Urnes Stave Church
The oldest of Norway's surviving stave churches, standing at Urnes on the eastern shore of the Sognefjord and dated to around 1130. Its carved west portal, worked in the so-called Urnes style of interlaced beasts, serpents, and slender climbing vines, carries on Viking-age animal ornament even as the timber church above it was rebuilt in the mid-12th century. The stylized lion battling the serpent on the portal is often read as a Christian image of Christ overcoming evil. The building is a UNESCO World Heritage site and a key link between pagan Norse animal art and the architecture of the medi