A Square Building Where Every Other House Is a Rectangle
At Seddin, the Late Bronze Age house is long. This plan is almost square. That is the anomaly.
Excavators from Brandenburg's heritage office and the University of Göttingen uncovered, in September 2026, an almost square Late Bronze Age building at Seddin. It measures 10.6 metres north to south and 11.4 metres east to west, and it dates to around 850 BC. Houses of that period in northern Germany are long rectangles. State archaeologist Franz Schopper has called this one a templum.
It sits on a spur, about 900 metres from the "King Hinz" mound, on the same horizon. Pits nearby hold unusually large pots, some with rims over 50 centimetres, and burned animal bone. Whether the animals were eaten or offered is still open. Archaeologie Online reported the building. Heritage Daily ran the "temple" reading on 25 October.
Key Evidence
- September 2026 excavation, Brandenburg heritage office and University of Göttingen
- Plan: 10.6 by 11.4 metres, around 850 BC
- Local house grammar of the period is the long rectangle
- Franz Schopper: templum
- Large pots, rims over 50 centimetres; burned animal bone in nearby pits
- About 900 metres from the King Hinz mound
- Sources: Archaeologie Online; Heritage Daily, 25 October 2026
The Rational Explanation
"Temple" is an interpretation of plan, place, and pottery. A meeting hall, a special store, or a house for a person who did not want a longhouse would leave a lot of the same debris. Large pots are storage until someone proves they are rite. Burned bone is dinner until someone proves it is gift. Square plans happen. They are just rare here, in this century.
What We Don't Know
What happened in the building. Whether the bone is feast or offering, and whether those were different occasions. Why the plan is square when the neighbourhood is not. A footprint can be an anomaly and still be a house.
The Rabbit Hole
Seddin already has a princely burial and a landscape that archaeologists treat as a power centre. A square building on the same horizon is either the ritual annex everyone hoped for or a reminder that elites also own odd sheds. The shape is the part that does not fit. Do not promote the shed to a temple on a press adjective.