A 12th-century Scottish monk may have invented modern architectural drawing techniques, new research claims

2023-09-22T17:30:00-04:00

Research from a professor at the University of Aberdeen has advanced evidence that the art and practice of architectural drawing may have been invented by a 12th-century Scottish clergyman working in Paris around the time of the construction of Notre-Dame Cathedral and other important Gothic structures.

Dr. Karl Kinsella is a lecturer in Medieval Art History at the institution. His new book, God’s Own Language: Architectural Drawing in the Twelfth Century, presents the idea that a previously unknown monk named Richard the Scot was likely the first person to use the term ‘plan’ for drawings, sections, and elevations he apparently made in order to demonstrate the vantage point of the prophet Ezekiel's visions using then-modern concepts of geometry.

Kinsella says: “This is the earliest evidence we have of a complete visual description of a building including several plans, elevations and sections, but they appear in this strange theological work instead of coming out of building sites...

The 700-year old climate data recorded by Japanese monks

2016-04-28T13:05:00-04:00

When [Lake Suwa] freezes over, daily temperature changes cause the ice to expand and contract, cracking the surface and forcing it upward into a ridge [...] Every year since at least 1443, the priests who live at the shrine on the edge of Lake Suwa have carefully recorded the date the ridge appears. In 1693, on the other side of the world, a Finnish merchant named Olof Ahlbom started recording the date and time of the spring ice breakup on the Torne River [...]

"When scientists want to glimpse the climate of the ancient past, they almost always have to use indirect evidence—changes in tree rings, ice-core layers, or pollen deposits. But the ice records from Japan and Finland, which are the longest of their kind, give us a more direct look at the climate our distant ancestors experienced."

Climate science is a much more interdisciplinary project than one might imagine. Henry David Thoreau's notes from Walden document changes in annual blooming times. Pieter Breugel the Elder's paintings record climatological events, in particular the "Little Ice Age."

For more on the complex business of studying our planetary abode:

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A 12th-century Scottish monk may have invented modern architectural drawing techniques, new research claims

The 700-year old climate data recorded by Japanese monks