The English word "dome" ultimately derives from the ancient Greek and Latin domus ("house"), which, up through the … See more

Across the ancient world, curved-roof structures that would today be called domes had a number of different names reflecting a variety of shapes, traditions, and symbolic associations. The shapes were derive… See more

The word "cupola" is another word for "dome", and is usually used for a small dome upon a roof or turret. "Cupola" has also been used to describe the inner side of a dome. The top of a dome is the "crown". The inner s… See more

The earliest domes in the Middle East were built with mud-brick and, eventually, with baked brick and stone. Domes of wood allowed for wide spans due to the relatively light and flexible nature of the material and were the n… See more

A masonry dome produces thrusts downward and outward. They are thought of in terms of two kinds of forces at right angles from one another: meridional forces (like the meridians, or lines of longitude, on a globe) are … See more

According to E. Baldwin Smith, from the late Stone Age the dome-shaped tomb was used as a reproduction of the ancestral, god-given shelter made permanent as a venerated home of the dead. The instinctive … See more

Because domes are concave from below, they can reflect sound and create echoes. A dome may have a "whispering gallery" at its base that at certain places transmits distinct sound to other distant places in the gallery. Th… See more