Restoration of the Hvalsey Fjord Church Georg Nyegaard* Abstract - Since the fi rst visits by Europeans to the ruin of the Hvalsey Fjord Church after the beginning of the Danish- Norwegian colonization of Greenland in 1721 there are numerous descriptions of a crack in the east gable of the church and a corresponding tilt damage of the eastern part of the south wall. As a new investigation of the church showed that the south wall was not stable, a restoration project was carried out in 1999, where the leaning wall was partly straightened and stabilized with concrete cast underneath the foundation stones. An archaeological excavation along the south wall prior to the restoration documented that the eastern part of the wall partly rests on older graves, indicating that the stone church must have had a predecessor of which no traces have been found. The presence of these graves beneath some of the foundation stones is assumed to be the main cause for the damage to the wall. *The Greenland National Museum and Archives, Hans Egedesvej 8, PO Boks 145, 3900 Nuuk, Greenland; georg.nyegaard@ natmus.gl. Introduction The Hvalsey Fjord Church is the best-preserved Norse ruin in Greenland. It is built of local granite stones, and the masonry remains almost complete, with gables standing up to about 5.5 m high (Berglund 1982, Clemmensen 1911, Krogh 1982). The monumental ruin has almost become an icon of the medieval Nordic settlement of Greenland and especially of its extinction some time during the 15th century. As is always the case in Norse Greenland, the church is closely associated with the ruins of a farm. The hall of this farm has equally well-preserved walls constructed in a very similar way as the church. Architecturally, the two ruins show so much affi nity with both Norway and the islands of northern Scotland, that it must be assumed that an architect from abroad had been involved in the construction of the buildings. The choir window of the church terminates at the top with a segmental arch, which is a stylistic trait that is unparalleled in Norse Greenland and very much in keeping with church architecture on the continent. The church thus demonstrates surprising internationality despite the remoteness of the locality in relation to the medieval cultural centers in Europe (Nord 1996:31, 82). It is assumed to have been built around 1300, and must be seen as an expression of a certain economic and cultural capacity and strength at this relatively late stage of the Norse settlement history in Greenland. Icelandic documents containing the last written evidence for life in Norse Greenland tell of the wedding that took place in the Hvalsey Fjord Church on September 16th in 1408 between the Icelanders Sigríður Björnsdóttir and Þorsteinn Ólafsson. The documents also testify that this couple left Greenland two years later. The Hvalsey Site in the 18th and 19th Century The old Greenlandic name of the site is Qaqortoq, which means the color white. The suffi x -kulooq was added in very recent time changing the name to Qaqortukulooq, meaning “the big white,” to facilitate a distinction between the names of this locality and the nearby town of Qaqortoq. Qaqortoq is not a common place-name in Greenland, but no certain explanation of the name is known. According to some local Greenlanders, the fjord beside the ruin group was called “Qaqortoq”, or “Qaqortup Imaa” (Imeq meaning water) in the fi rst half of the 19th century, because the church in the old days appeared so bright white that it could be seen from a great distance (GHM III 1845:821). Traces of lime mortar have repeatedly been demonstrated between the stones of the masonry (Clemmensen 1911:298, Egede 1925:99, Graah 1932:54, Krogh and Abrahamsen 1997). So perhaps the fi rst Inuit who visited the place— perhaps in the 14th or 15th century according to the earliest datings of the Thule culture in South Greenland (Gulløv 2005:316)—gave it a name from what they saw: a whitewashed church. If this is true, even the name of South Greenland’s biggest town, Qaqortoq, situated near the entrance of the Qaqortup Imaa, might indirectly derive from the former appearance of the church. The fi rst known visit by Europeans to the site since the Norse abandonment, took place in 1723. Two years after his arrival to Greenland, the Norwegian missionary Hans Egede went on an expedition to fi nd the Norse Eastern Settlement (Egede 1925). After an unsuccessful attempt to reach East Greenland, where at the time it was thought this settlement lay, he spent a couple of days at the Hvalsey site in late August together with his boat crew and a group of locals. Egede’s account of the journey includes a description of the church and the stone-built hall. A 2009 Special Volume 2:7–18 Norse Greenland: Selected Papers from the Hvalsey Conference 2008 Journal