Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2009, Page 30

Þóra Pétursdóttir
N
Figure 2: Elaborate horse grave at Hrífunes, V-Skaftafellssýsla, encircled by an unusual oblong
stone setting (Eldjárn 2000: 245).
ed in the grave (Eldjám 2000, 138). As
with dogs deposited, the proximity
between horse and human is often great
and in some instances such that the two
cannot possibly be disentangled and
viewed separately.
Exclusive horse graves, where a horse
is buried alone and in no direct relation to
a human grave, occur in at least nine
instances (Eldjám 2000, 308-309). These
horse graves have, however, invariably
been interpreted as belonging to a known
or unknown human grave in their vicinity.
Yet, even if there usually is a human grave
close by, the distance between the two var-
ies from less than 2 m up to at least 14 m.
Whether the horse should be considered
as belonging to a human burial rite, or be
perceived as part of the grave goods of the
individual in the closest grave, is therefore
not at all self-evident. Not the least when
considering the fact that the horse is often
equipped with grave goods itself, a saddle
and/or bridle.
This most evident characteristic of the
Icelandic corpus has not been given
much thought by scholars but more often
explained away as an incidental and
meaningless trait reflecting the general
poorness and simplicity of the graves. In
an article on the Icelandic horse in 1981,
Eldjám proclaimed that the abundance of
horses in Icelandic graves could most
likely be explained by the large quantity
of horses from early on in the settlement,
which had made it economically favora-
ble to deposit them in the graves with the
dead (Eldjám 1981, 4). More recently, a
similar opinion has been expressed by
Vésteinsson (2000, 170). Reducing the
abundance of horses to economic condi-
tions is, however, far too restrictive. And,
clearly it would have been practical to get
rid of a dead horse but if that alone was
the impetus it would hardly have been
done so carefully and elaborately as evi-
dent in some of the exclusive horse
graves, as e.g. grave 1 at Hrífunes (see
Figure 2) — not to mention the common
deposition of saddles and other “valua-
ble” equipment which contradicts a gen-
eral reluctance to “forfeit” objects as
grave goods (as proposed by Eldjám
1956, 243).
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