The Árbær Open Air Folk Museum is in Reykjavík and a popular destination for tourists and locals. Many are married in the small old church and the site is a new home for many old houses from Reykjavík.
This summer the museum site has itself been the center of an archeological research, but it has long been known that Árbær was a farm through the centuries. The research has already unearthed two structures built before 1226. One might even have been built by one of the earliest settlers in Iceland around the year 900.
The oldest written documents that we know mention Árbær in the 15th century, but now the excavation has added some centuries to our knowledge. The roots of Árbær may lie with the earliest settlers. We already know that the first settler in Iceland, according to old manuscripts, Ingólfur Arnarsson and his wife Hallveig Fróðadóttir, lived in Reykjavík.
The Settlement Exhibition, where you can learn about some of the very first settlers of Iceland, exhibits some of Iceland’s oldest relics from 871 A.D. This exhibition is in Aðalstræti in the center of Reykjavík. There you can explore the tenth century longhouse, parts of which are carefully preserved in their original location.
On Thursday July 28 between 14 and 16m a local archeologist will guide guests through the excavations in Árbær. The guide will speak in Icelandic, but this will be a unique opportunity to see, for the first time, these extremely interesting finds.