of the North Atlantic 8 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 2 small and very superfi cial excavation, without the use of proper tools, was carried out in the interior of the church. Only a little charcoal and a few bone fragments were found. Not until over a century after Egede’s journey was the correct location of the Eastern Settlement in South Greenland west of Cape Farewell established, after the Danish First Lieutenant W.A. Graah’s expedition to East Greenland from 1828– 31, where he did not find any remains of Norse settlement (Graah 1932). During the preparations for his journey, Graah visited the Hvalsey site in 1828. In his expedition account from 1832, he included a detailed description of the church, accompanied by copperprint illustrations after versions done by the antiquarian artist H.G.F. Holm on the basis of Graah’s own sketches (Fig. 1). Already, Egede had mentioned a crack in the east gable in the southeastern corner of the building, which can be seen in the picture from Graah’s publication (Fig. 2). Graah also speaks of this and of the leaning south wall. He thought that the damage had arisen as a result of the slightly sloping terrain and predicted of the south wall “that it would hardly for another half century resist the destroying winds” (translated from Danish) (Graah 1932:55). An excavation was conducted inside the church, which according to Graah “occupied 21 people for 12 hours” (Graah 1932:56). Most of the soil was turned over, but again only a few remains of bones and some charcoal were found. After the foundation of the town of Qaqortoq as the colony of Julianehaab in 1775, the Hvalsey site repeatedly received visits by the members of the staff of the Danish trading company and the mission. Many small-scale excavations and diggings like Egede’s took place during these visits, especially in the interior of the church. A water-color belonging to the National Museum of Denmark (Fig. 3) could be the oldest preserved picture of the site. It is assumed to have been made by Jens Mathias Mathiessen, who worked for The Royal Greenland Trading Company in 1820–33, some of the time in Qaqortoq. He also took part in Graah’s visit to the site in 1828. The oldest situation plan known of the ruin group was published in 1845 (GHM III 1845:Table VII) (Fig. 4A). It was done by pastor J.F. Jørgensen, who lived in Qaqortoq in 1835–41. He was one of the most important informants for the overview of the ruins of the Eastern Settlement in the ambitious publication, Grønlands Historiske Mindesmærker I–III from 1838–1845 (The Historical Monuments of Greenland), whose main content is otherwise all the written sources for the Norse history of Greenland known at the time. Figure 1. The Hvalsey Fjord Church seen from the north. Copperprint from 1832. Courtesy of the National Museum of Denmark. 2009 G. Nyegaard 9 Figure 2. The east gable of the Hvalsey Fjord Church. Copperprint from 1832. Courtesy of the National Museum of Denmark. Figure 3. A water-color of the Hvalsey site assumed to have been made by Jens Mathias Mathiessen about 1830. Courtesy of the National Museum of Denmark. 10 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 2 Figure 4. A. The fi rst published situation plan of the ruin group in Grønlands Historiske Mindesmærker III, 1845. B. Roussell’s (1941) situation plan of the ruin group after Arneborg (2006). The church is ruin 8 and the dwelling is ruin 6. C. Niels Christian Clemmensen´s situation plan of the ruin group from 2004. 2009 G. Nyegaard 11 During an expedition to Greenland in 1876, the Danish geologist Andreas Kornerup made the detailed drawings of the church shown in Figures 5 and 6 (after originals at the National Museum of Denmark). In particular, the latter, showing the east gable from the inside, gives a clear impression of the leaning south wall. Figure 5. The Hvalsey Fjord Church seen from the east. Drawing from 1876 by Andreas Kornerup. Courtesy of the National Museum of Denmark. Figure 6. The inside of the east gable of the Hvalsey Fjord Church. Drawing from 1876 by Andreas Kornerup. Courtesy of the National Museum of Denmark. 