2015

2015

Journal
of North:
the North
Debating the Thing
in the
TheAtlantic
Assembly Project II
N. Mehler
Journal of the
North Atlantic

Special Volume 8

Special Volume 8:6981

ingvellir: A Place of Assembly and a Market?

Natascha Mehler*
Abstract - The site of the Icelandic general assembly at ingvellir has long been at the center of assembly research. Over
the past few decades in particular, archaeologists have criticised the antiquarian investigations of the late 19th and early
20th centuries. The criticism was directed at the methods used at the time to pinpoint assembly sites and to identify their
architectural components, such as booths and court-circles. However, it is also important to take a critical approach to the
question of what actually took place at ingvellir. After Iceland became independent, a period of nationalistic historiography set in, during which it was stated that ingvellir was not only the place for the general assembly but also the greatest
market place in Iceland. This paper presents the results of a systematic study of written and archaeological sources to put
to the test the premise of a large-scale market at ingvellir. Written and archaeological evidence for economic activities are
faint and ambiguous. On the basis of this it is argued that there was probably not a market zone within the assembly area
and that trade only took place there at a limited scale, barely exceeding necessary levels for provisioning..

Introduction
ingvellir (Fig. 1) was the site of the Icelandic
main assembly during the Viking period and the
Middle Ages. The place name consists of the components ing, which refers to the function of the
site, and vellir, the Old Norse (ON) term for a level
field (Fellows-Jensen 1996), which describes the flat
grounds at the northern end of Lake ingvallavatn.
At some point at the end of the Age of Settlement
(ca. 874930), the site was chosen as a location for
the annual main assembly, which was held there until 1798. The people attending these meetings assembled in the open each summer for about two weeks.1

Many visitors slept in temporary dwellings, such as

booths made of turf and stone or tents, both of which
are recorded in the sagas and evident in the archaeological record (e.g., Vsteinsson 2013). The meetings were of great political and social importance.
ingvellir was the place where the court of justice
and the court of legislature came together. After
the reforms of 960 AD, there were 39 chieftains
(goar), along with their retinues of free-born farmers (bndr), who played central roles at ingvellir.
According to written sources, women, although
largely excluded from the decision-making bodies,
were clearly present at the Aling, as the two-week

Figure 1. ingvellir today. Photograph Fredrik Sundman.

Department of Prehistory and Historical Archaeology, University of Vienna, Franz Klein Gasse 1, A-1190 Vienna, Austria;
natascha.mehler@univie.ac.at.
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*

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meeting was both a political and a social gathering

(Jhannesson 1974:3547, Karlsson 2000:2027).
Whether it was also a central economic gathering is
the question to be addressed in this paper.
Historical and archaeological interest in ingvellir started early, but excavations took place only
sporadically and in limited areas of the site. The first
archaeological research was carried out by Sigurur
Gumundsson, director of the National Museum,
in 1860 (rarson 19211922:12); but the first
substantial work was conducted in 1880 by Sigurur
Vigfsson (18281892), who had a particular interest in the site at that time (Vigfsson 18801881).
He opened a few trenches through earthworks that
he believed were the structures of the actual court or
features related to the court, as they were described
in sagas. Forty years later, in 1920, Matthas rarson (18771961), then director of the National
Museum of Iceland, recorded a number of booths
at ingvellir and opened a man-made structure
called rleifshaugur (rleifs mound) (rarson
19211922, 1945). In Icelandic archaeology, these
booths (sing. b, pl. bir) are defined as rectangular buildings consisting of low turf walls and stones
with tent-like roof constructions, erected at both assemblies and harbours (Vsteinsson 2013).
In recent decades, critical research has amended
some of the constructs that were considered central
to the initial work done at the site. In the 1980s,
the National Museum of Iceland conducted a largescale topographic survey during which more than
50 structures were recorded at ingvellir. Over the
last 15 years, additional survey and excavation work
was undertaken at the church (Vsteinsson 1999,
Hallmundsdttir and Juel Hansen 2012) and at some
of the booths (Fririksson 2002, Roberts 2004).
Some of the old trenches dug by Sigurur Vigfsson
were re-opened to re-examine his evidence critically
(Fririksson et al. 2005).2
The Historiographic Construct of a Market at
ingvellir
The research history of ingvellir is symptomatic
of the exploration of assembly sites in Iceland. In
the first phase of research, done at the turn of the
19th and 20th centuries, investigations were heavily
influenced by events described in the saga literature.
Scholars were eager to find the actual locations
of the courts or the dwellings of assembly visitors named in those sources. The methods used by
these early researchers have since been called into
question by those who feel that Vigfsson and his
contemporaries had been too strongly influenced by
the events and descriptions mentioned in the sagas
(e.g. Fririksson and Vsteinsson 1992, Fririksson
1994:105146, 2011).

