A special treasure trove of architecture from the Harz Mountains can be found in Gernrode.
Today's building dates back to 959 and, along with St. Michael's Church in Hildesheim, is an important testimony to Ottonian architecture, a precursor of the Romanesque style. Margrave Gero, who founded the monastery and furnished it richly, is buried in the church, which, oddly enough, has almost no right angles. Among other features of the building, it is above all the Holy Sepulchre, the oldest surviving example of a replica of the tomb of Christ in Jerusalem, that is the source of the resurrection of the faith of the medieval world.