Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2013, Page 25

BUILDING AND KEEPING HOUSE IN 19TH-CENTURY ICELAND.
DOMESTIC IMPROVEMENTS AT HORNBREKKA, SKAGAFJÖRÐUR
Phase Number of sherds Weight
Phase 1 8 24.47
Phase 2 48 49.45
Phase 3 72 260.92
Phase 4 65 188.2
Earlier phase of midden 3 2.14
Later phase of midden 54 39.84
TOTAL 250 565.02
Table 3 Window glass by phase
peaking in the last occupation phase. The
majority of the window glass sherds
excavated were too small for a diagnostic
manufacturing technique and its relative
quality to be determined. Windows make
it possible for people on the inside to see
out and those on the outside to see in.
Tarlow (2007) has argued that an
enjoyment of vistas, evident in
landscaping of gardens as well as in art
and literature, coincided with the spread of
larger windows in Britain in the early 19th
century. Likewise, the adoption of
windows in Iceland later in the century
coincided with a rising concem with
cleanliness in and around farmhouses.
Larger windows will thus not only have
facilitated increased standards of
cleanliness by admitting light into the
rooms, but will also have heightened the
need to keep rooms clean and tidy.
The windows will have been a
significant improvement of the home as
they will have let light in the previously
dark rooms at Hornbrekka, however, the
light will have been diminished by the
thickness of the turf walls as well as any
vegetation growing on the wall and roof of
the house, unless they were set in wooden
gables, which is likely after the tum of the
19th century. The recording of broken
window panes in the most used room of
the house, the baðstofa, for three
consecutive inspections in 1917,1918 and
1920, suggests that the family who lived at
the farm during that period could not
afford new window glass or did not
prioritize its replacement. Before the
instalment of windows it will have been
difficult to keep dark rooms clean, even if
the standard of cleanliness was rising.
Ólöf Sigurðardóttir (1906), bom in 1857,
remembers how she and her siblings
would receive their own small Tamps’
made of a shell with fish oil and a cotton
grass wick every Christmas and how they
would use them to light up the comers of
the room to see if they could fmd some
hidden gems to play with, such as lost
pebbles and carved bones. Her
recollections remind us of how dark
many of the turf house rooms will have
been and what a difference bigger, more
transparent windows, will have made.
It was not only the introduction of
window glass that will have made the
rooms at Hombrekka brighter. Kerosene
lamps became common in Iceland
towards the end of the 19th century and
21 lamp sherds were recovered from the
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