Talk:Keystone (architecture)

Picture

Need a picture of a keystone! Who can help? SaxTeacher [[User_talk:SaxTeacher|<font size="1">(talk)</font>]] 11:45, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Keystones - overrated!

The central point of this article is simply wrong - the keystone is no more or less important than all the other voussoirs - remove any one of them and an arch will collapse! -- Kvetner 22:32, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Fixed! Macboff 10:06, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

The keystone is, in fact, more important than the other voussoirs - because it's the last one to be placed. The arch is not self-supporting until the keystone is in place. WCCasey (talk) 21:29, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, we must be careful not to just argue. But: the arch is not self-supporting until the last stone (voussoir) is in place. This is true: remove any stone from the arch, whether or not it was the last one placed, and the arch will collapse. It is also true (I imagine) that in building an arch which has a keystone, that the keystone is normally the last stone to be placed (which is where the dictionary expression "locks the other stones in place" comes from). However, it is also true that it would be possible to insert a different stone (voussoir) last, in which case this would be the one to "lock the other stones in place". So in an engineering, empirical, physical world sense, the keystone has precisely no more significance than all the other voussoirs. And of course, lots of arches do not have keystones, but stay up all the same.

I think there are a number of (minor) problems with this article, but the overall problem is one of emphasis. In the end, the engineering content is minute (precisely because the keystone has no particular engineering significance), and therefore naturally an article about "Keystone" really should talk about the (perceived) figurative significance, and should show some of the ways in which this features. For example, it would be nice to have a map showing the Keystone state at the centre of the "arch" of the original 13 colonies. Imaginatorium (talk) 06:20, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

I think this is a useful discussion, and has not (so far) degenerated into mere argument. A few more points:

• The article is titled "Keystone (architecture)". A separate article explaining the engineering behind keystones (and perhaps other types of arches as well) would also be interesting. I don't agree, however, that "engineering significance" has any bearing on the question of whether figurative uses of the term belong in this article.
• A keystone is a uniquely-shaped and positioned voussoir, not just one of many.
• Not all arches have keystones. Arches were certainly built with identically-shaped voussoirs, and those arches therefore do not have keystones.
• Use of a keystone is an archaic building method, from a time when it would have been very difficult to place any other voussoir last. I imagine it would have been possible, but much more difficult - both to hold the other stones in place and to insert that last stone.
• Both the distinctive shape of the keystone and its position at the top are what "locks" the other stones in place. WCCasey (talk) 00:38, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Rhetorical

Other uses for the word are not covered. Capstone, which is pointed to this article, is also an academic term, such as, a senior year honors capstone project.

chacal la chaise 00:50, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Removing Mergefrom tagging

• An anom without understanding the differences between a trim piece, and something structurally necessary to support the weight above a added merge suggestion tag back in March: mergefrom proposal, which I'm removing now since it's w/o merit and has received all the copious support it deserved--"Zip". // FrankB 16:33, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Notched Keystone

Can someone please explain the notched keystone shape? Where does it come from? Is it ever used in architecture and if so why? Is that more recognizable as a keystone? Thanks! 74.66.247.159 (talk) 06:12, 4 November 2009 (UTC) (IrishJew; not logged in)

