Early and simple domes

Early and simple domes

Cultures from pre-history to the modern era constructed early and simple domes using local materials. Although it is not known when or where the first dome was created, sporadic examples of early domed structures have been discovered as far back as the Stone Age. The first examples may not have survived due to the use of perishable materials like saplings, reeds, or timbers covered with thatch, turf, or skins, but similar forms have been documented more recently in vernacular architecture around the world. Comparable historical domes built with such materials include Central Asian felt tents, Thule whalebone dwellings, Inuit igloos, Native American wigwams and Anasazi roofs, and various African grass, leaf, wattle and daub, and thin clay domes. Examples built with more lasting materials have been found from the Neolithic period and Chalcolithic periods, with sites in the ancient Near East showing small corbelled or mudbrick domes over round houses and granaries. In the Bronze Age, corbelled stone "beehive" tombs and other structures appear from Egypt and Nubia through Oman, Crete, Sardinia, and Mycenaean Greece. Iron Age and later early domes include Etruscan, Hellenistic, Achaemenid, and Han-dynasty Chinese examples. Nineteenth-century beehive houses in Turkey and the trulli of Italy belong to the same family of techniques. The historical path from the earliest examples to later monumental masonry and concrete domes remains poorly documented. That similar forms appear across many cultures could reflect either a common source or multiple independent traditions. The dome form encloses a given volume with less material and surface area relative to rectilinear techniques and so often has favorable thermal properties, which may explain why some Indigenous peoples around the world produce similar structures today.

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Balbridie.

Luni, Italy.

Early and simple domes

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