Norwegian Medieval Stave Church Postcard

This stave church from the 1200s is open to visitors in the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History in Bygdoy in Oslo, Norway. The museum shows how people lived in Norway from 1500 to the present in rural and town areas. A stave church is a medieval wooden Christian church building once common in north-western Europe. The name derives from the buildings' structure of post and lintel construction, a type of timber framing where the load-bearing posts are called stafr in Old Norse and stav in modern Norwegian. Established in 1894, the large open air museum features more than 150 buildings moved from towns and the countryside and features artifacts from all social groups and regions. It includes five medieval buildings, including the stave church dated to 1212.