Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1991, Page 2

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THE BURIAL SITE OF VIÐ KIRKJUGARÐ
Fig. 1. The mound »Øttisheyggur« on the promontory
of Giljanes, Vágoy, that according to legend contains
an ancient burial. Photo: S.V. Arge 1989.
it became apparent that archaeologists had
discovered the remains of a series of graves
at Sandur in the summer 1989. Although the
actual excavation and the evaluation of the
material is far from complete, we think it im-
portant that the preliminary results be
presented to an interested public1
The aim of this paper is thus, to present
the results of the first excavation season, to
discuss the find in a wider perspective and to
indicate some of the questions and problems
raised by the material. However before we at-
tempt to do so, let us take a look at the back-
ground for the excavation and the context
which these burials form a part of.
Excavations in the village of Sandur
The first excavation in Sandur just over 20
years ago, was centered within the actual
church at Sandur. The results were no less
outstanding than unexpected, in that what
was found were the remains of five succes-
sive churches under the present one, built in
1839. The oldest was a small single-aisled
stave church, as we know them from Nor-
way, and dated to the llth century. Thus all
in all, six churches have been built one on the
top of another on this one spot (Krogh
1975).
In 1972 excavation was extended to the
southeastern corner of the churchyard. Here
a coin hoard had been discovered by a grave-
digger in 1863. The hoard is unique on the
Faroes and consists of 98 silver coins from
the period of ca. AD 1000-1080/90. The
coins came from what we know as Germany,
England, Ireland, Hungary, Norway and
Denmark. For reasons we only can guess at,
the owner wished to hide the coins and bu-
ried them sometime around AD 1090. Like-
wise for one reason or an other the coins
were never recovered and lay undisturbed un-
til 1863. The hoard has since been subject to
many a numismatical discussion and has
been decisive for Norwegian numismatology
relating to the period (Herbst 1863, Malmer
1961, Skaare 1976, 1986).
The 1972 excavation uncovered the re-
mains of a finely paved stone floor, inter-
preted by the excavator as the paved floor of
a house of a Viking Age longhouse type..
Furthermore, the excavator considers it likely
that the coin hoard was originally buried
beneath the same floor (Krogh 1975).
As the local council were planning to ex-
tend the churchyard, further excavations be-
came necessary. These took place in the
years 1977 to 1980 and were of an explorato-
ry character. The 2,800 square meters large
planned extension south of the old church-