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The genesis of the idea that ingvellir was also

a marketplace is hard to locate. Early scholars, such
as the German legal historian Konrad Maurer (1874)
and the Danish explorer Daniel Bruun (1897), reported details from the sagas and legal documents
that mentioned the presence of sword polishers
and ale brewers at the Aling but they did not draw
any further conclusions concerning a market or fair
(Maurer 1874:166, 424). A sword polisher and an ale
brewer are indeed mentioned in sagas to have been
present at the Aling, and I will discuss the references below. Maurer provided references from the
sagas for these activities, while later scholars who
repeated earlier researchers' discussions of them
unfortunately provided no additional or supporting references (e.g., Byock 2001:174, orsteinsson
and Jnsson 1991:36). While these later works may
not have used the words market or fair, their
narratives concerning merchants and craftsmen
nonetheless began to suggest general acceptance
for the idea of a market, or market-like economic
functions, at the Aling (Nordal 1990:100; Stefnsson 1984:463; orlksson 2000:179; orsteinsson
1966:97, 1980:53, 1987; orsteinsson and Jnsson
1991:36).
The idea that ingvellir was a commercial hub
seems to have originated in the early 1950s, when
a new wave of nationalistic and romantic writing
took hold in Icelandic historiography, following the
country's establishment as an independent republic.3
In line with these events, the influential historian
Bjrn orsteinsson asserted that ingvellir was the
greatest trading place in Iceland, where merchants
and craftsmen brought their goods and foreigners
came to do their business (orsteinsson 1953:105).
Although orsteinsson provided no references for
his statement, a subsequent historical survey written
for popular and academic readership expanded on
it, saying that at ingvellir, politics were discussed
and markets were held (Roesdahl 1998:268) and
this idea endures (e.g., Gullbekk 2011:184185,
Graham-Campbell 2011:123).
The idea that ingvellir was a trading place
ultimately stems from saga passages and law texts
that refer to trade conducted at Iceland's regional
spring assemblies. This information appears to have
been extended to an assumption that trade was a focal activity also of the main assembly at ingvellir
(Ebel 1977:7, 1985:115; Miller 1986:20). Such a
generalisation from the written evidence may well
be misleading and a number of historians, such as
Jn Jhannesson (1974:3549), Gunnar Karlsson
(2000) and Bruce Gelsinger (1981), have been more
cautious and neither repeated this idea nor contributed to its expansion.
It appears an obvious assumption that food, tools,
clothes, and other goods would have been traded

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during the large meetings at ingvellir, where people

gathered together for an extended period of time,
with many of the attendees having travelled long distances to participate in the assembly. However, the
written and archaeological evidence that trade was
conducted during the general assembly is actually
very weak, as will be discussed below.

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would be more visible in the archaeological record

than the exchange of goods but loosely distributed
trading activities would not have left many traces in
the ground. In the following sections, I will examine written and archaeological evidence for these
scenarios.
Written Evidence from Sagas and Law Texts

Two market scenarios for ingvellir

To assess the written evidence for economic

activities at the Aling and the two scenarios
outlined above, I systematically examined the
slendingasgur, or Sagas of the Icelanders, for
entries about trade, markets, exchange or barter at
ingvellir. These sagas and short stories (ttir) were
written down largely during the 13th and 14th centuries but describe events that took place in Iceland during the Commonwealth period (9301262) (Simek
and Plsson 2007:206207, 374).5 Another source
investigated for this project was Grgs, the law code
of the Commonwealth period (Heusler 1937).
Indeed, trade, markets, and local and foreign
merchants are often described in the sagas, but
there are only a few references to any kind of trade
having been conducted during the general assembly at ingvellir. In fact, only one saga describes
an economic negotiation between attendees of the
assembly at ingvellir; yet the text actually refers
to a discussion about goods that were not present
there, rather than a transaction concluded at the site.
In Chapter 37 of Laxdla saga, orleikr and Eldgrmr discuss the sale of horses when they meet at
ingvellir. During the conversation, Eldgrmr, who
wants to buy the horses, says that he would come
to look at the horses later during the summer, which
implies that the horses in question were not present
at ingvellir but would be found at orleikrs farm
(Esser 2011b:652).6
Other examples that helped to create the idea
of some sort of market or fair setting at ingvellir can be cited. There are references to craftsmen
at the Aling. The presence of sword polishers or
cutlers (pl. sverskriar) is reported not only in
the saga literature but also in the laws. Chapter
145 of the Brennu-Njls saga mentions the booth
of a person who works with swords at the Aling
(Wetzig 2011:771).7 Booths of sword cutlers are
also mentioned in Grgs (Gr III, 101), in a section that addresses fights in the booth areas at the
main assembly.8 Prior to the conversion of Iceland
around 1000, most people wore weapons when they
travelled, mostly for reasons of self-defence, and
even after the Christianization of Iceland, people
continued to be armed, including on their journeys
to ingvellir. The assembly attendants carried their
weapons until this was prohibited for the court of