Propose new article

I propose to move the recently added section Keystone_(architecture)#Religious_Symbolism to its own article, titled "Keystone (symbolism)". Links to the new article would be placed in the "See also" section of this article, and also on the disambig page. I'll wait a month to give editors a chance to respond. WCCasey (talk) 21:05, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I do not see that religious uses of a particular metaphor deserve a separate page. I see that the previous contributor who added the Mormon example is perfectly correct, that googling for "keystone religion" shows mostly Mormon hits, so it may well be that this metaphor is more popular there than in other religions. But google "keystone bible", for example, and you are back to mainstream Christianity. And anyway, my point is that the current paragraph (for example) tells us something about Mormonism, but essentially nothing about keystones -- so this is really the same problem as the "In popular culture" tendency (see for example Mont_Saint-Michel_in_popular_culture). If "keystone" really has a particular significance for Mormonism, that could be part of the Mormonism page, or a separate article "Keystones in Mormonism" perhaps. Imaginatorium (talk) 07:07, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry! I did not read your comment carefully. You want an article on "Keystone (symbolism)"? What would this contain? Just the religion bit? One of the problems with this article is that there is no(!) text content outside the introduction that is actually about keystones, partly for the good reason that keystones have essentially no engineering significance. Perhaps I should BOLDly rewrite the intro. Imaginatorium (talk) 07:11, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Good point. The whole "Figurative use" section should be moved to a separate article, as none of it has anything to do with "Keystone (architecture)". WCCasey (talk) 06:59, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm against separate articles, when it means that at least one of the articles is unlikely to reach "article length". I think there should be one article which describes the architectural element, then lists the ways (at least three?: centrality, importance, and shape) in which this has been used figuratively. Looking through the Keystone (disambiguation) page, I can only immediately see one example not deriving (ultimately) from the arch part, and that is the limestone quarried in the Florida keys. But I think the figurative elements should be given just enough description to establish the connection -- much less than the current bit about Mormonism, and somewhat less than the current bit about Pennsylvania. (About which: my geography of the US being pretty shaky, I imagined the state was "keystone-shaped"; perhaps a map of the 13 original states would help. More pictures, more connections, is often what I feel WP is short on.

I presume there is no particular problem with making this the main Keystone page, and copying the disambiguation content to Keystone (disambiguation), though I am not a very experienced editor. Imaginatorium (talk) 15:10, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

MOS guideline for disambiguation pages (WP:D) is to include only enough text to help a reader find the appropriate article. Paragraph-length text should be in articles.

Re: "article length": personally, I like short, concise articles (like this one) that cover only one topic and have lots of links to related articles. With linking and disambig pages, there's no reason to lump a lot of unrelated information together just to limit the number of articles. I find too many articles bloated with too much redundant information.

Re: "Keystone state": Pennsylvania was described, by its boosters, as the "keystone" of the 13 states because of its central position in the north-south chain of 13, rather than because of its shape. WCCasey (talk) 23:30, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

When keystones are referred to in the context of Western religion, the most common point of reference is Psalm 118:22, translated as The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner (KJV). I would wager that allusion to this reference is considerably more widespread than any to the Book of Mormon, which is not even considered canonical by most of Christianity.

Nuttyskin (talk) 20:18, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Good point; I'll add. Johnbod (talk) 22:40, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Keystone and capstone

We say that both terms are used, but we don't say why or where. Are they absolutely interchangeable anywhere in the world, or is there some actual difference in construction, or is it an AmE / BrE / WhateverE usage thing? It might be useful to tell people, if an RS exists to tell us. Or, indeed, just me ... best to all DBaK (talk) 18:27, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Metaphor

A section with this name contains essentially trivia information about using "keystone" in broader culture. Per MOS:CULTURALREFS and MOS:TRIVIA, a broader source is desirable here, describing the links of other uses of the term to the context of this article. Otherwise, the article might become a WP:COATRACK: the uses of "keystone" are plenty, like "keystone species", "keystone societies", "keystone sectors of economy" etc. Викидим (talk) 20:11, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Literature I am reading:

• Thomas, Edmund, "The Symbolic Significance of Architectural Form" in: Monumentality and The Roman Empire: Architecture in the Antonine Age (Oxford, 2007; online edn, Oxford Academic, 12 Nov. 2020), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199288632.003.0033, accessed 2 Feb. 2024.
• Cahill, Michael (1999). "Not a cornerstone! Translating Ps 118,22 in the Jewish and Christian scriptures". Revue Biblique (1946-). 106 (3). Peeters Publishers: 345–357. ISSN 0035-0907. JSTOR 44089448. Retrieved 2024-02-02.

Викидим (talk) 22:34, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Whatever the Psalms reference should be taken to mean, what is relevant here is what it has very widely to be taken to mean. Johnbod (talk) 23:41, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

As with any research paper, we preferably should not use the Cahill's one alone for encyclopedic content. However, the introduction to any decent academic publication contains a review of the previously settled research. IMHO, such a review in the Cahill's work (on pp. 345-348) can be used for our article. It would be much better than the current text without any source. Викидим (talk) 07:03, 3 February 2024 (UTC)