‘On the Apparitions of Drowned Men’: Unnatural Death, Folklore, and Bioarchaeology at Haffjarðarey, Western Iceland.

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Burial, Space, and Memory of Unusual Death" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The church of Saint Nicholas at Haffjarðarey (1200 to 1563 CE) was active during two outbreaks of bubonic plague, religious transitions, and the establishment of the Icelandic fishing industry.  Both the church and cemetery were suddenly closed and abandoned in 1563 after the supposed sudden deaths of the priest and parishioners after Christmas Eve mass that same year. Drawing on common themes within Icelandic folklore and Saga literature, this anecdote utilizes unnatural deaths, Christmas Eve, and the creation of ghosts in order to provoke a negative response from the surrounding community.  Excavations at the site suggest a densely organized cemetery with multiple intercut, disturbed, mis-oriented, and vertically stacked burials as well as one enigmatic mass grave.  This paper focuses on the relationship between folklore, bioarchaeology, and socio-economic transition in later medieval Iceland through an interpretation of the Haffjarðarey cemetery and its role within local social memory.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2019   •
• Burial, Space, and Memory of Unusual Death

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 295