Let us assume that ingvellir was not only the location for the main assembly but also a market place,
as has been suggested by some historians. There are
two possibilities of how we could imagine trade to
have taken place at ingvellir. The first option is that
a demarcated area existed within the so-called ingmark, the boundary that defined and surrounded the
greater assembly area (Karlsson 2007:118), serving
as a market area where local or foreign merchants
dwelled in booths or tents, where people could come
to buy and sell, and where craftsmen offered their
goods and services. In such a scenario, while the
assembly attendees gathered at the court area to
conduct political affairs, members of their retinues
would have had opportunities to buy and exchange
goods. Such a market area would not likely have
been near the court area but rather on its margins.
The alternate possibility is that there was no defined
market area but that trade could have been conducted anywhere, in a dispersed fashion, within the area
where the assembly attendees dwelled. Assembly
attendees could also have been traders themselves,
selling and exchanging goods at their booths and
tents in a door-to-door business. In this scenario,
such traders would have been scattered all over the
assembly area.
The first option might well look similar to Icelandic trading sites such as Gsir, a seasonally occupied trading site and beach market in Northern
Iceland which, according to archaeological and
written evidence, operated from the early 11th century to around 1400. The site is characterized by a
set of booths, the remains of many of which are still
visible today. Excavations conducted between 2001
and 2006 exposed an area of approximately 600 m2
within the market area, revealing the remains of
booths, workshops, and garbage heaps or storage
pits. Large numbers of animal bones were found, as
well as many pieces of pottery, leather, iron artifacts,
baking stones, textiles, and other items (Harrison et
al. 2008: 100-115, Hermannsdttir 1987, Roberts
2006).4 If such a market area had ever existed at
ingvellir, we would surely find archaeological evidence for it.
Finding archaeological evidence for the latter
option would be much more difficult. Certain crafts
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justice (lgrtta) at the Aling in 1154. This ban

was later renewed by bishop Magns Gizurarson in
1234, suggesting that the first issue of the ban was
not very effective (Jhannesson 1974:4647). In the
Gulathing law area in Norway, the bearing of arms at
the main assembly was a deep-rooted tradition, going back to the old Germanic custom of the so-called
weapon-take (vpnatak), a term that refers to the
rattling of weapons at meetings to express agreement (Helle 2001:7274; Strauch 2011:115, 122).
In Iceland, however, the weapon-take marked the
end of the assembly (Nordal 1990:99).9 We can conclude that arms were banned in the lgretta area at
ingvellir, but that the chieftains and many of their
retinue members, most of whom had travelled many
miles, came with their weapons, which they stored
in their booths while they took part in the congregations at the court of justice. Clearly, these men could
have made good use of the services of sword cutlers
at ingvellir.
The laws also mention general craftsmen or helpers (Gr II, 78), as well as cobblers (Gr III, 101), who
set up booths at the Aling.10 The services of the latter were surely important for the travellers and their
battered footwear. A fourth group of craftsmen present at ingvellir were ale brewers. The satirical work
lkofra ttr (chapter 1) tells the story of rhallur,
who makes a living by selling beer during the Aling
(Esser 2011:371).11 Similarly, Orms ttr Strlfssonar (chapter 4) refers to a brewery (heituhs) at
ingvellir.12
Heimskringla, a collection of the sagas of the
Norwegian kings written by the Icelander Snorri
Sturluson ca. 1230, contains the saga of Harald Graycloak (Haralds saga grfeldar), King of Norway
(ca. 960970), which reports silver transactions at
the Icelandic Aling. However, when the silver was
collected at the Aling, it was decided to have a smith
purify the silver. Later on, a cloak fibula was made
of it, and after the smith had received his reward, the
fibula weighed fifty marks. This fibula was sent to
Eyvind, but Eyvind had it cut into pieces and bought
himself cattle for it. (Hollander 2009:143). This passage implies that on that occasion a smith was present
at ingvellir, although it does not explicitly say that
he was working there.13
The written evidence can thus be summarized as
follows:
Neither the sagas of the Icelanders nor the laws
handed down in Grgs explicitly state that a
market took place during the general assembly
at ingvellir, nor that direct exchanges of goods
were conducted at the assembly site.
Only one of those sagas, that of Laxdla saga,
reports the sale of horses (albeit not at ingvellir), thus indicating some types of economic
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transactions may have been negotiated at the

