Herjolfsnæs

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Granite tombstone, text: "Her hviler Hro (ar) Kolgrims: s (on)" (Copenhagen National Museum)

Herjolfsnæs (also Herjolfnes , Herjolfsness , Herjólfsnes ) was a medieval settlement on the southern tip of Greenland. The current name is Ikigaat (according to the old spelling Ikigait ).

It is a peninsula bounded by mountain ranges to the north and east. Flat land extends to the west and the Atlantic to the south. In the east runs the fjord Narsap Saqqaa , on the other side of which is Narsarmijit .

The Icelandic settlers found grazing land for their cattle and also a good base for hunting and fishing. What made Herjolfsnæs so special was the port, called Sand, which was approached by merchant ships.

founding

According to the Landnámabók , one of the colonists who set out from Iceland at the end of the 10th century to colonize southern Greenland was a certain Herjólfr . He is described as a distinguished man and a trader. This person can be associated with the homestead that existed in Herjolfsnæs at the end of the 10th century and which later became the property of the church.

A stone, approximately 15 m long church ruin from the 13th century and the foundation walls of a hall measuring 11 m × 5.75 m have been preserved.

The location of the “Sand” port is not certain, especially since the coastline has changed. Nørlund suspected it to be in a brook, 1 km south of the Moravian foundation Frederiksdal .

Runic staff from Gudveg's grave. (National Museum Copenhagen)

End of the settlement

The residents of Herjolfsnæs lived in the European agricultural tradition, which broke the foundation due to the deterioration in the climate. The adaptation of cultural techniques of the Inuit (e.g. sealing seals, but also clothing) did not take place. Iron knives that are worn down to the handle in the Herjolfsnæs finds illustrate how living conditions deteriorated more and more.

The archaeological findings point to the end of settlement around 1450, possibly a partial emigration took place beforehand.

Excavations

The first find from Herjolfsnæs cemetery (E 111) was a labeled gravestone (photo) that was sent to the National Museum in Copenhagen as early as 1830. The ground monument was exposed to erosion by the sea, so that fragments of skeletons and coffins were repeatedly exposed in the 19th century. Samples of both skeletal material and textiles were examined using the radiocarbon method and consistently dated to the period from around 1400 to 1450.

The archaeological expedition of 1921 (led by Poul Nørlund ) brought to light superbly preserved textile finds , which are now in the Danish National Museum. The imitation of European fashion trends was striking. In its final phase, the settlement was by no means isolated from the outside world.

Herjolfsnæs' cemetery was very densely populated, Nørlund's team found remains of an estimated 120 burials, but many of them were in very poor condition. Usually the deceased were wrapped in clothing. But there were also coffins, some without a coffin lid, which is of interest in view of the settlement's wood resources. Burial in the coffin had a negative impact on conservation. In a wooden coffin, a rune staff had been buried in place of the person who represented them: “This woman was buried overboard in the Greenland Sea. Her name was Gudveg. ”Several memorial crosses were also found, some of which were inscribed with runes.

25 individuals buried in Herjolfsnæs were examined more closely by the anthropologist Fr. CC Hansen. From the height (men up to 160 cm, women often only 140 cm) and deformations of the pelvic bones, which had to lead to the death of mother and child at birth, Hansen derived in the eugenic sense that the population of Herjolfsnæs was degenerate overall . This view is no longer held today. The skeletons, however, show physical stress and deficiency diseases. Skeletons of unburied people were also found who were still lying as they had died (probably of exhaustion).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernd Herrmann: Environmental History . S. 69 .
  2. ↑ a b Bernd Herrmann: Environmental History . S. 68 .
  3. ↑ FCC Hansen: Anthropologia medico-historica Groenlandiae Antiquae. Vol. I. Herjolfnes. Meddelelser om Grønland, No. 67, pp. 293-547, Reitzel, Køpenhavn 1924
  4. ↑ Niels Lynnerup: The Greenland Norse . S. 123 .
  5. ^ Richard Hennig: Terrae incognitae: a compilation and critical evaluation of the most important pre-Columbian voyages of discovery on the basis of the original reports available about it, Volume 2, 2nd revised edition, Brill, Leiden 1953, p. 448

literature

  • Poul Nørlund: Buried Norsemen at Herjolfsnes. An Archæological and Historical Study. Copenhagen 1924, Reprint Museum Tusculanum Press 2010 (1st chapter online )
  • Bernd Herrmann: Environmental History: An Introduction to Basic Terms. 2nd edition Göttingen 2016, pp. 67–70.
  • Niels Lynnerup: The Greenland Norse , Copenhagen 1998

Web links

Commons : Herjolfsnæs  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 59 ° 59 ′ 28 "  N , 44 ° 43 ′ 34.6"  W.