Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2013, Page 18

AGUSTA EDWALD AND KAREN MILEK
and no mention is made of any portable
material culture such as crockery, chests,
or tools for spinning and weaving.
The main room of the house, the
baðstofa, where people slept, worked and
ate, was often reported to be unstable,
with cracked or rotten walls in four of the
six inspections. It was not inspected in
1881 as the tenants who were leaving had
built it themselves, and therefore no
surcharge (álag) was charged for it. In
1917 the baðstofa was described as fairly
stable, although a wooden partition and
windows were cracked. That room had
been built in 1896 and was thus 21 years
old when, the year after, in 1918, it was
reported to be unstable (Table 2). The
kitchen and the pantry were overall in a
better state while the corridor was unstable,
with old, slumping walls, in three of the six
inspections (Héraðsskjalasafn Skagafjarðar
(Municipal Archives of Skagafjörður),
Sauðárkrókur, Iceland, inspection at
Hombrekka, Höfðaströnd, 1868, 1881,
1896, 1917,1918, 1920).
The inspections span just over half a
century of the life of the farmhouse. It is
clear from them that the rooms needed
frequent repairs, beams were replaced,
walls supported, and new roofs built,
constantly altering the shapes and the
sizes of the rooms. The majority of the
rooms at Hombrekka had dirt floors and
exposed stone and turf walls apart from
the baðstofa, the room where people, ate,
slept and worked, which had a wooden
floor and panelled walls from 1881, and a
half panelled parlour that was built around
the tum of the century. The first mention
of windows is in the 1881 inspection
which lists one two-paned window in the
baðstofa. The windows at the farm get
larger throughout time and appear in more
rooms. In 1896 the baðstofa has one
four-paned window and one single paned,
and there is also a small window in the
pantry. In 1917, 1918 and 1920 these
windows stay in place and the new parlour
has one window. However, the panes in
the baðstofa windows are consistently
broken throughout the three last
inspections.
The excavation is consistent with the
inspection records. The second most
common artefact category after ceramics
are various types of metal artefacts mostly
made of iron. These artefacts were
subdivided according to their function and
the majority was classified as building
materials, predominantly nails. These
artefacts reflect the makeup and
maintenance of the farmhouse. It is
noteworthy that the amount of building
material increased dramatically between
phases and in particular as machine cut
and wire round nails became available,
especially after 1890. This increase is
mirrored in the amount of window glass
recovered which increases between
phases (discussed further below). These
items may reflect an increased buying
power of the households at Hombrekka as
well as the increasing availability of
industrially produced and imported
products. The second largest subcategory
of metal artefacts was fumiture, i.e.
various metal straps and scraps interpreted
as originating ffom chests or other types
of fumiture.
The excavation, furthermore, revealed
many instances of repairs and
refurbishments of rooms, changes of
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