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Stonemasonry
Stonemasonry or stonecraft is the creation of buildings, structures, and sculpture using stone as the primary material. It is one of the oldest activities and professions in human history. Many of the long-lasting, ancient shelters, temples, monuments, artifacts, fortifications, roads, bridges, and entire cities were built of stone. Famous works of stonemasonry include the Egyptian pyramids, the Taj Mahal, Cusco's Incan Wall, Easter Island's statues, Angkor Wat, Borobudur, Tihuanaco, Tenochtitlan, Persepolis, the Parthenon, Stonehenge, the Great Wall of China, and Chartres Cathedral. Definition Masonry is the craft of shaping rough pieces of rock into accurate geometrical shapes, at times simple, but some of considerable complexity, and then arranging the resulting stones, often together with mortar, to form structures. *Quarrymen split sheets of rock, and extract the resulting blocks of stone from the ground. *Sawyers cut these rough blocks into cuboids, to ...
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Mortar (masonry)
Mortar is a workable paste which hardens to bind building blocks such as stones, bricks, and concrete masonry units, to fill and seal the irregular gaps between them, spread the weight of them evenly, and sometimes to add decorative colors or patterns to masonry walls. In its broadest sense, mortar includes pitch, asphalt, and soft mud or clay, as those used between mud bricks, as well as cement mortar. The word "mortar" comes from Old French ''mortier'', "builder's mortar, plaster; bowl for mixing." (13c.). Cement mortar becomes hard when it cures, resulting in a rigid aggregate structure; however, the mortar functions as a weaker component than the building blocks and serves as the sacrificial element in the masonry, because mortar is easier and less expensive to repair than the building blocks. Bricklayers typically make mortars using a mixture of sand, a binder, and water. The most common binder since the early 20th century is Portland cement, but the ancient binder l ...
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Monumental Masonry
Monumental masonry (also known as memorial masonry) is a kind of stonemasonry focused on the creation, installation and repairs of headstones (also known as gravestones and tombstones) and other memorials. Cultural significance In Christian cultures, many families choose to mark the site of a burial of a family member with a gravestone. Typically the gravestone is engraved with information about the deceased person, usually including their name and date of death. Additional information may include date of birth, place of birth and relationships to other people (usually parents, spouses and/or children). Sometimes a verse from the Bible or a short poem is included, generally on a theme relating to love, death, grief, or heaven. The headstone is typically arranged after the burial. The choice of materials (typically a long-lasting kind of stone, such as marble or granite) and the style and wording of the inscription is negotiated between the monumental mason and the fami ...
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Fortification
A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ("to make"). From very early history to modern times, defensive walls have often been necessary for cities to survive in an ever-changing world of invasion and conquest. Some settlements in the Indus Valley civilization were the first small cities to be fortified. In ancient Greece, large stone walls had been built in Mycenaean Greece, such as the ancient site of Mycenae (famous for the huge stone blocks of its ' cyclopean' walls). A Greek '' phrourion'' was a fortified collection of buildings used as a military garrison, and is the equivalent of the Roman castellum or English fortress. These constructions mainly served the purpose of a watch tower, to guard certain roads, passes, and borders. Though smaller than a real fortress, ...
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Angkor Wat
Angkor Wat (; km, អង្គរវត្ត, "City/Capital of Temples") is a temple complex in Cambodia and is the largest religious monument in the world, on a site measuring . Originally constructed as a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Vishnu for the Khmer Empire by King Suryavarman II, it was gradually transformed into a Buddhist temple towards the end of the 12th century; as such, it is also described as a "Hindu-Buddhist" temple. Angkor Wat was built at the behest of the Khmer King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century in Yaśodharapura ( km, យសោធរបុរៈ, present-day Angkor), the capital of the Khmer Empire, as his state temple and eventual mausoleum. Angkor Wat combines two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture: the temple-mountain and the later galleried temple. It is designed to represent Mount Meru, home of the devas in Hindu mythology: within a moat more than 5 kilometres (3 mi) long and an outer wall long are three rectangu ...
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Lewis (Lifting Appliance)
Lewis may refer to: Names * Lewis (given name), including a list of people with the given name * Lewis (surname), including a list of people with the surname Music * Lewis (musician), Canadian singer * "Lewis (Mistreated)", a song by Radiohead from ''My Iron Lung'' Places * Lewis (crater), a crater on the far side of the Moon * Isle of Lewis, the northern part of Lewis and Harris, Western Isles, Scotland United States * Lewis, Colorado * Lewis, Indiana * Lewis, Iowa * Lewis, Kansas * Lewis Wharf, Boston, Massachusetts * Lewis, Missouri * Lewis, Essex County, New York * Lewis, Lewis County, New York * Lewis, North Carolina * Lewis, Vermont * Lewis, Wisconsin Ships * USS ''Lewis'' (1861), a sailing ship * USS ''Lewis'' (DE-535), a destroyer escort in commission from 1944 to 1946 Science * Lewis structure, a diagram of a molecule that shows the bonding between the atoms * Lewis acids and bases * Lewis antigen system, a human blood group system * Lewis number, a dimensionle ...
