Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1991, Page 1

The burial site of við Kirkjugarð
in the village of Sandur; Sandoy
Símun V Arge and Niels Hartmann
Introduction
The settlers who colonised the North Atlan-
tic islands in the Viking Age, left their mark
in the form of a variety of tangible remains
that today constitute our basic source of in-
formation on the period in question.
One class of finds available to us are the
remains of burials. Once excavated, these
can provide us with much information on
questions of origin, range and extent of for-
eign contacts and settlement history as well
as cast light on social conditions as a whole.
In Scandinavia, Viking Age burials are a
fairly common class of finds. Likewise on
those North Atlantic islands settled by the
Norse - specially in Orkney and Iceland.
But not in the Faroe Islands.
Why this is so, has long been the cause of
much speculation. Not that we in any way
lack mounds and other features, that accord-
ing to legend and oral traditions are the re-
mains of ancient burials, for instance Øttis-
heyggur on the promontory of Giljanes on
Vágoy, Tórmansgrøv in the village of Vágur,
not to mention Havgrímsgrøv in Hovi, both
on Suðuroy, and Sigmundargrøv on Skúvoy.
Althoug a few of these have been investigat-
ed or dug into by curious laymen or in con-
nection with tilling, none have been archaeo-
logically excavated. Thus there is still no
knowing whether any of the legends have a
core of thruth to them.
The only, until recently, established burial
site is that of Yviri í Trøð at Tjørnuvík on
Streymoy. Here in 1955, a couple of small
boys stumbled upon fragments of human
bones protruding from the earth. The fol-
lowing excavation, which took place in
1956-1957 and 1959, uncovered the remains
of twelve graves. These had originally been
dug into a sand dune, that later was buried
under earth and stones from the surrounding
mountainsides. Besides poorly preserved
skeletal remains, the graves yielded very few
objects that could cast light on the nature
and date of the burials. The only substantial,
but none the less important object found was
a bronze ringed pin. The pin is of a Hiberno-
Norse type well known in the North and
West Atlantic Viking Age and mainly dated
to the lOth century (Fanning 1983:30). Since
then the site at Tjørnuvík has been unique in
Faroese historical and archaeological re-
search and litterature (Dahl & Rasmussen
1956, Dahl 1968, 1970).
Thus it was no less than a sensation when
Fróðskaparrit 38.-39. bók (1989-90): 5-21