assembly, without implying the transfer of property there.
Craftsmen are frequently mentioned. We read of
ale brewers, cobblers, sword cutlers, smiths, and
craftsmen that set up in, or near, the assembly
booths. However, the sources remain silent as to
where they conducted their business at ingvellir or whether these crafts were actually carried
out at ingvellir.
Sagas and laws have previously been used to
study the assembly institution in Norway, and this
approach has proven fruitful (Adolfsen 2000).
However, saga scholarship has repeatedly noted
that it is problematic to treat the sagas as reliable
historical sources, especially as the sagas of the
Icelanders, in our case, were written down approximately 200 years after the described events had
taken place (e.g., Andersson and Miller 1989:36,
Cormack 2007, Fririksson 1994, Lnnroth 1976,
Nordal 1940:70). The medieval Icelandic laws also
provide pitfalls when interpreted without source
criticism (Mller-Boysen 1990:3236, Norseng
1991) and neither the sagas nor the law codes were
written explicitly as detailed ethnographic descriptions of Icelandic society.
With these caveats in mind, one can assume that
these sources are not likely to report the entire truth
about ingvellir and surely leave gaps in the coverage of events. One can, for example, wonder about
the assortment of crafts represented at ingvellir
whether these sources over-estimate the importance
of a few craftsmen or, conversely, whether they
might under-represent a more complex reality by
mentioning only those individuals who were important for the stories their authors told. Nevertheless,
I think that if a designated market area or substantial door-to-door trading ever existed at ingvellir,
it would have been mentioned in some form and
surely more clearly within one or more of the medieval sources. Given the substantial regulations
on early medieval trade in Northern Europe (e.g.,
Mller-Boysen 1990), including Iceland, we might
also expect that a formally constituted market at
ingvellir would have been regulated and discussed
in law.
This is not to say that economic transactions
could not have taken place. The descriptions of
crafts, especially those of ale brewers, sword cutlers, and cobblers, bear witness to the provisioning of goods and necessary services for the many
assembly participants. It has been calculated that
at least 600 people were present at the main assembly each year (Stefnsson 1984:463), while others
speak of a thousand or several thousands of people
(Nordal 1990:100). These people stayed at ingvellir for about two weeks each summer (Jhannesson

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1974:4445), and they surely needed food and

drink. However, whether these sorts of economic
transactions were substantial enough to be called
a market is another question that will be picked up
again later in this discussion.
The Archaeological Evidence Under Scrutiny
What does the archaeological evidence for trade
at ingvellir look like? As described above, the site
has been subject to archaeological investigations
since the late 19th century (see, for example, Bell
2010, Fririksson et al. 2005, rarson 1921

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1922). However, only small areas have been excavated (Fig. 2). Two types of possible evidence are
analyzed in more detail in the following discussion
to provide the basis for a discussion on the extent of
trade during the Aling.
Booths
The historical works cited above did not venture
any guesses as to where trade within the assembly
site area was conducted and whether there could
have been a designated trading area within the
boundaries of the assembly site.14 ingvellir is the
location of many booths that served as temporary

Figure 2. Map of ingvellir, with its ruins as surveyed by Fornleifastofnun slands and the findspots of some of the artifacts
discussed (see Table 1). Marked black are the areas of archaeological excavations since 1999, during many of which old
trenches from antiquarians such as Sigurur Vigfsson were re-excavated. Excavations prior to 1999 were even smaller in
extent and are not included in this map. The area with the booths lies west of the river xar. Image Howell Roberts,
Fornleifastofnun slands, and Joris Coolen, Centre of Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology, Schleswig (Germany).
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Artifacts
The artifacts that have been recovered at ingvellir since the beginning of archaeological research
are the second type of evidence (Fig. 2). As noted
above, the excavated Viking and medieval layers
have only yielded a small number of artifacts. This is
not surprising, as assembly sites were generally used
only for very short periods of time, and the meetings
at ingvellir, in particular, only lasted about two
weeks (e.g., Jhannesson 1974:45). In addition, the
excavations undertaken to date have been small in
scale and in most cases only consisted of relatively small trenches. It is not the aim of this paper to
provide a full overview of all the finds discovered
at ingvellir. The intention is rather to concentrate
on those Viking and medieval artifacts that might
be considered indicative of trade. In the following, I
will present an overview and discussion of all the Viking and medieval artifacts discovered that suggest
such economic activities (Table 1).
Trade can be traced in the archaeological record
in many ways. One way is to find artifacts of materials that are not native to the places where they are
found. In the case of ingvellir, an example would
be the five ceramic sherds discovered during the
excavation that took place just north of the present
church in 1999. Icelanders did not produce pottery
until modern times, and all ceramic vessels dating to
before the mid-20th century were imported (Sveinbjarnardttir 1996). These pottery fragments, very
small body sherds, can only be roughly dated to the

accommodations for assembly participants and are

often referred to in the saga literature (Vsteinsson
2013). However, booths and clusters of booths are
not only characteristic features of Icelandic assemblies but also core components of coastal trading
sites, and therefore, archaeologists regard booths as
fundamental elements of both assembly and trading
sites (see, for example, Mehler 2012, Vsteinsson et
al. 2004). Booths were relatively easy to set up or repair after they had been abandoned after the assembly or the trading season, yet were more permanent
than tents and served as markers of ownership to
sites within the assembly or the harbor and of ones
rights to conduct business or law there. However, the
fact that they are found at both types of sites makes
it difficult to distinguish between the assembly or
trading character of a site on the basis of the occurrence of booths alone (Vsteinsson 2013). A similar
problem exists in Greenland, e.g., with the booth
complex at Brattahli, which can be interpreted as
an assembly site, a trade area, or both (Sanmark
2010:179183). Consequently, the presence of
booths in ingvellir, for example, those along the
northwestern bank of the river xar (Fig. 2), does
not allow us to deduce that there was a demarcated
trading area within the assembly grounds. Some
booths have been excavated at ingvellir, such as
the so-called Njlsb and Snorrab (Bell 2010:47,
Fririksson 2002:3334), and with the exception of
a small number of fragmented animal bones, no artifacts were found (Fririksson 2002:37).

