Read the Plaque

While looking for something else, I came across Read the Plaque.

There are several places in Iceland featuring on the website.

One of them is the location of a plaque and monumemt commemorating the founding of the city.

Text taken from the website, which is created under a Creative Commons license:

This monument commemorates where Ingólfur Arnarson´s seat pillars came to shore. Ingólfur was a chieftain and first permanent settler of Iceland. After sailing from Norway, he took the pillars of his high seat, tossed them into the ocean, and vowed to build his farm where they came to shore. They came to shore in Reykjavík (Smoking Cove, so called for the geothermic steam in the area) and he and his family took up residence in 874.

Settlement-area turf buildings have been unearthed in the downtown area, though it is impossible to say who they belonged to, how many existed, or what the original settlement looked like. It is known that the area looked much different - covered with a low, slow growing birch forest, geothermal vents, a pond and a creek that emptied into the harbor. Several city blocks worth of land was added into the harbor; the coast used to extend inland to what is now Hrafnarstræti.

This basalt pillar is one of two and they are attached to a geothermal vent; the upright metal tube expels steam and hisses continually.

The words on the pillar read:

“Ingólfur saw Iceland, he threw his high-seat posts overboard for good luck. He declared that he would establish himself at the place where the beam came to land”

From the Book of Settlements.