Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1965, Page 14

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Víkingabústaður í Seyrvági
SUMMARY
The present paper deals with the results of an archaeological investi-
gation carried out in 1957, of a settlement in a place called við Hanusá,
Seyrvágur (on the island of Vágar), situated high in the cultivated
area. (fig. 1).
The site was very much disturbed, partly owing to tilling during
centuries so that only the foundation stones of the walls were preserved
in many places not as much as that (fig. 3), partly owing to recent
building work, by which the site had among things been intersected by
a wide cementated drainage ditch (fig. 2 and fig. 3).
The sections (fig. 2) also show that the walls are founded direct on
moraine clay, and that the top soil is very shallow in most places.
As appears from the sketch plan (fig. 3), the house is oriented N—S,
the southern end fronting the below beach and creek. The whole length
of the house is 17.75 metres and full breadth 6.70 metres inside; but
the character of the walls and the extent of the floor layers show that
we have to do with a building of an earlier date, to which extensions
have later been added to the east and to the south.
The oldest building stretches from abt. y 20.75 metres north till abt.
y 3.50 metres south, its inside length being abt. 14.50 metres and the
breadth 4.50 meteres at y 16 metres (fig. 3).
Although the western wall is but partly preserved and the eastern
wall has been rearranged during later rebuilding, it seems obvious that
the ground-plan of the house has been oval. The walls of this building
are filling walls of 1.5 metres thickness, particularly distinct are the
northern wall and the remains of the western wall at the north and at
the south end (fig. 3 and fig. 4).
The only fireplace is a longitudinal one of 3.70 metres length, placed
in the central axis of the house (fig. 3).
Two parallel rows of posts have carried the roof, and it is proved
that some of the posts were partly supported by flat stones (fig. 3, x 3 -
y 9.73 metres). As in any case one of them (fig. 3, x 7.33 - y 17.3 metres)
was charred and the layers around consisted of fat black earth containing
charcoal (fig. 2, section y 16 metres, farthest to the east), it seems as if
at least the northern part of the house has been burnt down, which per-
haps also gives an explanation as to the alteration of ground-plan and
lay-out of the house, an alteration which, if that is the case, may be
made during the reconstruction.
As is well-known buildings of this character and type (oval ground-
plan) are to be found in all the Northern countries in the Viking period,
the best examples in the Faroe Islands being found in Kvívík1 and in
Fuglafjorður3; therefore, it is very likely that the earliest part of the
present building dates from the Viking period but it has also been in-