Sunday, 19-May-2024
Okay so this was a little bit ridiculous, and for that I probably should be sorry. But I’m not. Because it’s ridiculous and awesome!
After exploring the National Museum of Iceland, I wandered. I wandered in a direction, enjoying my freedom and lack of stress or anxiety. It was 4:00 or so, and the other museums closed at 5… so I wasn’t aiming to whirlwind my way through anything, and instead was just appreciating being able to walk.
Then I came across the Settlement museum.
It was small, looked interesting, and… I mean, it was 4:10, and they closed at 5:00… And it really did look small…
I hopped in, and started chatting with the docents. They said that I could probably see the whole thing, if I read quickly, and that they’d make a note to let me in for free the following day anyways if I’d like.
I couldn’t say no to that, could I?
I couldn’t.
I explored the Settlement Museum.
I headed down, down a flight of stairs into what I was expecting to be a sub-basement or something… keep in mind, I only stopped in because I saw the museum building while walking, and it looked quite small, so I didn’t have any idea about what sort of museum I was in for.
I headed down, down a flight of stairs, into an ancient Viking longhouse.
It turns out – the settlement museum is a real archeological dig, found in 2001 when excavating in Reykjavik. The eponymous “Settlement” is, in fact, a Viking longhouse that way dated to (likely) around the initial settlement of Iceland itself… and, nearby, is the oldest housing remnant found in Iceland – a small turf wall, dated back even further than the main longhouse itself.
Surrounding the longhouse are displays and placards (my favorite!) filling the explorer in on all the details, minutia, and artifacts recovered. It… was a lot bigger than it looked from street level, let me tell you.
And of interesting note – the entire longhouse was approximately 85 m3, and housed an entire extended family. For comparison, my apartment in Wilsonville (which housed me) was 83 m3. Yeah, I was a little bit spoiled. Turns out – higher quality of life than people in the 10th century. Who knew?
In the end, I was able to make my way through the entire exhibition – with a little extra time from one of the docents, who very generously let me stay a little bit late while she closed out the cash register.
