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sacred places, referring to the conception of C. Colpe (1970), was madę by Tadeusz Makiewicz and Andrzej Prinke (1981), who, however, did not discuss the problem of applicability of written sources to verifying archae-ological data.

As the location of Slavonic settlements before the Migration of nations is uncertain, the chronological framework of the search for Slavonic sanc-tuaries is limited from the 6th c. A.D., when the Slavs undoubtedly appear in the sources, to the moment of their official Christianization (different for various tribes), when the places of public cult were destroyed, which is symbolically marked by the year 1168, the surrender of Arcona. It is intriguing, however, that some of the sanctuaries are dated outside this scope. The territory relevant to the present discussion will be the land of Western Slavs, and for comparative purposes of Eastern Slavs, while the cult places of Southern Slavs will not be elaborated on. The reasons for the latter are: the influence of numerous and divergent assimilated tribes on the religious life of Eastern Slavs, and the lack of reliable archaeological data from that region.

1. The cult buildings of Slavonic, Germanie and Baltic tribes

Since the beginnings of studies over paganism researchers and lovers of the Old Slavs have been attracted by the most spectacular objects of worship: temples and statues. As early as in the 15thc., a Pomeranian historian, Thomas Kantzow (Chronik vort Pommem, IV, p. 103-110) described the tempie in Arcona, and as he drew information from the relation of Saxo Grammaticus, the description was quite accurate. Jan Długosz faced a morę difficult situation - he lacked sources. He could not imagine the pagan State of the Polish ruler Mieszko I without temples, therefore in his Armals (Annales, I, vol. 1, 1964, p. 107) he situated a tempie of Nyja in his Capital Gniezno. Later Romanticism caused wide interest in paganism - good Polish examples are poet Juliusz Słowacki and novelist Józef Ignacy Kraszewski - and the love for “Slavonic antiąuities” was supported by arising nineteen-century criticism. After a hundred years of research, however, constant dealing with the same written sources confmed historians in the vicious circle of data and interpreta-tions well known to everyone. Including folklore into the research contributed a lot to the reconstruction of mythology, but - unsurprisingly - much less to the knowledge about the temples, although such attempts - rather unsuccessful - were madę (Mokołowski 1903, p. 280-290).

In 1975 the results of the studies over the written sources were sum-marised in the Dictionary of Slavonic Antiąuities (Słownik Starożytności Słowiańskich, vol. 1, p. 579): “Pagan temples as complexes of religious archi-tecture are attested only in Northern Polabia and Western Pomerania in the last period of the development of Slavonic paganism (llth-12thc. A.D.). It is possible that they were partly modelled after Christian churches. They were novelties connected with internal changes in the pagan religion, which adapted to the transformations in the social and political structure of the north-western Slavonic communities at that time. Pagan temples were located near important strongholds and early towns (Starigard/Oldenburg, Brandenburg, Szczecin, Wolin and others), and some of them became centres influencing morę than one tribe (Radogość in the llth c., Arcona in the 12thc.). (...) The attempts at interpreting some archaeological excava-tions as remains of pagan temples are not sufTiciently motivated (Gniezno, Prague) or are simply misconceptions (Arcona).”

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