In Iceland the PARABOW participants have started work to erect a reconstruction of a turf church from about the year 980, -or slightly before the legal adoption of Christianity by the Icelandic population, which occurred in the year 1000, according to written sources. The Icelandic party is the East Iceland Heritage Museum located in Egilsstadir.

The Museums´ archaeologist, Steinunn Kristjánsdóttir, conducts a series of excavations focusing on the transition from Christianity to Paganism, or in other words the period around 1000 AD. The aforementioned turf church was excavated as a part of this series in the summer of 1997. The church formed a part of a farmstead consisting also of a traditional Viking Age longhouse, and other small ruins of uncertain purpose. The farmstead was surrounded by a turf- and rock wall. The excavation revealed a small building with walls made of turf only but with an internal support frame of wood, most likely driftwood from foreign shores as the indigenous forest was mainly birch which is rather unsuitable as building material.

Model based on excavation drawings

The East Iceland Heritage Museum has introduced an experienced turf- and rock builder, as well as a carpenter specialized in medieval building methods, to the PARABOW project. During a visit to Ribe, Denmark, two turf-knives of the kind that presumably were in use in the period in question were made with the aid of the Ribe blacksmith.

The common goal of the PARABOW participants is to model reconstructions as closely as possible on what is known to have been the practice in former times. Conditions in Iceland directed construction methods and materials into a pathway unique to this remote island. Suitable wood was sparse and expensive and turf was, from the beginning it seems, used for isolation and became the commonest material for walls and roofs. The support frame had to be made of wood and rich households would cover the inside of the turf wall with boards. Rock was eventually used in conjunction with turf as the main material for walls.

Drafts have been made of how the excavated turf church may have looked like. Reconstructions of houses long gone are always largely built on theory and the experience of carpenters that study ancient methods. When considering various details we have in this case chosen to look to Ireland for influence because of historical links between the two countries. A portion of the settlers in Iceland were Celts who already had adopted the Christian religion. It is therefore likely that the Celts had a say in how the early Christian churches looked like. PARABOW craftsmen will team up in August 1999 and erect the church near the original site, in the countryside not far from the town Egilsstadir.