Víkingabústaður í Seyrvági: Trace of viking settlement in Seyrvágur, Vágar

Abstract

The present paper deals with the results of an archaeological investigation 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 oraine 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.  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 n the central axis of the house (fig. 5).

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 5 - y 9.75 metres). As in any case one of them (fig. 3, x 7.35 - y 17.5 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 perhaps 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 groundplan) 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 habited in the Middle Ages. Fragments of earthen vessels (list of finds No. 11, 42 and 48) and some spinning-wheels, probably lead weights in particular
(list of finds No. 22) also speek in favour of this dating.