Skáholt 2002 - Nabo

converted to use as an animal byre in the late 18 th /early 19 th century. Access here would
have been through the eastern passage which led into the tunnel from the church and to
the dormitory. Later on, the whole passageway was blocked in and no longer in use.
Certainly these blockings indicate active maintenance of the buildings of some nature and
they were not just left as ruins. The school room was not re-used at all but simply left as a
ruin, and had probably completely collapsed in, while the infirmary seems to have been
re-used, but not for keeping animals but perhaps as a store room. This had been paved
over with loose flagstones, like the bishop’s room, but unlike that, did not have the same
accumulation of animal dung.
The only problematic aspect to this arrangement lies with the phasing of the school room
and dormitory against the rest of the site. There were no stratigraphic links (as yet)
between the eastern and western sides of the area because of truncation by the haybarn,
and unlike the western side, all the finds in the occupation and abandonment deposits of
the school rooms were exclusively 18 th century. One major consideration is that the
upper/latest phases of the schoolrooms have been completely truncated and what was
excavated was an earlier phase. Traces of later walls over the northern end of the school
room may just be the remains of such later phase. Below are more detailed descriptions
of each of the rooms and other components of the site; the initials of the main excavator
are placed in the entitlement, as their notes and records provided the main source of
interpretations presented here.
Plate I. View of the Site after excavation of the rooms
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