Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2015, Page 18

JORIS COOLEN AND NATASCHA MeHLER
Figure 3. Brynjúlfur Jónssorís sketch of the ruins at Þingeyrar (after
Jónsson 1906).
Early records concerning the location
of the assembly site place it on the shore
of Lake Hóp, where shifting sand dunes
were thought to have obscured it (Kálund
1986, 22), but later it was consistently
placed by the farm where an alleged court
circle was first reported in 1858 (Maurer
1997, 191) and then repeatedly visited and
investigated (e.g., Friðriksson et al. 2005.
22-25; Zoéga et al. 2006, 27-28).2 In 1886,
Sigurður Vigfússon visited Þingeyrar on
his field trip through Húnavatnssýslur and
Skagafjörður (Vigfússon 1892, 79). Vigfús-
son mentioned the dómhringur and com-
mented that it may have been a horse pen.
He also stated that he had not observed any
2 For an overview of the archaeological surveys that have taken place at Þingeyrar, see Friðriksson et al. 2005,
22-24 (in Icelandic) and Friðriksson 1994,116 and Whitmore 2013, 336-45 (in English).
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