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.

该项目的目的是通过研究纪念性建筑的破坏来增加了解古代社会的理解。一个多世纪的档案研究重点是建造全球令人印象深刻的建筑和工程壮举，而研究的研究却少得多。这项研究的重点是数百个巨大的石雕像被雕刻，运输，竖立和随后推倒的地点。流行的说法将雕像的破坏归因于战争和社会崩溃的混乱时期。还建议雕像可能被忽视或强烈地震推翻。研究小组完成了考古学家，一名地震学家，土木工程师正在与学生进行这项研究紧密合作。该项目有助于增强土著文化理解，预计结果将构成对该案例研究的共识解释的基础，并在其他地方促进相关的询问。记者是人们对人们的价值观，信念和社会记忆的关键窗口。破坏纪念碑尤为重要，因为它可以阐明社会的这些方面如何随着时间的流逝而改变。为了开始了解该团队正在进行两种研究的雕像的破坏。首先是根据雕像破裂的雕像表面暴露在风化的情况下建立雕像倒塌的年表。随着时间的推移，暴露于雨水和海上喷雾将以可以通过专门的手持超声来进行非毁灭性测量的方式伤害统计数据。为了确定员工累积的损害需要多长时间，团队正在人工风化的石头块以及进行其他实验。他们的第二个目标是通过在统计数据的定时和位置中寻找与有目的破坏，忽视或地震有关的统计定时和位置中的独特模式来评估统计数据如何推翻。该团队利用档案的进步，特别是工程计算机模拟，这些模拟预测了统计数据在主要地震中的行为以及记录和合成地震波形的结合。这两个目标产生的数据已交付给当地社区，以帮助做出有关未来统计保护的决策。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响评估标准来评估值得支持。