Startling Discovery about Iceland! Early Settlers May have been Christians, Not Vikings?
The crosses bear a range of striking stylistic similarities to early medieval sculpture in the West Highlands and Islands of Scotland, such as that found at the important early medieval monastery of Iona in Argyll as well as more extreme locales for Scotland's early Christian communities...
(Iceland)—It has long been believed that the first people to inhabit Iceland were the Norse settlers who arrived around the year 874 AD. However, the discovery of Christian crosses carved into man-made caves in the southern part of the island is offering evidence that Celtic-speaking people from Scotland and Ireland had come to Iceland around the beginning of the ninth century. (Photo: Seljalandshellar cave in the Westman Islands/by Kristjan Ahronson/via The Medievalists)
The research, according to a report in Medievalists News, is revealed in the book, Into the Ocean: Vikings, Irish, and Environmental Change in Iceland and the North, recently published by University of Toronto Press. Written by archaeologist Dr. Kristján Ahronson of Bangor University, it shows he found these cross markings in these caves which are very similar found in Scotland and Ireland.
There are reportedly about 200 man-made caves in southern Iceland. Ahronson focused on several located at Seljaland, which lies near the Isle of Heimaey. (Photo: Iceland Cross carving/Kristjan Ahronson/via The Medievalists)
As he explains, "In our work at Seljaland, we recorded over 100 simple crosses and 24 more elaborately carved or sculpted examples. The crosses bear a range of striking stylistic similarities to early medieval sculpture in the West Highlands and Islands of Scotland, such as that found at the important early medieval monastery of Iona in Argyll as well as more extreme locales for Scotland's early Christian communities such as St. Molaise's Cave on Holy Island (off Arran) and at isolated north Atlantic places such as the tiny island of North Rona (north of Lewis and the Scottish mainland).
"The Seljaland caves are remarkable in their own right for the concentration of sculpture found there and because..."
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