Mosfell and the Viking World
The Mosfell Archaeological Project has implications for the larger study of Viking Age and later medieval Iceland. Mosfellssveit encapsulates the major ecologies of Iceland: coastal, riverine, and highland.
Culturally, the region is equally representative. In some ways it was a self-contained social and economic unit. In other ways it was connected to the rest of Iceland, not least through a network of roads, including an east-west route to the nearby meeting of the yearly Althing, Iceland's medieval parliament.
With its coastal port at Leiruvogur the region was in commercial and cultural contact with the larger Scandinavian and European worlds, as far east as the Caspian Sea.
A drawing of a Viking merchant ship.
A Viking Age ring pin from the Mosfell Archaeological Project excavations.
Tenth century “eye beads” from the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea found in the Hrísbrú longhouse.
