Medieval Norwegian church found in deepest Poland

Eastern European ping list ^ | not specified | not specified

[franksolich]

While waiting for the morning edition of that excellent newspaper in Oslo, the Aftenposten, to pop up on the computer screen, I checked out a "lead" given me by twinself of the Eastern European ping list.

There is apparently an ancient Norwegian, a Viking, church right smack in the middle of the Carpathian Mountains of Poland.

I have been all over the place, and so am used to finding unusual things in unusual places, but this one seems a gem, a jewel.

This church was originally built around 1180, on the shores of Lake Vang in southern Norway (Vangsmjosi), near Mount Grindafjellet.



It was apparently one of only 30 "stave churches" (I have no idea what a "stave church" is), out of thousands, to survive into the modern era. It was made using no nails, only wooden bolts and dovetails, and of Norwegian pine, which apparently has longevity in it.

In the early 1800s, because it was too small for the region, and because it was deteriorating, it was sold to the Emperor of Prussia, for the Berlin Museum.

However, once the church arrived in Stettin, the emperor lost all interest in it, and so it was taken far to the south, to the mountains of Carpathia, and by 1842 had been set up there, and fully engaged in the purposes for which it had been built nearly 700 years before in faraway Norway.



The web-site (the link in red above) is well worth clicking on; the web-design is excellent (almost as if it had been done by the guys on the Eastern European ping list), and it has many aesthetic photographs, and more history. Just click on the British flag on the first page, and take a look; this is remarkable.

Thank you, twinself, an authentic Pole a member of Free Republic, currently actually in Poland.

[jimtorr]

I agree, York Minster is pretty cool. Of course, I only visited once, and briefly. I thought the Roman ruins in the basement were pretty cool also, and the preserved streets of the old city, but the Minster itself is remarkable.

[gnarledmaw]

No, you got it, youre just thinking too small.

From the link abv:
"Staves are the vertical, load-bearing timbers in the building. The frame of a stave church wall consists of a sill, staves and a top sill, and these have grooves that receive the wall planks."

Take a closer look at the architectural cutaway above. Note how the wood in the walls runs in a vertical fashion. Its as though a barrel maker heard a call from God...

[SunkenCiv]