12 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 2 The Hvalsey Site in the 20th Century In the summer of 1910, the architect Mogens Clemmensen carried out an extensive investigation of the church for the National Museum of Denmark— the fi rst by a specialist (Clemmensen 1911). He did a careful survey and made drawings of all the walls where the stones were meticulously drawn in. One of Clemmensen’s tasks was to study the state of the south wall. He measured the maximum inclination of the wall above the chancel door as about 50 cm. Like geologist Kornerup before him, he did not think that the inclination of the wall had deteriorated signifi cantly since Graah’s visit in 1828 and did not believe there was any imminent risk of collapse. Like several of his predecessors, Clemmensen dug inside the church, and in spite of the previous busy digging activity, he found a little more than 50 cm below the original fl oor level the remains of a burial, including the traces of a coffi n. In 1935 Aage Roussell of the National Museum of Denmark conducted the most comprehensive archaeological investigation ever at the site (Roussell 1941). He concentrated on the dwelling and some of the animal-shed features that lie around in the infi eld, while the church was not subject to new investigations. He made a situation plan of the site including all ruins and the rather complicated excavated dwelling complex (Fig. 4B). As indicated by the earlier excavations, preservation of organic remains turned out to be extremely poor. The list of fi nds includes surprisingly little, only a relatively small amount of tools and fragments of soapstone. Accordingly, the interpretation of the function of most of the rooms of the dwelling could only be tentative. In the beginning of the 1930s, the issue of the protection and listing of ancient monuments was debated among politicians in Greenland, prompted by, among other things, the fact that an increasing number of sheep farmers were settling near Norse ruin groups. The members of the South Greenland Council recommended at a meeting in Nuuk in 1934 that steps be taken towards a protection law for ruins and monuments in collaboration with the Danish National Museum (Beretninger og Kundgørelser vedrørende Grønlands Styrelse nr. 7/1934:358). Consequently, one of Roussell’s tasks in 1935, beside the excavations at the Hvalsey site, was to start a systematic marking of ruins situated near these new farms. In 1950, a new preservation regulation defi ned by Danish authorities for both the ruins and the surrounding area at the Hvalsey site took effect (Kundgørelser vedrørende Grønlands Styrelse 1950:205). This protected area included a 500-m wide zone along the shoreline, reaching 500 m east of the easternmost ruin and 500 m west of the westernmost ruin. Fortunately, the present sheep farm, situated only 1.5 km east of the church ruin, was founded a few years after the introduction of this regulation. Stones from this ruin group have never been re-used for modern house or farm construction as has been the case at the important Norse sites of Garðar (Igaliku) and Brattahlíð (Qassiarsuk) before the 1930s. However, it had been considered at an earlier stage to use the stones from the church for the buildings of the Danish trading company in nearby Qaqortoq/ Julianehåb (Clemmensen 1911:309), but fortunately, this plan was never realised. The state of the leaning south wall of the church continued to cause anxiety. In the 1970s, action was taken when the very conspicuous wooden frame seen in Figure 7 was set up. Some years earlier, in 1962, Knud Krogh of the National Museum of Denmark had laid out four measuring points in the north and south walls of the church to create a proper basis for assessing whether the south wall was stable or not. Since new control measurements some years later did not show an increase in the inclination of the wall, the frame was removed again. Figure 7. The south wall of the church ruin supported by a wooden construction. Photo from 1981 by Kristian Kleist, Qaqortoq. 2009 G. Nyegaard 13 The Restoration In 1997, Krogh returned to the site together with the statics expert Søren Abrahamsen. They carried out a new and more detailed investigation of the state of the masonry on the basis of Clemmensen’s registrations and survey in 1910 and Krogh’s own measuring points from 1962 (Krogh and Abrahamsen 1997). Considering how common it has been over the years for people to climb and walk along the top of the walls, as shown in the photo from 1918 of the inner side of the east gable (Fig. 8), it was a positive surprise to fi nd how little damage had occurred since 1910. In Figure 9, the same section of the wall as it appeared in 1997 is shown on architect Clemmensen’s drawing from 1910 (on the left). The red color marks the stones that were missing. Stones with a green color were inserted in the crack some time between 1880 and 1910. All the blue dots show places where chalk mortar was demonstrated in 1997. On the right is shown the west gable from within. Again the red color shows stones that were missing in 1997, while the yellow indicates stones whose position had changed a little. Figure 10 shows the same two gables from the outside— the west gable on the left and the east Figure 8. Locals on a visit to the Hvalsey Fjord Church in 1918. Courtesy of The National Mu- gable on the right, seum of Denmark. Figure 9. Clemmensen’s (1911) drawing of the inside of the east gable (left) and the west gable (right) as these appeared in 1997 (Krogh and Abrahamsen 1997). Red color marks missing stones, yellow color marks stones whose position had changed a little, while stones with a green color were inserted between 1880 and 1910. The blue dots show places where chalk mortar was demonstrated in 1997. 