A related term is the Arabic diquniyyah, used for a room in which, according to old witnesses, Coptic monks kept their bread (Graf, 1954, p. 46). This is, however, a room in a monastery, not in the church. The designation is rather derived from the diaconia, the institution for poor relief, which was among the oldest duties of the diaconate and later was a particular concern of the monasteries. In the monastery of Saint Matthew the Poor, the diaconia was a building of several stories, from which one could look far into the distance (Till, 1936, p. 12).
Architectural Elements of Churches, Dome
By Peter Grossmann
Ask about this article- Topics
- Church Architecture
- Author
- Peter Grossmann
- Original
- Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia
Bibliography
Amélineau, E. Etude sur le Christianisme en Egypt au septième siècle. Paris, 1887. Descoeudres, G. Die Pastophorien im syro-byzantinischen Osten. Wiesbaden, 1983. Graf, G. Verzeichnis arabischer kirchlicher Termini. CSCO 147, Supp. 8. Louvain, 1954. Marrou, H. I. "L'origine orientale des diaconies romaines." Mélanges Archéologie 57 (1940): 95-142. Munier, H. La scala copte 44 de la Bibliothèque nationale de Paris, Vol. 1. Cairo, 1930. Till, W. Koptische Heiligen- und Märtyrerlegenden II. Rome, 1936. PETER GROSSMANN Dome A dome is an evenly curved vault (see below) over a circular base. It may be a complete hemisphere or only part of one or pointed. In traditional architecture it is made of rows of stone blocks or bricks. The Arabic term qubbah means both "dome" and the room beneath it. Thus it is applied to different areas of a church covered by a dome, such as the apse and khurus (Ibn Sabba‘, 1922, chap. 27) and the baldachinlike superstructure over the altar normally called a ciborium (Graf, 1954, p. 57). Finally the term applies to domed tomb constructions. BIBLIOGRAPHY Graf, G. Verzeichnis arabischer kirchlicher Termini, p. 87. Louvain, 1954. Ibn Sabba‘, Yuhanna ibn Abi Zakariyya. La Perle précieuse, ed. J. Péier. In PO 16. Paris, 1922. PETER GROSSMANN Gallery In church architecture, a gallery is an upper story over an aisle or ambulatory. It is normally open onto the nave through rows of supporting columns, just as the aisles are on the ground floor. In the East, the gallery was reserved for women, as its Greek name (hyperoon gnaikonitidos, "women's gallery") implies. It is more common in Eastern churches than in Western churches, where women and men were separated by area but not by story. The Latin matroneum means only "place of the women." The Arabic word is ustuwan. The gallery corresponds structurally to the upper story of a two-storied columned hall or a stoa (detached colonnade) such as those bordering public squares and gymnasia in ancient Greece and was called a stoa diple. It is found in secular Roman basilicas such as that in Fano (Vitruvius De architectura, 5.1.6) and in the forum of Leptis Magna, North Africa. The Great Basilica, the synagogue of Alexandria (destroyed in A.D. 116), was called a diplostoon and thus likely possessed galleries, which were reserved for women. The gallery is not restricted to a specific type of church structure. It was taken over from the secular basilica and very likely spread chiefly from Constantinople and possibly also Alexandria. The relatively early examples of the gallery in Palestine are misleading, because they were commissioned by the emperor and were planned in Constantinople (Deichmann, 1959). The early local architecture of Palestine provides no examples of galleries. From the fifth and sixth centuries onward, the gallery was a regular feature of Eastern churches and synagogues.