University of Virginia Library

LOJSTA, GOTLAND, SWEDEN

291.C

291.B

291.A

GERMANIC HOUSE

3RD-5TH CENTURY

RECONSTRUCTION BY G. BOETHIUS
AND J. NIHLEN

[photos: Statens Historiska Museet, Stockholm]

A. Foundation of house after excavation.

A magnificent and one of the first excavated
examples of an aisled Germanic house of the
Migration Period. Its walls were made of
earth carefully lined with stones. The roof
was supported by two rows of wooden posts
rising from flat stones all of which were still
in place. These supports must have been
framed at their heads into stable trusses by
means of cross beams and long beams. The
entrance was in the western gable wall; the
hearth in the middle of the center floor
toward the inner end of the hall.

B and C. Reconstruction of the dwelling.

Reconstructed at full scale on the original
site in 1932, the dwelling follows drawings
submitted by the excavators. Although now
questioned in the rendering of certain
details, this reconstruction nevertheless
gives a very accurate impression of the
unitary quality of the interior space
unmarred by the fact that its roof-supporting
frame divides into a multiplicity
of bays. The roof may not have been
covered with thatch but with turves. The
walls were originally a little higher, and
the entrance wall was probably not straight
but hipped at the eastern end of the roof.

292.A ÞÓRSÁRDALUR VALLEY, ICELAND. HALL STÖNG

PLAN OF HOUSE [after A. Roussel in Stenberger, 1943, 78, fig. 137]

I. Fore room, Jorskáli

II. Sleeping house, skáli, divided by transverse partition into room for men,
karlskáli, and room for women, kvennaskáli

III. Living house, stofa

IV. Dairy, mjólkrbûr

V. Room for cold storage, kjátlari

The house had only one entrance and no windows; it received light and air through a lantern-surmounted opening in the roof. Its turf walls were raised on a stone
foundation two courses high; the roof likewise was covered with turves. The center floor of the main house (II) was of stamped clay and contained a fireplace. Two rows
of posts divided this space into three aisles, the two side aisles being raised and boarded, and partitioned transversely into men's and women's sleeping quarters. A
square area boarded off at the inner end of the south aisle probably formed a sleeping alcove for the farmer and his wife.

The living room (III) contained a hearth for cooking, a stone box 50cm deep. The dairy (IV) was accessible only from inside the house and contained three round
impressions in the floor, presumably from large vats. Its walls were lined with lava stones to a height of 1.1m. A room presumably for cold storage (V) was accessible
only from the fore room (I).

The photograph (fig. 292.B) taken from the door of the living room shows the excavation of the main hall, and reveals with great clarity how the aisles and floor of
the fore room were raised above the level of the center floor. The banked earth of these side aisles was retained by staked boards. Large flat stones at 2-meter intervals
provided footing for the roof posts. Smaller stones set along the walls, pieces of wood still attached, show the house was wainscotted. Absence of personal effects indicates
the residents were forewarned of the eruption of Mt. Hekla, in 1300, that destroyed the house and converted the fertile valley into a wasteland of lava and ash.

The reconstruction (fig. 291.C) portrays the ingenious simplicity with which man could, in a harsh Atlantic climate, make a dwelling not only secure against attack, but
warm and homely as well. The compact top-growth of Iceland terrain is well suited to turf-cutting. For timber the chieftains of the Saga Period relied on wood
imported from Norway, or on driftwood swept in by Atlantic storms from distant North American coasts. The only locally available building material was a dwarf
birch whose fine branches were used as matting for the roof turves.

292.C INTERIOR VIEW OF HOUSE. REDRAWN FROM ROUSSEL, 1943, 211, fig. 144

292.B FOUNDATIONS OF HALL AFTER EXCAVATION. PHOTO COURTESY OF A. ROUSSEL

293. EZINGE (GRONINGEN), THE NETHERLANDS

FOUNDATIONS,

HOUSE A OF WARF-LAYER VI, 4th CENTURY B.C.

[photo by courtesy of A. E. Van Giffen]

The remains of this flatland-level farmhouse show that its interior was divided into a broad center space and two aisles, each roughly half the
width of the nave, by two rows of roof-supporting wooden posts of young, unscantled oak. Their stumps, cut a few feet above the original floor
level when the house was dismantled to make a new settlement on higher ground, were well preserved to a depth of several feet. Braided
wattlework walls formed an enclosure slightly inside the perimeter of outer posts and independent of them. The corners of the house were rounded,
suggesting that the roof was hipped over its narrow ends. A cross partition divided the interior into a dwelling area containing a fireplace, and
a much larger byre for livestock. The building was entered on one of its long sides. In a rectangular yard extending to the north, nine rows of
posts formed supports for a wooden platform presumably used to store fodder and other produce.

This settlement was dismantled after about a hundred years, because the rising waters of the North Sea made it unsafe to live on this horizon.
As centuries passed and the inundation level continued to rise, the site developed as a dome-shaped mound on successively higher, broader levels,
formed by earth, turves, and manure thrown up by the dwellers. The growth of the settlement is traceable through six layers over seven
centuries. The mound attained a diameter of 450m and a center height of 5.5m. The terrain elevation seen at the right is an undisturbed
portion of the present surface of the mound, now occupied by the church and houses of modern Ezinge.