Gothic Architecture in Chartres Cathederal essays

Gothic Architecture in Chartres Cathederal essays In the early 1100s, the French Arch Bishop thought it was time for a new place to worship god. The architects of the time figured out that if you use a new type of arch-like structures on the outsides of the walls calles flying buttresses then you can cut the thickness of the walls into the fraction of the size that it would need to be with the walls of Chartres Cathederal being as tall as they were. This would inturn make the walls open for more windows and were filled with colored glass that are called stained glass. This let people worship god in the light that he was meant to be worshipped in. The Gothic style was one rooted in architecture and any other forms of art were basically created to help embellish the houses of the Lord. Gothic churches were - in contrast to the Romanesque churches - very "light". The belief in divine light and the powers it contained had a great deal to do with how Gothic cathedrals were constructed. Gothic architects solved the problem of very little light coming through the windows, by conceiving of a superior form of building. How'd they do that? Well, instead of having large walls with large interior support - as in Romanesque style - the Gothic churches were made of "exoskeletons". In other words, the church itself was like a skeleton with the walls and windows hanging as skin, off of this skeleton. Also, the weight of the construction was transferred from the interior to the exterior by way of what is known as the "flying buttress" system - massive piers on the outside of the church. With heavy walls no longer needed, walls were freed up for large, light colored stained glass windows. And like God said Let there be light was able to happen in he churches. In todays society not many people know about the Gothic style of architecture. Back in the 1100s the new Gothic style of architecture was able to show many new architectural features including flying butresses,...

Brontotherium Megacerops Facts and Figures

Brontotherium Megacerops Facts and Figures Name: Brontotherium (Greek for thunder beast); pronounced bron-toe-THEE-ree-um; also known as Megacerops Habitat: Plains of North America Historical Epoch: Late Eocene-Early Oligocene (38-35 million years ago) Size and Weight: About 16 feet long and three tons Diet: Plants Distinguishing Characteristics: Large size; paired, blunt appendages on end of snout   About Brontotherium (Megacerops) Brontotherium is one of those prehistoric megafauna mammals that has been discovered over and over again by generations of paleontologists, as a result of which it has been known by no less than four different names (the others are the equally impressive Megacerops, Brontops and Titanops). Lately, paleontologists have largely settled on Megacerops (giant horned face), but Brontotherium (thunder beast) has proven more enduring with the general public - perhaps because it evokes a creature that has experienced its own share of naming issues, Brontosaurus. The North American Brontotherium (or whatever you choose to call it) was very similar to its close contemporary, Embolotherium, albeit slightly bigger and sporting a different head display, which was larger in males than in females. Befitting its similarity to the dinosaurs that preceded it by tens of millions of years (most notably the hadrosaurs, or duck-billed dinosaurs), Brontotherium had an unusually small brain for its size. Technically, it was a perissodactyl (odd-toed ungulate), which places it in the same general family as prehistoric horses and tapirs, and theres some speculation that it may have figured on the lunch menu of the huge carnivorous mammal Andrewsarchus. One other odd-toed ungulate to which Brontotherium bears a marked resemblance is the modern rhinoceros, to which the thunder beast was only distantly ancestral. Just like rhinos, though, Brontotherium males battled each other for the right to mate - one fossil specimen bears direct evidence of a healed rib injury, which could only have been inflicted by the twin nasal horns of another Brontotherium male. Sadly, along with its fellow brontotheres, Brontotherium went extinct around the middle of the Cenozoic Era, 35 million years ago - possibly because of climate change and the dwindling of its accustomed food sources.