Table 1. Viking-age and medieval artifacts discovered during excavations at ingvellir; see Figure 2 for the findspots of the artifacts.
Artifact type

Date

Coin
9831002

Origin

Location and/or year found

Reference

Germany,
Goslar

Southern side of church

in 2009

Hallmundsdttir and Juel Hansen

2012:14, 21

Beneath a booth near the

church in 1999, dated
ca. 11001500

Vsteinsson 1999:1921,
Holt 1998:91, figs. 4 and 5

Coin
10651080
Norway


Coin

11th century

England

rleifs mound in 1920

rarsson 19211922

Coin

11 century

Norway

rleifs mound in 2005

Fririksson et al. 2006:35

Coin

11 century

Norway

rleifs mound in 2005

Fririksson et al. 2006:35

Crozier

11th century

1957

Eldjrn 1970

Part of silver arm ring (hack silver)

th
th

Viking period

rleifs mound in 2005

Gsladttir 2005:18

Bronze strap end

rleifs mound in 2005

Gsladttir 2005:18

Whetstone fragment

rleifs mound in 2005

Gsladttir 2005:19

Animal bone fragments

Several different structures

rarsson 1945:114,
Gsladttir 2005:19

Pottery

Mehler 1999

12th/13th century

England

Medieval church

Weight
Medieval
Near present church

Hallmundsdttir and Juel Hansen

2012:14

Iron nails
Several different structures

E.g., rarsson 1945:114,

Fririksson et al. 2004,
Hallmundsdttir and Juel Hansen
2012:17

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12th or 13th century and were most likely part of a

jug of eastern English origin (Mehler 1999). Another
material that does not occur in Iceland is silver. Five
silver coins have been found so far at ingvellir:
three at the man-made structure called orleifs
mound (Eldjrn 1948, Fririksson et al. 2006:35,
Holt 1998:91, rarsson 19211922) and two at the
present church building (Hallmundsdttir and Juel
Hansen 2012:14, 21; Vsteinsson 1999:1921).15
All of these coins date to the late 10th or 11th century.
In addition, a fragment of a silver arm ring came to
light during re-excavations at orleifs mound and
was interpreted as hack silver (Gsladttir 2005:18,
Graham-Campbell 2011:123).
Several other Viking and medieval finds from
ingvellir are made from imported materials, as
well. They include the famous copper alloy bishops
crozier dating to the 11th century, with its crooks
terminating in animal heads formed in Urnes style
(Eldjrn 1970). A strap end of copper alloy and a
fragment of a whetstone were found at the so-called
orleifs mound (Gsladttir 2005:18). The latest excavations conducted in 2009 near the present church
revealed a number of artifacts, and those from the
medieval layers include a copper alloy weight, slag,
and some iron nails.
To discuss which of these finds indicate trading
activities at ingvellir, a closer look at artifacts
found at the Icelandic trading site Gsir, mentioned
above, may be helpful. Gsir was only seasonally
occupied, but substantial trade was conducted there,
as indicated by the comparatively large number
of artifacts discovered there and by discussions
of exchanges undertaken there in written sources.
Yet no coins have been found at Gsir (Vsteinsson 2009:159). The area excavated at ingvellir is
considerably smaller, and Gsir was most likely
occupied during slightly longer periods during each
summer. However, the excavations at ingvellir did
not result in nearly the same diversity and richness of
artifacts as those found at Gsir. Neither workshops
nor waste heaps nor storage pits have yet been found
at ingvellir.
The few finds from ingvellir tell a different
story. The English ceramic jug found in connection
with the medieval church could have been used as
a liturgical vessel or as a container for holy water.
Such an interpretation has been put forward after an
examination of medieval ceramic fragments found
in other churches in Iceland (Mehler 2000:125). The
ingvellir jug was certainly imported to Iceland, but
its find location and potential ecclesiastic function
do not allow for it to be used to infer the presence of
trade in ceramics taking place at the site. The many
iron nails found at the site were most likely parts of
booth construction or furniture therein and cannot