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Tracery
Tracery is an architectural device by which windows (or screens, panels, and vaults) are divided into sections of various proportions by stone ''bars'' or ''ribs'' of moulding. Most commonly, it refers to the stonework elements that support the glass in a window. The term probably derives from the tracing floors on which the complex patterns of windows were laid out in late Gothic architecture. Tracery can also be found on the interior of buildings and the exterior. There are two main types: plate tracery and the later bar tracery. Honour, H. and J. Fleming, (2009) ''A World History of Art''. 7th edn. London: Laurence King Publishing, p. 948. The evolving style from Romanesque to Gothic architecture and changing features, such as the thinning of lateral walls and enlarging of windows, led to the innovation of tracery. The earliest form of tracery, called plate tracery, began as openings that were pierced from a stone slab. Bar tracery was then implemented, having derived from ...
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Chamfer
A chamfer or is a transitional edge between two faces of an object. Sometimes defined as a form of bevel, it is often created at a 45° angle between two adjoining right-angled faces. Chamfers are frequently used in machining, carpentry, furniture, concrete formwork, mirrors, and to facilitate assembly of many mechanical engineering designs. Terminology In machining the word ''bevel'' is not used to refer to a chamfer. Machinists use chamfers to "ease" otherwise sharp edges, both for safety and to prevent damage to the edges. A ''chamfer'' may sometimes be regarded as a type of bevel, and the terms are often used interchangeably. In furniture-making, a lark's tongue is a chamfer which ends short of a piece in a gradual outward curve, leaving the remainder of the edge as a right angle. Chamfers may be formed in either inside or outside adjoining faces of an object or room. By comparison, a '' fillet'' is the rounding-off of an interior corner, and a ''round'' (or ''ra ...
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Eglinton Masons
Eglinton can refer to: People * Earl of Eglinton, a title in the Peerage of Scotland * Geoffrey Eglinton (1927–2016), British chemist *Timothy Eglinton, a British biogeoscientist * William Eglinton (1857–1933), a British spiritualist medium and fraud *J.Z. Eglinton, pseudonym of Walter H. Breen Jr. (1928–1993) *John Eglinton, pseudonym of William Kirkpatrick Magee (1868–1961) Places Australia *Eglinton, New South Wales, a suburb of Bathurst * Eglinton, Western Australia, a suburb of Perth Canada Toronto * Eglinton, Ontario, a former village now in Toronto * Eglinton (electoral district), a former federal electoral district *Eglinton (provincial electoral district), a former provincial electoral district *Eglinton Avenue, a main thoroughfare in Toronto * Eglinton Park *Eglinton Theatre *Line 5 Eglinton or Eglinton Crosstown Line, a light rail line under construction ** Eglinton Maintenance and Storage Facility, a light-rail facility serving Line 5 Eglinton Canadian Terr ...
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Chartres Cathedral
Chartres Cathedral, also known as the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres (french: Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres), is a Roman Catholic church in Chartres, France, about southwest of Paris, and is the seat of the Bishop of Chartres. Mostly constructed between 1194 and 1220, it stands on the site of at least five cathedrals that have occupied the site since the Diocese of Chartres was formed as an episcopal see in the 4th century. It is in the High Gothic and Romanesque styles, with a Flamboyant north spire. The cathedral was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979, which called it "the high point of French Gothic art" and a "masterpiece". The cathedral is well-preserved and well-restored: the majority of the original stained glass windows survive intact, while the architecture has seen only minor changes since the early 13th century. The building's exterior is dominated by heavy flying buttresses which allowed the architects to increase the window size significan ...
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Great Wall Of China
The Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand ''li'' wall") is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against various nomadic groups from the Eurasian Steppe. Several walls were built from as early as the 7th century BC, with selective stretches later joined by Qin Shi Huang (220–206 BC), the first emperor of China. Little of the Qin wall remains. Later on, many successive dynasties built and maintained multiple stretches of border walls. The best-known sections of the wall were built by the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Apart from defense, other purposes of the Great Wall have included border controls, allowing the imposition of duties on goods transported along the Silk Road, regulation or encouragement of trade and the control of immigration and emigration. Furthermore, the defensive characteristics of the Great Wall were enhanced by the construction ...
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Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around high, wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones. Inside is a ring of smaller bluestones. Inside these are free-standing trilithons, two bulkier vertical sarsens joined by one lintel. The whole monument, now ruinous, is aligned towards the sunrise on the summer solstice. The stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the densest complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred '' tumuli'' (burial mounds). Archaeologists believe that Stonehenge was constructed from around 3000 BC to 2000 BC. The surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the first bluestones were raised between 2400 and 2200 BC, ...
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Parthenon
The Parthenon (; grc, Παρθενών, , ; ell, Παρθενώνας, , ) is a former temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, that was dedicated to the goddess Athena during the fifth century BC. Its decorative sculptures are considered some of the high points of Greek art, an enduring symbol of Ancient Greece, democracy and Western civilization. The Parthenon was built in thanksgiving for the Hellenic victory over Persian invaders during the Greco-Persian Wars. Like most Greek temples, the Parthenon also served as the city treasury. Construction started in 447 BC when the Delian League was at the peak of its power. It was completed in 438; work on the decoration continued until 432. For a time, it served as the treasury of the Delian League, which later became the Athenian Empire. In the final decade of the 6th century AD, the Parthenon was converted into a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. After the Ottoman conquest in the mid-fifteenth century ...
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