Slavic PantheonTemple
Arkona
The temple of Svantevit on Cape Arkona, the northern tip of the island of Rügen, the last great pagan shrine of the Baltic Slavs before its destruction by the Danes in 1168.
About Arkona
The last pagan stronghold on the Baltic
Arkona stood on the chalk cliffs at the northern tip of Rügen, fortified by earthen ramparts that still survive as an archaeological site today. It was the principal shrine of the Rani, a West Slavic tribe, and housed the four-faced idol of Svantevit described in detail by the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus in Book 14 of his Gesta Danorum: a wooden temple within the fortress, a great carved image holding a horn and a sword, and a sacred white horse used to divine the outcome of wars.
Destruction, 1168
Saxo reports that the Danish king Valdemar I, guided by Bishop Absalon of Roskilde, besieged and took Arkona in 1168, forcing the Rani to accept Christianity and surrender the idol, which was reportedly cut apart and burned before the assembled army. The event marks the effective end of organized paganism among the Baltic Slavs and is one of the best-documented single episodes in the whole corpus of Slavic pagan history, precisely because the Danish side had every reason to record its own victory in detail. Archaeological excavation at the site since the 19th century has confirmed the fortress ramparts and settlement layers, though coastal erosion has since destroyed part of the original promontory.
On the map
Arkona among other places of the Slavic Pantheon.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, Book 14 (paraphrase)
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Coordinates mark where the myths place a site, or where the tradition locates it today. Mythic realms are left off the map or marked as symbolic placements.
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