Uvdal Stave Church (''Uvdal stavkirke'') is situated at

Uvdal Uvdal is a village and former municipality in Buskerud county, Norway. It is situated in the traditional region of Numedal and is the location of the Uvdal Stave Church. The municipality was created by a split from Nore on 1 January 1901. The n ...

in the valley

Numedal Numedal () is a valley and a traditional district in Eastern Norway located within the county of Buskerud. It traditionally includes the municipalities Flesberg, Nore og Uvdal and Rollag. Administratively, it now also includes Kongsberg. Geog ...

Nore og Uvdal Nore og Uvdal is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Viken (county), Viken Counties of Norway, county, Norway. It is part of the Districts of Norway, traditional region of Numedal. The administrative centre of the municipality is ...

Buskerud Buskerud () is a former county and a current electoral district in Norway, bordering Akershus, Oslo, Oppland, Sogn og Fjordane, Hordaland, Telemark and Vestfold. The region extends from the Oslofjord and Drammensfjorden in the southeast to Hardan ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. The

stave church A stave church is a medieval wooden Christian church building once common in north-western Europe. The name derives from the building's structure of post and lintel construction, a type of timber framing where the load-bearing ore-pine posts a ...

was originally constructed just after the year 1168, which is known through dendrochronological dating of the ore-pine used in the construction. The logs were not completely dry when the construction took place.

Construction history

archeological Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscape ...

excavation that took place during 1978 showed that the church was built on the remains of a previous church. It is thought to have been made with the use of embedded corner column technology at the beginning of the 11th century. Churches made during the 12th century were usually very small, often no more than 40 square meters, and were therefore often expanded, even during the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

and certainly just before and after the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

, which took place during 1537 in Norway. The nave of the church was first expanded to the west during the Middle Ages, when the original apse of the chancel was also removed and the chancel itself elongated. Again, during that period, an extra center column was added. The chancel was torn down again in 1684, when a new and wider chancel was made, with the same width as the nave. Then, during the period 1721–1723, the church was made into a cruciform. A new ridge turret had to be made, to fit the new shape. Later, in 1819, a new vestry was added to the north wall of the chancel.

Exterior

The exterior walls were paneled in 1760.

Interior

Benches with ornately decorated sidewalls were added to the nave in 1624. The oldest part of the interior was probably richly ornately decorated by painting during 1656, the expansions during 1684 and 1723. Two scary halfmasks are quite visible on the poles of the chancel, and according to myth they were able to capture demons.

Miscellaneous

The church survives today as museum piece, owned by

Fortidsminneforeningen Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments ( no, Fortidsminneforeningen) is an organization focused on conservation preservation in Norway. The Society was founded in 1844. The founders were painters, historians, art historians ...

, which also happens to own several other stave churches that survive. The church was taken out of use in 1893, but services still take place during the summer season. As of June 2016, photographing of the highly decorated interior (even with flash) was allowed. In the late nineties the local internet site Numedalsnett was allowed to shoot a short interior video with minimum equipment and lightning. The video clip is available on YouTube.

Gallery

File:Интерьер ставкирки в Увдале (алтарное место), 2019.jpg, Uvdal Church interior File:Интерьер ставкирки в Увдале (места для прихожан), 2019.jpg, Uvdal Church interior File:Интерьер ставкирки в Увдале (вид от входа), 2019.jpg, Uvdal Church interior File:Uvdal Stave Rosepaint0.jpg, Rosemale painting File:Uvdal Stave Rosepaint02.jpg, Rose painting File:Uvdal Stave Church - Ceiling.jpg, Painted Ceiling of the Nave in Uvdal Stave Church File:Uvdal Stave Church - Upper Gallery.jpg, Upper Gallery of Uvdal Stave Church

References

External links

Uvdal Stave Church (Riksantikvaren)

Uvdal Stave Church (Fortidsminneforeningen)
(in Norwegian)
Uvdal Stave Church – interior shots (video) on Youtube

Uvdal Stave Church in a video about stave churches in Numedal
{{Stave churches 12th-century churches in Norway Stave churches in Norway Nore og Uvdal Buildings and structures owned by the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments Churches completed in 1168