Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2011, Page 73

THE ICELANDIC WHETSTONE MATERIAL - AN OVERVIEW OF RECENT RESEARCH
This study also attempted to identify
the common form or forms that the
imported whetstone material had when it
was introduced to the Icelandic user. Did
the whetstones arrive as raw material in
large blocks, as rough prefabricates, or as
fmished and polished whetstones? And is
production or reshaping at all identifiable
in any of the Icelandic sites? There are
only few known examples in Iceland of
raw material and most of them are not
datable and are registered as stray finds in
the National Museum of Iceland (Eldjám
and Friðriksson 2000, 352). Recently a
few examples have been found at Skálholt
in post-medieval contexts, both a raw
material block and possible prefabricates,
cut in the right size but still unpolished
and not readily usable as a whetstone.
Trade in whetstone blocks of raw material
is well-known and represented
archaeologically by shipwrecks with
cargo loads of raw material of Eidsborg
stone. Best known are the Klástad ship
(Christensen 1978; Myrvoll 1986, 174)
and the Bole ship (Daly and Nymoen
2008). In addition, several shiploads of
whetstones have been found along the
Norwegian coast and systematically
registered in recent years by Pál Nymoen
(2011, 67).
The blocks of raw material would
have been cut down into a few large
whetstones or several medium or
small-sized whetstones. Possible
production fragments from reshaping the
raw material into whetstones and a few
possible prefabricates have been identified
at the harbor site of Gásir (high medieval),
while several small production fragments
were recovered ffom one of the booths at
Kolkuós harbor, which is so far the best
indication of whetstone production in
Iceland (early medieval). However, there
are no examples of either raw material or
clear production waste írom any of the
Viking Age sites analyzed in Iceland,
whereas there is strong archaeological
evidence from sites in Scandinavia,
showing that schist arrived in the towns
and trading sites as raw material and was
reshaped for export (i.e. Haithabu and
Kaupang). But the small scale of the
possible Icelandic production probably
involving a small number of whetstones
made ffom one or a few blocks of raw
material for personal use at local
farmsteads, might not leave much
identifiable material in the archaeological,
especially when compared to the
Scandinavian towns and trading sites.
Overview of type, shape and use
As individual finds, whetstones are
generally not datable as the same stone
types were used for centuries. Also, the
lack of variation in shapes or styles over
time means that no secure typology of
whetstones has been developed.
Therefore, the focus of this research has
been on excavations where modem dating
methods have been employed and good
stratigraphic phasing is present. After
having analyzed a sizable amount of the
Icelandic whetstone collection, a number
of general trends can be recognized in the
sizes and shapes of the whetstones. The
most common type is the bar-shaped
whetstone with parallel sides and
quadrangular cross section. The sides and
the cross sections are often not regular in
shape due to intensive use of the stone and
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