Urnes Stave Church stands at Ornes, on the eastern side of Lustrafjorden. Dendrochronology dates its completion to about 1132, and it remains on its original site. A 1956 excavation found two earlier churches there. The second was built in the later 11th century and torn down in the mid-12th.
The infobox classes the church as Romanesque. It is a timber basilica with 16 large staves, cylindrical columns, cubic capitals and semicircular arches, and the central nave roof rises about 6.5 feet (2 m) above the aisles. The carvings follow the Urnes style of Viking-era animal ornament. The north portal shows interlaced animals, serpents and vines, among the last examples of that ornament.
In the 17th and 18th centuries the nave was extended south, and a font, altar canopy, pulpit and altarpiece were added. Fortidsminneforeningen has owned the church since 1881, and UNESCO listed it in 1979.
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