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be taken as a proof of trade either, nor are the strap

end and the whetstone fragment significant evidence
of trade. The animal bones, only a small number of
which were found, are most likely the remains of
meals for the assembly attendants.
The coins and the hack silver fragment are more
difficult to interpret. While coins and hack silver
are, of course, primarily a method of payment, the
case in Iceland is slightly more complicated because
society during the Viking and medieval periods did
not operate on the basis of coins (as was the case
in Scandinavia). Trade was conducted almost exclusively by barter, and people either paid in kind
or established credit. Everyday items such as food,
clothing, and tools were mostly exchanged for other
commodities such as fish, butter, or homespun. Barter is often defined as a transaction in which notions
of equal value are initially absent but are established
over the course of the barter process (Feinmann
and Garraty 2010:171, Humphrey and Hugh-Jones
1992:48). Still, despite the existence of a commodity money system, silver (either in the form of coins
or as hack silver) was the main standard of value
in Iceland until the 12th century, against which the
values of other items were calculated (Gelsinger
1981:34, Gullbekk 2011:186).
Svein Gullbekk (2011) has discussed the use of
money at ingvellir and has stressed that the coins
discovered were largely used to pay fines or debts
or were used as compensation or dowries. These
types of financial transactions took place alongside
the main assembly and are often reported in the saga
literature16, but Gullbekk (2011:184186) also sees
the coins as evidence of commerce. While I strongly agree with the first part of this interpretation, I
am more hesitant to agree with the latter part. As
outlined above, the written evidence for a market at
ingvellir is rather weak, which is something that
Gullbekk did not examine. The absence of coins at
the marketplace at Gsir indicates that coins played
no role there, and it emphasizes the commodity system that characterizes Icelandic Viking and medieval economy and trade (Hayeur Smith 2013).17
The final artifact to be considered in this discussion on artifacts possibly relating to trade is the medieval bronze weight that was discovered in 2009.
It was found in the floor layer of a structure documented directly below and west of the present-day
church and that could have been the remains of either a booth or an earlier church (Fig. 3). The weight
of 250g, corresponding to a mrk (pl. merkur, engl.
mark), and most likely used for a steelyard balance,
is difficult to date. Stratigraphically it has been
suggested to date before 1500 (Hallmundsdttir
and Juel Hansen 2012: 10, 14, and pers. comm.). If
the structure was a booth, the weight could well be
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evidence of weighing and selling of goods within

or in front of this booth. If the structure recorded is
the remains of an older church, however, the weight
could have been used to control the payment of fees
to the church. There is yet another possible interpretation. In approximately 1200, a wall of the medieval
church at ingvellir that has not been preserved to
the present day exhibited a mark in the shape of stikur and lnir (ells), which were standard Icelandic
measurements at that time (DI 1, 307). Such marks
were supposed to be present in all churches where
people were buried (graftarkirkja), most likely
in contrast to churches or small chapels where no
burials took place (DI I, 309). Matthas rarson
(1945:168) concluded that this measurement was
engraved on a wooden sill or some other part of the
church building, which would have been consistent
with the custom of keeping measures and weights,
mostly calibrated measurement units, in important
public buildings such as council houses or churches,
as reported for Trshavn, Faroe, for example (Arge
and Mehler 2012:185). The recovery of a weight
in this location could well be evidence that the
exchange of goods in the course of legal activities,
such as the settling of fines, may have been undertaken near the church, using standardized weights.
From the same medieval context as the weight
stems a piece of iron slag (Hallmundsdttir and Juel
Hansen 2012:57), which is the only archaeological
evidence so far for a craft carried out at ingvellir.
As mentioned above, the presence of a silversmith is
indicated in Heimskringla. However, the find loca-

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tion makes this piece difficult to interpret, as this is

very near the old farm of ingvellir and could also
have been from this context instead.
The mapping of the find spots of these artifacts
(Fig. 2) shows where the ceramic fragments, the
coins, the hack silver, and the weight were found,
relative to all features that have been excavated
at ingvellir. The booth area on the western bank
of the river xar has so far only been surveyed
and most ruins visible today are presumed to be of
post-medieval date, very likely with older remains
beneath. If we accept the scenario of a market area
defined through the existence of booths, it could be
tempting to interpret this area as the market spot of
ingvellir. But artifacts from this area do not exist,
and excavations are necessary to clarify the function
of these booths..
Most of the artifacts discussed here were discovered in the vicinity of the present church, in
connection with either an earlier church or booths
beneath. The other artifacts were retrieved away
from the main assembly area, at rleifs mound. It
remains an open question why more than half of the
silver finds from ingvellir were discovered at this
enigmatic feature, and further investigations there
are certainly warranted. However, without further
investigations, and in the absence of any evidence
for the existence of booths in that area, the overall
distribution of artifacts related to exchange does not
support the scenario that a demarcated market area
existed at the site.
On the basis of this review of artifacts, I would
like to argue that the archaeological evidence for
a market area does not exist. Door-to-door trade
at ingvellir could be indicated by the bronze
weight discovered in 2009, but interpretation of
this artifact is ambiguous because it is not clear
whether the structure it was found was once a
booth or a church building.
The Location of ingvellir in Context

ingvellir is located in the southwest of Iceland, inland, approximately 40 km northeast of