14 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 2 while Figure 11 shows the south wall. Again, only limited damage had occurred since 1910. However, the investigation in 1997 also showed that the south wall was not stable. On the basis of Krogh’s measuring points from 1962, it could be calculated that over the 35 years the top of the wall had moved about 20 mm where the inclination was greatest, that is above the chancel door. The maximum inclination was measured to 52 cm. Furthermore, a comparison with Clemmensen’s drawing of the east gable also suggested that the southeast corner had subsided further, with an inclination of a whole 100 mm since 1910. The Greenland National Museum and Archives therefore decided to carry out a restoration, and engineer Abrahamsen drew up an outline proposal for the straightening and stabilization of the wall. Since the plan involved casting new concrete along and some way in under the foundation stones, the project began in the summer of 1999 with an archaeological excavation along the south wall, headed by Krogh (Fig. 12). We opened a 10-m long and up to 60-cm wide trench along the wall, which was dug down to the subsoil. In the easternmost 6 m of the trench—where the wall inclined most— traces of at least nine graves were found (Fig. 13A and B). Again, the preservation was very poor. Bones—shown in red color on the plans— were only preserved as a brownish, slightly sticky powdery Figure 10. The outside of the east gable (right) and the west gable (left) as documented by Krogh and Abrahamsen (1997). See legend for Figure 9. Figure 11. The south wall as documented by Krogh and Abrahamsen (1997). See legend for Figure 9. 2009 G. Nyegaard 15 substance. As can be seen, several of the graves lay partly under the foundation stones, which are shown in the drawing with a light red or pink color, while the yellow color shows the subsoil of sand or gravel. The deepest grave lay approximately 1 m beneath the surface under the foundation of the threshold stone of the door into the chancel, where the inclination of the wall was greatest. No graves were observed under the foundation stones west of the chancel door. The investigation thus showed that the stone church, dating to perhaps around 1300, was built on a churchyard that is older than the church itself, suggesting that the church must have had a predecessor of which no traces have been found. At the same time, the presence of the graves below the foundation stones shows why the eastern part of the south wall exhibits tilt damage. The damage arose when the graves “settled,” and might to some extent already have been visible at the wedding in 1408. After the archaeological investigation, concrete was cast in the trench and about 20 cm in under the foundation stones. At fi ve points, the foundation Figure 12. Knud Krogh during excavation of the trench along the south wall in 1999. Photograph © Georg Nyegaard. Figure 13. Knud Krogh´s plan of the eastern part of the excavated trench along the south wall in 1999. Remains of bones are shown in red color, the foundation stones are shown with a light red or pink color, and yellow color shows the subsoil of sand and gravel. 16 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 2 Figure 14. Engineer Abrahamsen’s specially designed tool for the restoration of the south wall. Photograph © S. Abrahamsen. Figure 15. Different sections of the south wall of the church (Abrahamsen 1999). The red color shows the position of the wall after the righting process, while the blue color indicates the outline of the south east corner. 2009 G. Nyegaard 17 same profi le as Section A. The resulting space along the front of the wall between the footing stones and the foundations stones was stabilized with stone wedges. The stones in the crack of the east gable were numbered and removed during the righting process and inserted again afterwards. A picture of the east gable from the same year (Fig. 16) shows the fi nished result. The concrete tops along the wall have been removed and the turf re-established. A check of Krogh’s measuring points nine years later in September 2008 showed that the wall has been stable since the restoration. The Hvalsey Site in the 21th Century Field work took place again at the site in 2004. Niels Christian Clemmensen from the Heritage Agency of Denmark made a modern GPS-based survey of the site in collaboration with the Qaqortoq Museum and Jette Arneborg of the National Museum of Denmark. The result of this is shown in Figure 4C. From 2004–2007, a new hydro