What is a dome made of?

This lesson asks you to name properties of materials that matter when building a structure, and to describe how forces such as wind can affect a structure's shape, balance or position. The museum offers one building described by a medieval writer, al-Muqaddasi. Its record describes a building; it is not a lesson in engineering, so the explanations are your class's to supply. ¹

Read the description and note every material it mentions. Note what the writer says about wind. What does he not say? What questions would you want to put to the builders?

Around 375 AH a traveller named al-Maqdisi saw the Dome of the Rock and described it in his book. It is an octagonal building with four doors, each facing a flight of steps. Inside, three ambulatories circle on columns. Above is a dome covered in gilded brass, a hundred cubits high including its base ². He says that when the sun rises on it, it shines and the whole area glitters ². In the record, his description says nothing of what lies beneath the brass.

Al-Maqdisi tells us what covers the dome, but not what is under the covering. If you could ask the builders one question about how the dome stays up, what would it be, and why would the answer help?

• Dome of the Rock: the building, and the measurements a later writer gave in cubits.
• al-Muqaddasi: the traveller who described it, and how he gathered what he wrote.
• The Aqsa Mosque: the neighbouring mosque whose hall, doors and domes he also described.

Read the record Dome of the Rock. Draw a simple section through the dome with its layers as al-Muqaddasi described them, and label each layer with its material.