Reykjavk. The site is embedded in an area that
has been settled since the initial colonization of
Iceland. The settled areas of the rivers Hvt and
jrs, east of ingvellir, are nearby, as is the
Mosfell Valley just to the west and the bishops
see at Sklholt to the east (e.g., Fririksson
2000:fig. 16).
However, while ingvellir is easily accessible by horse and by foot, it is some distance from
Figure 3. Complete bronze weight (height c. 6 cm) found in 2009 the sea. The nearest sea access is at Hvalfjrur,
near the present-day church (photograph by Margrt Hrnn the fjord approximately 20 km north of ingvellir as the crow flies, which is the location of
Hallmundsdttir).
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Special Volume 8

dwelled during the assembly period, social life took

place, and these meetings must have been welcome
opportunities to meet friends and relatives. Social
and political activities required the provisioning
of drinks and foodstuffs, and excavations at the socalled Njlsb and Snorrab ruins west of xar
produced a small number of fragmented animal
bones (Bell 2010:47; Fririksson 2002:33, 37) that
are most likely remains from provisioning assembly visitors. Future archaeobotanical, zooarchaeological, and palaeoentomological investigations may
well provide further evidence for and information
about the ways in which these booths occupants
were provisioned, but it is important to keep in mind
that organic material generally does not preserve
well at the site and may be difficult to trace in the archaeological record. While crafts seem to have been
conducted at ingvellir on a small scale, and written
sources report that sword cutlers and cobblers were
present at ingvellir, there is, as yet, no archaeological evidence of such craftsmens presence.
Nonetheless, ingvellir was a place where silver
was exchanged. Fines and compensation were paid
in silver, and written and archaeological evidence
of both exist. These types of transactions are not
trading transactions, in the same sense that an exchange of foodstuffs or the payment of a cobbler
with commodities would be. The nationalist notion
that ingvellir was the greatest market place in Iceland (see above) is questioned in this paper, and I
argue on the basis of the written and archaeological
sources at hand that a designated market area did
not exist at ingvellir nor was the trade that did take
place there more substantial than provisioning.
Going back to the nationalistic assessment of
the market at ingvellir, it is worth drawing attention to Sweden and the famous saga of Saint Olaf
(lafs saga Helga), written by Snorri Sturluson
(11791241) in approximately 1230, which in chapter 77 tells of a large market at Gamla Uppsala. At
that place and time was also to be the assembly of
all Swedes, and there was also a market and a fair
which lasted a week. Now when Christianity was
introduced, the general assembly and the market was
still being held there. (Ebel 1987:281, Hollander
2009:315). This market, which was linked to the
Swedish Aling, was the so-called disting of Gamla
Uppsala (Granlund 1958, Staf 1935:225). Recent
excavations conducted at Gamla Uppsala have confirmed this picture. Weights, hack silver, balances,
and debris from metal production were discovered
around the manor area (Ljungkvist 2009:2628,
Ljungkvist et al. 2011:579). It is reasonable to assume
that the nationalistic notion of ingvellir was inspired
by this story and that the Swedish model of a general assembly combined with a market was adopted

Maruhfn (also known as Basandur), a site that

has hitherto been interpreted as a coastal market
place. It is located on a promontory on the southern
shore of Hvalfjrur. The site is mentioned in
written sources between 1339 and 1413, mostly
in connection with the bishops see at Sklholt or
the Aling nearby at ingvellir. It is reported that
Maruhfn was frequented by Norwegian vessels. A
cluster of booths has survived on the sandy beach.
Small trenches were excavated in 1982 and 1985,
and the site was surveyed again in 2006, but it remains unknown whether it was already a trading
site during the Commonwealth period (Gardiner
and Mehler 2007:413415, orkelsson 2004). Other important harbors nearby and used during and
after the Commonwealth period would have been
Eyrarbakki (~40 km distance), Leiruvogur (~30 km
distance), and even Hvtrvellir (~45 km distance)
(Byock et al. 2005, Gardiner and Mehler 2007:figs.
5 and 9) .
Quite a number of participants that came to the
meetings at ingvellir must have arrived by boat via
one of these coastal trading sites (Nordal 1990:100)
and then continued their journey on foot or on
horseback. Here, Icelanders would have had the opportunity to do business with foreign merchants who
stayed at the site with their ships. It is at such sites
where direct trade between Icelanders and foreign
merchants happened, while inland trade was largely
in the hands of Icelanders (Ebel 1977, Gardiner and
Mehler 2007:399 with table 1). It would have been
much more convenient for the assembly visitors to
do their business at these harbors, where incoming
goods could have been exchanged for Icelandic
goods and further transport to ingvellir would not
have been necessary.
Discussion
I would like to argue that the results of this systematic study of written and archaeological sources
indicate that the evidence at hand does not support
the premise of large-scale market activities occurring during the main assemblies at ingvellir, whether at a designated market area or as substantial trade
within the dwelling areas. Rather, as outlined above,
the idea of a market at ingvellir can be traced back
to a period of nationalistic writing in Icelandic historiography.
During the Viking and medieval periods, Iceland
did not have urban centers or even a merchant class
that could have organized markets on a large scale
(Gelsinger 1981:31). Rather, ingvellir was a place
where people came together once a year to bring
cases to court, render judgements, and discuss laws
and politics. At the booths and tents, in which people
77