power plant was built at Qorlortorsuaq, about 40 km east of Qaqortoq. The plant supplies the towns of Qaqortoq and Narsaq with electricity. The construction of the power line posed a potential threat for the ruin group at the Hvalsey Fjord Church because the only solution possible was to let the cables pass here. Fortunately, cementing was furnished with box-shaped tops that were meant to function as foundations for bracing up the wall. Figure 14 shows engineer Abrahamsen’s specially designed tool for the job. It consisted of a vertical lifting column with a 30-ton jack below it. With a system of lifting and holding wires and an angled iron beam that was mounted below the footing stone, the wall was lifted. To prevent a cave-in of the foot of the wall on the other side, the wire at the end of the iron beam was passed through the wall and around an approximately 2-m long chocked-up wooden beam at the back that held the foot of the wall during lifting. To the lifting column, an iron stay was attached, and below this another 30-ton jack was installed. This second jack exerted its pressure on a tensioning mat lined with wood that was mounted on the lifting column and which could be placed at different heights on the wall. It turned out to be possible to push and lift the wall as much as needed (Abrahamsen 1999). But to make the restoration as gentle and discreet as possible, it was decided to stop the righting process when the wall contour lay within the profi le shown in blue in Figure 15, which is the outline of the SE corner. In this position, Wall Section A (No. 2 from the right) was pushed 30 cm in at the top of the wall and lifted 6 cm at the front edge of the base. The sections B, C, D, and E were then braced up according to the Figure 16. The east gable seen from the east after the restoration. Photograph © Georg Nyegaard. 18 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 2 Nord. 1996. Nordic World Heritage. Proposals for new areas for the UNESCO World Heritage List. Nordic Council of Ministers, Copenhagen, Denmark. Roussell, Aa. 1941. Farms and Churches in the Medieval Norse Settlements of Greenland. Meddelelser om Grønland 89(1). it was decided to lay it in the subsoil over a distance of about 2 km north of the ruins near the foot of the Qaqortoq Mountain. So any severe damage to the site was avoided. Acknowledgments The restoration of the Hvalsey Fjord Church was supported economically by the Danish Ministry of Environment and “A.P. Møller og Hustru Chastine Mc-Kinney Møllers Fond til almene Formål.” Knud Krogh kindly provided the author with non-published documentation from the archaeological excavation along the south wall of the church in 1999. Søren Abrahamsen kindly gave the permission to reproduce drawings from his reports to the Greenland National Museum and Archives, while Niels Christian Clemmensen kindly provided the author with a plan from the surveying in 2004. Literature Cited Abrahamsen, S. 1999. Stabilisering af kirkeruinen på Hvalsø. Afl everingsnotat vedrørende opspænding af det udvæltede sydmursparti. Rapport til Grønlands Nationalmuseum and Arkiv, Højbjerg, Greenland. Arneborg, J. 2006: Saga Trails. Brattahlið, Garðar, Hvalsey Fjord’s Church, and Herjolfsnæs: Four Chieftain’s Farmsteads in the Norse Settlements of Greenland. A Visitor’s Guidebook. Vintervå, Narsaq, Greenland. Beretninger og Kundgørelser vedrørende Grønlands Styrelse, nr. 7, 1934. In Beretninger og Kundgørelser vedrørende Kolonierne i Grønland for Aarene 1933– 1937. København, Denmark. 1938. Berglund, J. 1982. Hvalsø—The Church and the Magnate’s Farm. Qaqortoq Kommune,Qaqortoq, Greenland. Clemmensen, M. 1911. Kirkeruiner fra Nordbotiden m.m. i Julianehaab Distrikt. Undersøgelsesrejse i Sommeren 1910. Meddelelser om Grønland 47:8, 285–358. Egede, H. 1925. Relationer fra Grønland 1721–36 og Det gamle Grønlands ny Perlustration 1741. Pp. 1–404, In L. Bobé (Ed.). Meddelelser om Grønland 54. Grønlands Historiske Mindesmærker (GHM). 1838–45. I–III. Det Kongelige Nordiske Oldskriftselskab. Det Brünnichske Bogtrykkeri, Kjøbenhavn, Denmark. (Fasimile 1976; Rosenkilde og Bagger). Graah, W.A. 1932: Undersøgelses-reise til Østkysten af Grønland. Efter kongelig befaling udført i aarene 1828–31. København. (Reprint of publication from 1832 , K.Birket-Smith [Ed.]). Gulløv, H.C. (Ed.). 2005. Grønlands Forhistorie. Gyldendal, København, Denmark. Krogh, K. 1982. Erik den Rødes Grønland. Nationalmuseets Forlag, København, Denmark. Krogh, K., and Abrahamsen, S. 1997. Notater vedrørende undersøgelser og sikring af Hvalsey- fjordens Kirke august 1997. Rapport til Grønlands Nationalmuseum and Arkiv, Højbjerg, Greenland. Kundgørelser Vedrørende Grønlands Styrelse. 1950. Cirkulære af 20. maj 1950 angående fredlysning af Qaqortoq Kirkeruin og Sigssardlugtoq-ruinen (p.205). København, Denmark.