Girna
Girna (plur. Giren) are cantilevered vaulted structures made of dry stone , which can be found in the still unpopulated half of Malta and on Gozo as field stables or shepherds' huts. They were built from unprocessed field stones. Its walls consist of a carefully layered outer and an inner wall using two-shell technology . The gap is loosely filled.
State of research
Their architectural , ethnological and archaeological relevance has motivated research into them since the mid- 19th century . The German scholar Gerhard Rohlfs researched structures with domed ceilings in Europe for more than 30 years . In 1957 he published the result in the book: Primitive Domed Buildings in Europe . He conveyed information about similar huts in Italy , in the former Yugoslavia on the Adriatic coast, in Sardinia , in Spain , Portugal , France , Ireland , in the Hebrides and in other countries. He tried to prove by comparisons that old Europe was covered with dome-shaped ceiling structures. He did not mention the Maltese girs. Aleksandra Faber was the first to describe Malta's Giren in “Le Bunje”.
to form
Giren are round, oval, square or rectangular in plan. There are small, medium and large. Some are reinforced in the lower area by a wider dry stone wall, others have built-in cribs or niches inside. There are girders that are built on top of other girens, girens whose construction is completely out of the ordinary, and pseudogiren. Some have ramps or stairs that lead to the roof from the outside. In the middle of some roofs there is a low, oval, concave structure called Caghqija (Maltese pebble) or another type of apparently functionless stone structure. Unlike the Apulian trullo, giren have a relatively flat roof. There is only one entrance and rarely triangular or square windows, mostly above the door to relieve the lintel .
history
The traditional history of these huts goes back to the 16th century. When peace reigned after the great siege of Malta (1565) by the Ottomans , the people from the fortified settlements of Valetta and Mdina withdrew to the countryside. They built simple, square huts near their fields. The stone for the building was hewn out of the rock, creating a suitable foundation for the hut. The builders discovered early on that the soft stones could only span about 1.5 m before they broke. Therefore a complex system of arches was used to create larger spaces. Today, corbel techniques made of machined smooth slabs are found in Gozetan country houses, where they span room widths up to 3.65 m as stepped ceilings (e.g. in Dar ta Xmun).
See also
literature
- Michael Fsadni: The Girna. The Maltese Corbelled Stone Hut. Translated from the Maltese by Louis J. Scerri. Dominican Publication, Malta 1992 (new edition).
Remarks
- ↑ The smallest is near the bridge over the Wied il-Mistra and has an inner diameter of a little more than a meter.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gerhard Rohlfs : Primitive domed buildings in Europe (= Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class. Abhandlungen. NF 43, ISSN 0005-710X ). Publishing house of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Munich 1957