Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1981, Síða 20

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Papeyjardýrið
legri sokku. Einhver hefur gert ser f>að til gamans að tálga sokku-
líki í Jjennan litfagra eftirláta leirstein, ef til vill sem leikfang handa
drengnum sínum. Og leikfong eru til {>ess að leika ser að en ekki til
nota í lífsbaráttunni. Betri skýringu hef eg ekki, en taka mun eg
með {jokkum bendingum góðra manna, sem greinarkorn {jetta lesa,
til dæmis frá {jeim vini vorum sem {>að er helgað með hamingju-
óskum.
Papeyjarhluturinn með dýri sínu gefur enga bendingu um, að
mennirnir hafi byrjað að uppfylla Island fyrr en fonnar sógur vorar
herma. Ennjaá veit eg um engan hlut, sem Jaað gerir. Pó er sjálfsagt
að taka pví með opnum huga ef slíkt skyldi, prátt fyrir allt, ein-
hverntíma koma á daginn eins og sumir virðast telja líklegt. Forn-
leifafræðingar hafa næg verkefni á íslandi og í Færeyjum, pótt
aldrei nema pessi lond hafi byggst síðast allra í víðri veróld og eigi
tæpast neina forsógu.
SUMMARY
The core of this paper is a first presentation of a somewhat enigmatic object,
found in 1967, on the small island of Papey off the southeast coast of Iceland.
The object came to light during an excavation (yet unpublished) of what proved
to be a lOth century farm site, a fact well established by the nature of the
buildings and the objects found, inclusive the one dealt with here, as well as
C-14 tests.
The object is neatly cut from reddish tuff, abundantly available in the moun-
tains on the mainland nearest to the island. It is regularly oval, convex on one
side and slightly concave on the other, 8.5 cm long, 2.8 cm wide in the middle,
and 1.2 cm thick where it is thickest. Near both ends there are neatly drilled
holes, connected by a row of drilled dots running along the top of the object.
Similar dots also run across the object. As a whole the dots on the convex side
seem to be deliberately so arranged that they form three crosses, one big and two
small. On the concave side there is a lightly incised picture of an animal, a
biped with a curved body, a spiral tail, and a long head-lappet or pigtail, which
winds in big slings round the body. The animal is easily recognizable as be-
longing to the large group of animals on objects đecorated in the Jellinge/Mammen
style of the lOth century, although it lacks a good many of its well-known
features (e. g. the double contour) because of its sketchy character. The author
finds it adequate to characterize the picture as an offhand sketch, and compares
it to an improvised ditty, made on the spur of the moment. Neither the carver