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Journal of the North Atlantic

N. Mehler

and used in interpreting the events that occurred at

ingvellir. But this example also shows that in the
case of Gamla Uppsala the written sources are clear
and leave no doubt about a market there, as does the
archaeological evidence.
Criticism of antiquarian assembly research in
Iceland, voiced by archaeologists in recent years,
has to date been directed at their methods of locating sites and identifying their structural components,
such as booths and court-circles (e.g., Fririksson
1994:105146, 2011; Fririksson and Vsteinsson
1992; Vsteinsson et al. 2004:172173, 177). As
I hope to have demonstrated in this paper, a critical examination of the activities that took place at
ingvellir is also important.

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Eldjrn, K. 1948. Gaulverjabr-fundet. Nordisk
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Eldjrn, K. 1970. T-Bagall fr ingvllum. rbk hins
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Esser, Th. 2011. Die Erzhlung von rhall Biermtze.
Pp. 371381, In K. Bldl, A. Vollmer, and J. Zernack
(Eds.). Islndersagas 3. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am
Main, Germany.
Feinmann, G.M., and C.P. Garraty. 2010. Pre-industrial
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Acknowledgments
I am most grateful to Adolf Fririksson, Orri Vsteinsson, Mjll Snsdttir, Birna Lrusdttir, Alexandra
Sanmark, Frode Iversen, Sarah Semple, and Michele
Hayeur Smith for their assistance and critical comments.
Kevin Smith acted as guest-editor, and his comments
improved the quality of this article considerably. I also
thank Howell M. Roberts and Joris Coolen for the map
of ingvellir. Gurn Alda Gsladttir, Mjll Snsdttir,
and Anton Holt helped me with the finds, and Margrt
Hrnn Hallmundsdttir and Sigrid Cecilie Juel Hansen
provided information on the 2009 excavations and Figure
3. John Ljungkvist shared his thoughts on Gamla Uppsala
with me. Last but not least, I wish to thank the anonymous reviewer(s) for references and help on improving
the paper.
Primary Sources
DI = Diplomatarium Islandicum
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Endnotes
The exact date of these meetings is hard to determine,
as the Icelandic calendar prior to the introduction of the
Christian year in the 12th century had some chronological
discrepancies (Jhannesson 1974:3547).
2
The archaeological work conducted at ingvellir has been
summarized in Fririksson (2002) and in Bell (2010).
3
On the effect of nationalism on Icelandic historiography
see, e.g., Byock (1992).
4
See Vsteinsson 2009 for a different interpretation of
Gsir as a market place.
5
For this study, I have used the Icelandic texts made available at http://www.snerpa.is and http://www.sagadb.org
(last accessed October 2013) and the most recent German
translations provided by Bldl et al. (2011).
6
Eldgrmr says: a er erindi mitt hinga a eg vil kaupa
a r sthrossin au hin dru er Kotkell gaf r fyrra
sumar. ... En etta sumar mun eg fara a sj hrossin hvor
okkar sem hltur au a eiga aan fr.
7
Fengu eir a eina rs teki er hj voru a eir drgu
Skafta inn b sverskria nokkurs flatan.
8
Heusler 1937:162.
9
See also Heusler (1937, Waffengriff in the index on p.
455).
10
For a discussion of craftsmen, see Heusler (1937:119);
for a discussion of cobblers, see Heusler (1937:162).
11
lkofri kom til ings og tti mungt a selja, kom
til fundar vi vini sna sem vanir voru a kaupa l
a honum. The text does not explicitly state that this
takes place at ingvellir, but the context leaves no doubt
about that.
12
En er Ormur var tvtugur a aldri rei hann til Alingis
sem oftar. [...] En um daginn er eir gengu t st hituketill hj heituhsinu s er tk tvr tunnur.
13
For the purposes of this paper, only the sagas of the
Icelanders were studied. Heimskringla has not been
studied in detail.
14
For a discussion on the boundaries of ingvellir, see
Karlsson (2007).
1

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Journal of the North Atlantic

N. Mehler

Svein Gullbekk (2011:184) lists six coins that were

found at ingvellir, but that number is not correct. The
error stems from the assumption that three coins were
found during the excavations in 2005 and 2006. However, after cleaning, one turned out not to be a coin (Anton
Holt , Selabanki slands, Iceland, pers. comm.). See
also Fririksson et al. (2006:35).
16
See, for example, the betrothal of Hrtur and Unnur
which takes place at ingvellir (Brennu-Njls saga,
chapters 1 and 2), or the payment of a fine (Brennu-Njls
saga, chapter 8).
17
It must be emphasized that the coins from ingvellir
date to the 10th/11th century, while the excavations at
Gsir revealed structures dating to the 14th and early 15th
century. This may be a significant difference, indicating
a change in economic structures.
15

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