Greenland yields first viking church discovery in 60 years
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Archaeologists working in southern Greenland, near the settlement of Erik the Red at Brattahlíð, uncovered evidence of a church built by Scandinavian colonists this summer.
The team from the National Museum of Denmark, the Greenland National Museum and Archives, the University Museum of Bergen, and the Kujataa UNESCO World Heritage Site had suspected ruins at Qinngua, near Narsarsuaq, might be a church.
They found a cemetery matching the expected layout of a church and surrounding burial ground, but lacked definitive proof until they discovered a skeleton buried with its head facing east, a traditional Christian practice. This discovery is noteworthy because no churches had been identified in Greenland for six decades. Researchers believe the church, dating to between 1100 and 1300, was used for a longer period than others found on the island.
The location of the church may correspond to “Kirkja undir Sólarfjöllum,” or “the church under the sunny mountains,” mentioned in medieval texts, as the surrounding mountains create unusually sunny conditions. The presence of six churches in a relatively small area suggests competition among settlers to demonstrate power and social standing.
Archaeologists now plan to use medieval texts to locate other undiscovered churches and further investigate the social structures of the medieval Nordic communities that inhabited Greenland from approximately 980 to 1400 before their abrupt departure, possibly due to climate change, remains a topic of debate.
