The principal action has been the placement of students from the University of Rome (Italy), Bradford (United Kingdom) and Glasgow (Scotland) together with three Icelandic students as a group to assist Steinunn Kristjánsdóttir on the Thörsstaôur excavation in eastern Iceland (see reports).
As the Italian students said in their reports. To us Italians, (Iceland) seemed to be at the farthest end of the globe! "This very contrast for these cosmopolitan students was a great experience and the whole process of spending time living and working intimately with people from other European countries has broadened their horizons and made them appreciate the differences and similarities between heritage.
It is known that Vikings visited Rome and
traded up and down the coast of Italy as well as conquering Sicily in the middle
of the 11th century, Viking warriors also acted as guards and mercenaries within
the Holy Roman Empire in Byzantium. All these factors were brought home more
forcibly for the young Italian students through their visit to such a
contrasting and remote area of Europe, yet one which still shared in Europe's
common cultural roots. The technical contrasts they drew concerned building
materials and architecture, the Romans used stone and brick almost exclusively
for their permanent buildings, the quantity of finds, Roman digs reveal many
more artifacts, and the vagaries of the climate that had shaped the past so
vividly.
To the British students Viking culture and heritage is more familiar because of extensive Viking settlement in Ireland, Scotland and England and raids down the Welsh coast from the 9th to 11th centuries. The excavated grave of the 'last Viking' (see under 'actions to date') contained an English coin minted in the 10th century and it is known that the Viking settlers brought Celtic and Pictish slaves and artisans to live out their lives so far from home (as with the Italians ? this must have seemed like the 'Tarthest end of the globe" but with few rewards and no hope of reprieve !). The students from Glasgow have been able to make very valuable comparisons with Scotland's own Viking heritage which is rich and varied, encompassing the Govan hogbacks ?surely one of Europe's greatest Viking treasures to the reconstruction at Largs.
For the Icelanders, the act of painstakingly excavating their culture with people from wider Europe must have been a strange experience but grew into one of sharing in discovery and a good deal of justifiable national pride in their dramatic heritage.
One very interesting insight gained by all those involved in the Thörsstaôur dig (including the non-archaeologists), was into the politics of archaeology and heritage. The East Iceland Heritage Museum is a fine example of a determination to retain important archaeological finds in a provincial part of the nation. The tireless work of the staff to persuade and cajole National Authorities to leave heritage geographically intact (rather than remove it to Reykjavik) matches so closely the struggles of Scottish and Northern English heritage managers and stakeholders who are only know seeing the rewards of their efforts to draw their heritage away from the English capital.