Acceso usuarios
Township of Durham, Estados Unidos
Stereotomy, the art of cutting stones into particular shapes for the construction of vaulted structures, is an ancient art that has been practiced over a wide chronological and geographical span, from Hellenistic Greece to contemporary Apulia and across the Mediterranean Basin.Yet the history of ancient and medieval stereotomy is little understood, and nineteenth- century theories about the art’s Syrian origins, its introduction into Europe via France and the crusaders, and the intrinsic Frenchness of medieval stereotomy are still largely accepted. In this essay, I question these theories with the help of a work-in-progress database and database-driven maps that consolidate evidence of stereotomic practice from the third century BCE through the eleventh century CE and across the Mediterranean region. I argue that the history of stereotomy is far more complex than what historians have assumed so far and that, for the most part, it has yet to be written.
