Skáholt 2002 - Nabo

() which has a flaw running almost around its circumference and on one end, there
is an off-centre mark where the perforation was started but stopped with the completed
perforation adjacent to it. A faceted jet button/clothes fastener occurred, but as a fragment
broken in half (), while two round, polished black beads/fasteners were also found,
which are probably also in jet.
Other items included a large fragment of chalcedony () which came from the
Miller’s room [77]; the purpose of this is enigmatic, but it may simply have been
ornamental. One fragment of a soft, green mudstone or soapstone had been worked and
its surface polished, and seemed to come from a vessel (). A fragment from one
steatite vessel was found, (), but unfortunately this came from the top demolition
layer. Three fragments of a fine grained grey-green mudstone or volcanic tuff were
found, both worked as flakes ( & ); these may be chips from a larger
stonework, perhaps a gravestone.
Two fragments of gravestone were found ( & ), probably in basalt and with
carved Icelandic lettering. One () was the top left hand corner of a gravestone with
the text: ðe: s…./ i: v()…. The lettering style and border decoration is remarkably
similar to the large fragments of gravestone recorded by Horður Ágústsson (Eldjárn &
Ágústsson 1992: 280-1, no.9, fig. 131), which are written in fraktur type (fraktúruletur), a
variety of blackletter or ‘old English’ typeface which dates from the later medieval
period and after. The other fragment () is in identical lettering. A worked fragment
of stone () may also be from a gravestone or building material.
Five loomweights or weights of some sort (e.g. door-closers) were found in the Miller’s
room () – these were simply unmodified, rounded basalt cobbles, but with
holes for suspension. A fish hammer () was found in a demolition layer as were a
number of graphite writing tools which were 20 th century, and finally, a number of small
fragments of ‘coal’ (surtabrandur) occurred, which may have been used as fuel.
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