Iceland Explained
Thingvellir: Tectonic Plates, the Alþing and Iceland’s Law Rock
16:04
A law speaker stands against basalt, trying to make himself heard over the wind. At Thingvellir (Þingvellir), Iceland’s early assembly used a landscape already coming apart between the North American and Eurasian plates.
Almannagjá gives this story its sound. Lögberg, the Law Rock, gives it a human problem: keeping a legal code alive through memory and public recitation. Around the assembly,…