Explaining the Destruction of Monumental Architecture

解释纪念性建筑的破坏

• 批准号: 2401213
• 负责人: Mark McCoy
• 金额: $ 15.55万
• 依托单位: Florida State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-10-01 至 2025-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2401213&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Explaining; Destruction; Monumental; Architecture

The goal of this project is to increase understanding ancient societies by examining the destruction of monumental architecture. More than a century of archaeological research has focused on the construction of impressive architectural and engineering feats around the globe—with far less research devoted to the cause(s) of their demolition. This research focuses on sites where hundreds of massive, stone statues were carved, transported, erected, and subsequently toppled over. Popular accounts have attributed the destruction of statues to a chaotic period of warfare and societal collapse. It has also been suggested statues may have been toppled by neglect, or strong earthquakes. The research team comprised of archaeologists, a seismologist, and civil engineers are working closely with students in conducting this research. The project serves to enhance indigenous cultural understanding and the results are anticipated to form the basis of a consensus explanation for this case study and promote related inquiry elsewhere.Monuments are a critical window into people’s values, beliefs, and social memories. The destruction of monuments is especially important since it can shed light on how these aspects of societies change over time. To begin to understand the destruction of statues the team is conducting two types of research. The first is to build a chronology of statue toppling based on the exposure of the broken surfaces of statues to weathering. Exposure to rain and sea spray will over time damage statues in way that can be measured non-destructively with a specialized handheld ultrasound. To determine how long damage observed on statues took to accumulate, the team is artificially weathering stone blocks as well as conducting other experiments. Their second objective is to assess how statues were toppled by looking for distinctive patterns in the timing and location of statue toppling that can be linked to purposeful destruction, neglect, or earthquakes. The team takes advantage of advances in archaeoseismology, specifically engineering computer simulations that predict how statues might behave in major earthquakes, coupled with recorded and synthetic earthquake waveforms. Data produced by these two objectives are delivered to the local community to help make decisions about future conservation of statues.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该项目的目标是通过检查纪念性建筑的破坏来增进对古代社会的了解。一个多世纪的考古研究一直集中在全球各地令人印象深刻的建筑和工程壮举的建设上，而专门针对这一原因的研究却少得多。这项研究的重点是数百座巨大石像被雕刻、运输、竖立并随后被推倒的地点。流行的说法将雕像的破坏归因于混乱时期的战争和社会崩溃。也有人建议雕像由考古学家、地震学家和土木工程师组成的研究小组正在与学生密切合作进行这项研究，该项目旨在增强对土著文化的理解，预计研究结果将形成。纪念碑是了解人们的价值观、信仰和社会记忆的重要窗口，纪念碑的破坏尤其重要，因为它可以揭示社会的这些方面如何变化。时间开始理解。针对雕像的破坏，该团队正在进行两种类型的研究，第一种是根据雕像破损表面暴露在风化中的时间，建立雕像倒塌的年表。可以使用专门的手持式超声波进行非破坏性测量，为了确定在雕像上观察到的损坏需要多长时间才能累积，该团队正在人工风化石块并进行其他实验，他们的第二个目标是评估雕像顶部是如何形成的。该团队利用考古地震学的进步，特别是工程计算机模拟来预测雕像在大地震中的表现，寻找与故意破坏、疏忽或地震有关的雕像倒塌时间和位置的独特模式。这两个目标产生的数据将被提供给当地社区，以帮助做出有关未来雕像保护的决策。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力和能力进行评估，被认为值得支持。更广泛的影响审查标准。