Uppåkra temple

Remains of an Iron Age building interpreted as the possible remains of a temple building, have been excavated in Uppåkra, south of Lund in Scania, Sweden during 2000–2004.

The building was rebuilt six times on the same floor plan, on the site of an older (3rd century) longhouse, and was likely in existence during the 6th to 10th centuries. It measured 13 by 6,5 meters (33 ft x 16.5 ft) and had three doors. The central part was elevated and supported by four pillars. Lars Larsson (2007) argued that the find represents "the first Scandinavian building for which the term 'temple' can be justly claimed".

The remains of the building consist of holes and trenches for the placement of the pillars and walls that once stood there. Various floor levels were discernible, and it was possible to determine that the building was originally erected in the 3rd century on the site of an unusually large longhouse, and then rebuilt six times without appreciable changes, the last version of the building dating to the early Viking Age. The building material was in all cases wood, which was also sunk into the ground.

The building was 13 meters long and 6.5 meters wide. The walls on the long sides were made of slightly convex, rough-cut oak posts or "staves," which were sunk into a trench in the earth more than one meter deep. At each corner of the building stood a pillar or corner-post. The central part of the building, which stood free of the outer walls, was formed by four gigantic wooden columns. The holes for these and for the corner-posts are unusually wide and more than two meters deep, and stone packing found in three of the center holes indicates columns at least 0.7 meters in diameter.

The building had three entrances, two in the south and one in the north. Each opening had hefty posts on either side, and the southwestern had a projecting section in addition. That must therefore have been the main entrance of the hof. This has been interpreted as the men's entrance, the entrance on the north side as the women's entrance, and the southeastern entrance as for the priest, on the model of stone churches.

Two large iron door rings were found, one in the fill around a post, the other about 10 meters from the building.

The outer walls of the building were of so-called stave-construction, as in palisade churches and later stave churches, with strong corner posts. The technique can be recognized from the preserved remnants of palisade churches in Lund dating to about 1050. The tops of the vertical posts or staves must have been slotted into a horizontal log or wall plate, called a lejd in Swedish (stavlægje in Norwegian), which was seated on the corner posts. The deep trench in which the staves were sunk together with the deep holes for the corner posts indicate that the outer walls must have been high. The purpose of the holes was to resist the lateral pressures so that the walls did not collapse. In Hemse stave church, Gotland, wall staves three meters long were found preserved from the early timber church. An above-ground height of up to four meters for the outer walls of the hof is therefore not impossible.

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Wikipedia