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Hvalsey ("Whale Island"; Greenlandic Qaqortukulooq) is located near Qaqortoq, Greenland and is the site of Greenland's largest, best-preserved Norse ruins in the area known as the Eastern Settlement (Eystribyggð). In 2017, it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List and part of the Kujataa Greenland site.
Norse settlements in Greenland were established after 986 by settlers coming from Iceland. The settlers, known as Grænlendingar ('Greenlanders' in Icelandic), were the first Europeans to explore and temporarily settle North America .
Hvalsey Church (Danish: Hvalsø Kirke; Old Norse: Hvalseyjarfjarðarkirkja) was a Catholic church in the abandoned Greenlandic Norse settlement of Hvalsey (modern-day Qaqortoq). The best preserved Norse ruins in Greenland, the church was also the location of the last written record of the Greenlandic Norse, a wedding in September 1408. [1]
Approximately 500 groups of ruins of Norse farms are found in the area, with 16 church ruins, including Brattahlíð, Dyrnæs, Garðar, Hvalsey and Herjolfsnes. [2] The Vatnahverfi district to the southeast of Einarsfjord had some of the best pastoral land in the colony, and boasted 10% of all the known farm sites in the Eastern Settlement.
Brattahlíð (Old Norse pronunciation: [ˈbrɑttɑˌhliːð]), often anglicised as Brattahlid, was Erik the Red's estate in the Eastern Settlement Viking colony he established in south-western Greenland toward the end of the 10th century.
Herjolfsnes (Danish: Herjolfsnæs) was a Norse settlement in Greenland, 50 km northwest of Cape Farewell.It was established by Herjolf Bardsson in the late 10th century and is believed to have lasted some 500 years.
Dated to the year 1000, the homestead is among the oldest of the Norse ruins in the area. Excavation of the ruins began in 1953 with the discovery of the Narsaq stick, the first Viking Age runic inscription discovered in Greenland. The wider Narsaq area has some of the most striking Norse artifacts and ruins.
Igaliku is best known for the ruins of Garðar, once the religious heart of 12th-century Norse Greenland. [6] The area was at the very heart of the Eastern Settlement and has been extensively archaeologically excavated since the 1830s. There are several historical graves in the area, although most have not presently been identified.