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one of Great-Moravian churches. It is not certain whether it had a roof. In its eastern part three horse skeletons were found. The relic is surrounded by a cemetery. Graves from the 9th c. remain outside its outline, but those from the early lOthc. appear both outside and inside it, which allows to datę the building to the 9thc. In that time, however, Christianity thrived in Great Moravia. In Mikulcice foundations of churches from the 9th c. were excavated as well, which raises the question whether the building from Klaśterisko, probabły pagan, as the buried horse skeletons suggest, was contemporary to them.

Two other examples come from Southern Poland. In Chód lik near Sandomierz, during excavations in a large stronghold situated to the east of the old river-bed of the Vistula and to the west of its tributary, Chodelka, remains of a building dated to the 7th-9th c. were found. The construction had been erected in the south-eastern part of the stronghold, between two embankments, with the axis orientated to the north-east. It was divided into two parts: the larger one at the north-eastem side was rectangular, while the south-western one was curved as an apse. At the Southern side of the building there was a shallow adjoining hollow. According to Aleksander Gardawski (1970, p. 49, 57-61), the discoverer, the thesis that it was a nine--century Christian church is not sufficiently motivated, as there are no traces of a cemetery around it. Gardawski qualified the mysterious structure as “a special building” and did not exclude the possibility that it had been

Fig. 42. Chodlik. The location of the stronghold. 1 - the stronghold in Chodlik; 2 - other strongholds; 3 - settlements; 4 - barrows. After A. Gardawski, 1970, p. 10.

a pagan tempie. A similar outline of a building was discovered io Ljarskógar in Iceland in the 19th c. and is interpreted as a hnf (Haraldsson, 1992, p. 73). In the late 30s Roman Jakimowicz (1938, 1939) excavated an outline of a building situated in a stronghold in Lubomia in Silesia. It was a post-and--lintel construction 20 m long and only 3 m wide. Its eastem, entrance part was set deep in the ground, gradually reaching the level of 50 cm below the surface towards the centre of the building. In the central part clay benches were situated along the walls, occupying about 10 metres of its length. The western part was much shallower. The building had been used for a long time, which is proved by traces of repairing, although relatively few remains typical for dwelling houses were found there. Jakimowicz hesitated whether to classify the building from Lubomia as a house where warriors met, or a tempie or better a cult hall. He rightly remarked that these two functions are not mutually exclusive, and such an interpretation is most convincing.