Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2011, Síða 27

ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT OF SELECTED SUBMERGED SITES IN VESTFIRÐIR
is completely broken up due to storms and
currents and it is probably the remains of
the trawler Euripides.
TálknaQörður
Tálknaijörður is the fjord next to
Patreksfjörður to the north. The fjord is
smaller and narrower than Patreksfjörður
and a small peninsula, Sveinseyri, is on the
north side of the §ord. The east side of this
peninsula offered a shelter and safe
mooring for large ships, making it an ideal
site for a trading post. It is unknown when
trading commenced at Sveinseyri but
traders where at least sailing to
Tálknafjörur as early as 1393 (íslenskir
Annálar 1847). In the 17th centuiy the
trading post was taken over by the Danish
and it remained an important trading center
until the early 20th century (Fig. 9).
Area K. Sveinseyri
The survey was focused on each side of
the Sveinseyri peninsula and the areas
were similar in size, approximately 500 x
300 meters. The seabed on both the west
and east side of the peninsula is very
shallow, Two to three hundred meters
from the sliore the depth ranges between
1.5-3 meters. On the east side of the
Sveinseyri peninsula the seabed is very
silted and shallow along the shore but
gradually gets deeper towards the south
and east. The depth ranges from 3-25
meters on the east side of Sveinseyri. The
side-scan sonar showed a number of man
made objects but they need to be verified.
Some of these objects were fairly large
and could possibly be parts of shipwrecks
but that also needs to be tested. One dive
was carried out on the east side of
Sveinseyri to test an object that had shown
up on sonar and to examine the
underwater environment. The visibility
during the dive was poor, only about 3
meters and a circular search was used to
locate the object. The object was made of
iron and was overgrown with marine life
and could not be identified but probably
came from a ship or a boat. The seabed
was made up thick sediments and not
much marine vegetation was visible with
in the search area.
Conlusion
The systematic survey of selected areas
around the Vestfirðir peninsula has
demonstrated the potential for many
important submerged archaeological sites.
It appears that a number of unknown
Track Patreksfjörður Tálknafjörður Hveravík Paradís
1 1
2 1
3 1
4 1
5 1
6 1
Total 3 1 1 1
Table 1 Side-scan sonar anomalies
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