Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1961, Page 69

Bústaður í Eingjartoftum, Sandavági
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SUMMARY
The present paper deals with the results of an archaeological ins
vestigati >n, made in 1956, of a settlement in a place called i Eingjar=
toftum, Sandavágur (Vágar), situated high in the cultivated area (fig. 1).
In 1917, close by, was found a runic stone with the inscription:
forkæl onondarsun austmafr of tuhalande bygfe fena s(f)a/> fyst, by
BrøndumsNielsen3 dated to about 1200, and besides, from tíme to time
small finds have been made hereabout (fig. 2).
Fig. 3 shows sections of the place where according to the finder‘s
account in 1956 the runic stone was situated, and of the sites above.
The latter turned out to consist of 2 rooms, or rather houses (fig. 4),
as there can be no doubt that the methods of construction employed
were quite different, so in their origin they cannot be of the same age
although after the construction of house I they were used simultane*
ously. House I (fig. 5) is 6 m in length, 3 m across, oriented NE—SW,
with 1—1,5 m thick walls of rough stones and stone slabs placed edgeways
(fig. 6, right), with rubble mainly consisting of pebbles. House II (fig. 7),
6,5 m in length, 2,35 m across, oriented NW—SE, perpendicular to the
other, has 0,75—1,5 m thick walls of piled boulders, with rubble of earth
and pebbles. Above the eastern longitudinal wall of house I is running a
passage nicely paved with stone slabs, to the east limited by a stone
wall built up against a moraine hill situated on a glaciated rock. Owing
to the rather considerable difference of height between the passage and
the floor (the latter partly paved with stone clabs, too) in house I, a
flight of steps has been made inside the entrance of the eastern longi*
tuđinal wall, fig. 6.
Immediately north of the steps there had been a fireplace, of which
only the bottom was left In house II there had been a fireplace by
the northern wall, no doubt the original one, and another by the
noithern part of the south wall, probably dating from a later use of
the house, as it seemed to be placed on the earlier floor deposits (fig. 8).
The houses have been pulled down, and the stone materials of the
walls filled in between the foundation stones of the walls, nearly the
only ones preserved. Glazed fragments of earthen vessels among the
stones seem to indicate that this took place in the 16th century16 (list
of finds, house I, 3, 6).
Both the method of building and finds of earthen vessels of Viking
Age type (list of finds, house II, 11, 17, 18)5 in house II seem to show
that this one is the oldest, probably early Middle Ages, and that house I
must have been added in a later period.10 The method of building,
which in these islands, till now, is only known from 13th and 14th
centuries, and the complete absence in this house of earthen vessels or