Hemse stave church is a rediscovered palisade church

Palisade church

A palisade church is a church building which is built with palisade walls, standing split logs of timber, rammed into the ground, set in gravel or resting on a sill...

 from Hemse

Hemse

Hemse is a locality situated in Gotland Municipality, Gotland County, Sweden with 1,836 inhabitants in 2005. It is the second largest locality on the island of Gotland. During 19th century Hemse was known for its market places....

 at Gotland

Gotland

Gotland is a county, province, municipality and diocese of Sweden; it is Sweden's largest island and the largest island in the Baltic Sea. At 3,140 square kilometers in area, the region makes up less than one percent of Sweden's total land area...

. Before the present Hemse church was built there was a stave church

Stave church

A stave church is a medieval wooden church with a post and beam construction related to timber framing. The wall frames are filled with vertical planks. The load-bearing posts have lent their name to the building technique...

 from the early Christian period in the beginning of 11th century. The solid and richly ornamented stave planks of oak was used as a wooden floor in the present church. This stave church, or palisade church, is the only more or less complete church rediscovered from the introduction of Christianity in Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

. It is now in storage at Statens historiska museum in Stockholm

Stockholm

Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...

.