[hutzlibu]

“Because it’s relatively small, we believe the structure served a solely ritualistic function,”

Ritualistic trope comment preventer:

"One of the reasons archaeologists believe this was a temple, besides the gold foil figures, is the absence of other finds that would be natural if people lived there, like cooking pots and whetstones. "

Other things I found interesting:

"Throughout the autumn and winter, C14 dating will finally determine if it is true that the temple has stood here since around the year 600 – and right up to the 11th century"

600 year old temple out of wood. That would be something.

Then: one of the foils found appears to be intentional crumbled. Which makes sense when it was meant to be a offering to the gods. Or this one was negated, whatever it meant. Since they always show a men and a women(on this site), they might have symbolized marriage (of rich people) and were placed on a special place for good luck and the one crumbled was a marriage not working out. But:

"In Norway, findings of gold foil figures are rare. The 35 from the temple in Vingrom represent the largest collection we have found in this country.

In a similar temple in Uppåkra in Sweden, archaeologists found 100 gold foil figures.

On the Danish island of Bornholm, over 2,500 gold foil figures were found in a field.

Were there not so many gold foil figures in Norway at that time, or have we just not found them?"

"There are also other regional differences: In Denmark, there are more individual figures, whereas in Norway and Sweden, it is mostly couples that are depicted."

So alltogether not much is know about this old custom.

But I think it is interesting and I like the simple art they are showing.

[ricardobeat]

> 600 year old temple out of wood. That would be something.

It’s the year 600, that would be 1400 years old. Japan has a bunch of those still standing, the oldest being 1300 years: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hōryū-ji

I’ve only been to the Todaji temple in person, which is “just” 300 years old after reconstruction, but it’s a mind-boggling experience to see the scale of these buildings and the work/engineering that went into them. Absolutely worth a visit if you ever have the chance.

[vidarh]

"since around the year 600 – and right up to the 11th century." so not 1400 years, as it's not still standing.

But, yes, it's not old for a wooden building that's being maintained.

[vidarh]

Norway has plenty of stave churches older than 600 years, so a temple surviving 600 years would not be that surprising. With maintenance, wooden buildings can survive pretty much indefinitely, though in part because you can often replace part by part as needed.

[vidarh]

Too late to edit, but Wikipedia has a list of stave churches with links to individual pages and pictures of the ones still standing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stave_church#Norway

[vintermann]

Stave churches probably look a lot like the pagan temples they replaced too... which in turn might well have been attempts to imitate the churches they'd seen abroad in local materials. Christianity had already been around for hundreds of years when the last temples were built, after all, so there was plenty of time for influence.

[Atotalnoob]

Isn't Norway more devoid of gold mines?

[olddustytrail]

I believe they rather famously travelled abroad to acquire their gold.

[thaumasiotes]

https://satwcomic.com/good-to-see-you-england

[vintermann]

There is some gold in Norway, there have been some small gold mines, and you can find alluvial gold. Although you'd think it would be a lot more effective to import it, they did make use of bog iron, so who knows.