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at Loddig-See. The meadow where the excavations were carried out, called “Schossiner Wiese,” belongs to the village of Neuburg, situated along the field boundary called Scarzyn. This name comes from an abandoned village Scharcyn, mentioned in 1369 (MUB, vol. 16, 1893, no. 9967, p. 435; cf. Becker, 1991, p. 147).

Another type of building has been discovered in Ralswiek in Rugen, south of an early medieval settlement situated on one of the thing adjoning islands. The building was probably a log construction divided into two rooms, situated on a platform. The walls were orientated nearly exactly towards the four ąuarters of the world. In place of that building another, larger one was erected on an extended platform. Both buildings, which existed in the 8th-10th c.,

Fig. 29. The cull building discovered near Parchim; A - the location of the stronghold.

After H. Keiling, 1982 p. 150, 154-155.

are interpreted as cult halls by J. Herrmann (1984, 1993, p. 138). Near the remains ashes of fires burnt at some intervals have been found.

On the other side of the strait that separated Ralswiek from the mainland, exactly opposite the alleged cult hall, there was a beach where archaeologists have found three shipwrecks (the fourth one has been found at some distance), remains of a pole, a horse skuli, remnants of broken human skeletons with traces of blows on the skulls, horse and dog bones and ashes. The area is interpreted as a “cult beach” and the finds as oblations (Hefert, 1968, 1973; Herrmann, 1981b). Scandinavian analogies can be quoted here: Thietmar (I, 17) mentions that exactly dogs, horses