The grid crossing vault of the Cathedral of Merida in Yucatán_04 Print E-mail

[....] The construction began making the bebel that fit with de central part of the oval, with it we start to carve the voussoirs and, helped by the template of each distorted section, we will be able to give each voussoir its accurate shape (photo 10,11,12,13).

The crossings are the most important and complex pieces of the vault. In order to understand the work of carving of these pieces, a careful analysis of several built examples was carried out. In most of the vaults observed it was possible to notice how the crossing was really a long voussoir in the middle of which the springing of the other two cross arms are carved (photo 14).

So, a crossing vault is composed of one main direction, in which a full arch is formed putting together crossing after crossing. And, on the other hand, in the secondary direction, a crossing followed by a voussoir is placed in the assembling of the vault (photo 15,16). [....]

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