Wednesday, January 4, 2012

The Axed Man of Mosfell: Skeletal Evidence of a Viking Age Homicide and the Icelandic Sagas

Courtesy Medievalists.net:

"When Christianity was adopted by law in Iceland (1000 A.D.) Grim of Mosfell was baptized and built a church there. . . . When a church was built at Mosfell, the one Grim built at Hrísbrú was demolished and a new graveyard was laid out. Under the altar some human bones were found, much bigger than ordinary human bones, and people are confident that these were Egil’s because of stories told by old men – Egil’s Saga, Chapter 86.

The discovery of the skeletal remains of the person described in this chapter is one of many scientific results of the Mosfell Archaeological Project, an ongoing international research effort we began in 1995. The project’s goal is to produce a comprehensive reconstruction of human adaptation and environmental change in Iceland’s Mosfell Valley from Viking times until the present. To do this, we have used a multidisciplinary approach that integrates information from archaeology, physical anthropology, saga studies, and the environmental sciences."

The full article by Phillip K. Walker, et al, originally published in The Bioarchaeology of Individuals, may be read at The University of California Santa Barbara Department of Anthropology site.

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