This is apparent
through the general reluctance to see the
Icelandic material as a unique trait in
itself and in the frequent conception of it
aspoor and simple. A symptomatic exam-
ple of this is Kristján Eldjám’s presenta-
tion of the Icelandic grave material at an
international conference held by the
National Museum of Antiquities in
Edinburgh in 1981 where he opened with
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