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Exterior septorum ordo

Fig. 11. Niederle’s reconstruction of the tempie in Arcona based on Saxo Grammaticus’$ relation; after A. Gieysztor, 1982, p. 209.

The relatively smali measurements of the shrine should not surprise us, as it was a tempie in the strict sense, a sacrosanct seat of the god, which is evident from Saxo Grammaticus. It was surrounded by a solid fence con-structed of ornamented pales, enclosing the tempie yard, at which the stable of Sventovit’s horse was located. The congregation gathered in front of the fence, probably in the tempie circle separated from the rest of the stronghold by a moat. The sources do not supply any information about a cult hall which would be used for the feasts mentioned by Saxo Grammaticus. Due to the scarcity of data the attempts at reconstructing the plan of the tempie in Arcona (Ohlmarks 1943; Bukowski 1974) are unsatisfactory. Recently J. Herrmann (1985, p. 314; 1993) compared Saxo Grammaticus’s informa- ; tion with the plan of the complex in Gross Raden. It should be noted, however, that the shrine in Gross Raden was probably larger and no traces of internal pillars were found there. Therefore it is safer to limit the analogy to the specific decoration of the exterior.

C. Schuchhartd’s explorations provoked a heated discussion of the plan of the tempie in Arcona. Historians looked for Scythian, Iranian, Scandina-vian, Celtic and Eleusinian (Schuchhartd, 1926, p. 24; Schuchhartd, 1939;¹ Lindąuist, 1923, p. 85; Weber, 1931; Oelman, 1933, p. 169-177; Oelman, 1940; Knutsson, 1939) or late ancient (Ohlmarks, 1943) models for it. The common feature of all the alleged, better or worse motivated, models of the tempie in Arcona were four pillars in the centre of the building. No researcher has ever considered a parallelism between the construction of Sventovit’s shrine and Greek megaron, an oblong room supported with four columns, known from Mycenean architecture and mentioned by Homer. Unfortunately, the single tempie in Arcona is not enough to compare Slav-onic and Greek religious architecture.

Saxo Grammaticus, Helmold and Knytlingasaga inform that Arcona was the principal centre of the cult of Sventovit, the superior god of Rugen

Fig-12. An attempt at a reconstruction of the tempie in Arcona based on Saxo Grammaticus^ felation and the results of the excavations in Gross Raden (the plan of the tempie in Gross Rada at the top); after J. Herrmann, 1985, p. 314.

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