The first thing we did in the morning was leave Reykholt and head for Thingvellir national park. This park holds great significance because it was the official summer meeting ground for the quarterly meetings of the Althing. The Althing was created as Iceland’s form of parliament when the country was still being established. There is a lot of history being held in the park. One of the sights we saw was “Law Rock”. This was a platform where the speaker would walk up to and speak into the cliffside, facing away from everyone else. The reason they did this was because the rocks would amplify the sound of the speaker’s voice to be heard more easily.
Ultimately, the Althing shaped much of Iceland’s early political history. The idea was to have nine representatives for four reasons to share the people’s voices. Most of those voices were those of farmers whose main interest was maintaining their own land. Most of Iceland was equally poor during this time, so it was incredibly advantageous to have a group of speakers instead of one ruler that could be bribed. However, that didn’t last for long. While the Althing was a great form of government, the minute a Christian Norwegian king became part of the mix, it fell apart. So today, the Althing has part of the power, and the president has the other part of it. The events of the Althing and the national park held great significance in past and present Icelandic governments.
Swanson School of Engineering 