Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2011, Page 23

ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT OF SELECTED SUBMERGED SITES IN VESTFIRÐIR
sonar (Olavius, O. 1964).
The side-scan sonar survey showed
that the seabed in Paradís was similar to
Hveravík, i.e. got deeper towards the east
and was deepest along a cliff on the east
side, about 30 - 40 meters. The sonar
survey in Paradís showed only one site that
was probably not a natural feature and
could be a large man-made object. This
site was positioned with a gps and will be
examined in more detail at a later stage.
One dive was carried out in Paradís bay to
get an idea about the vegetation and the
composition of the seabed. There is not
much marine vegetation on the seabed in
the bay and it is heavily silted, similar to
Hveravík. The cliff on the east side was
partially examined and it showed that the
cliff face had collapsed in places through
time, leaving large pieces of rocks and
boulders on the seabed.
The main reason for the deep
sediments in Hveravík and Paradís is the
river that runs into the bay, carrying with it
considerable amounts of river sediments
annually. Hveravík and Paradís are
sheltered with little evidence of wave
perturbation and currents are almost
non-existent. These conditions cause the
river sediments to accumulate on the
seabed in the bays instead of being carried
further out into the sea.
Reykjarfjörður
(Skrímslaíjörður)
The Reykjarfjörður fjord is situated in the
southern part of Ámeshreppur in
Strandasýsla. The íjord is fairly large and
lies in an east to west direction. The fjord
has been occupied from the settlement to
the present and farms are situated on the
coastline. In the bottom of the fjord is a
small settlement, Djúpavík, where a
herring factory was built in the early 20th
century. The factory has been abandoned
for a long time but a small summer
settlement has grown around the tourist
industry at Djúpavík (Lámsdóttir, Bima et
al. 2005).
In 1615 three Basque whaling ships
got caught in drift-ice where they were
anchored on the north shore of the
Reykjarfjörður fjord and were wrecked.
Most of the crews managed to get ashore
and sailed in their small whaling boats
north along the coast of the Vestfirðir
peninsula into the Isafjarðardjúp fjord.
There they hoped to find other whaling
ships and get a passage back home.
However, the whalers were murdered by a
band of armed men sent by local
magistrate for some minor offence. The
reasons behind this horrible crime are not
fully known but it seems that the
magistrate believed that the whalers had
committed some crime that warranted
such harsh measures (Kristjánsson, Jónas
ed. 1950).
The wrecking of the three whaling
ships was documented in detail by the
Icelander Jón Guðmundsson the leamed.
In late September 1615 the three whaling
ships were anchored just of shore by a
farm called Naustavík (fig. 8). During the
days before, ice had drifted into the fjord
on the south side but on the 21st of
September a sudden gale from the
southwest pushed the ice to the northeast
towards the whalers. The ice smashed into
the ships and two of them immediately
broke from their moorings. One was
thrown against another ship and broke up
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