Monday, May 16, 2011

0005 - Door designs in ditched enclosures



The ditched enclosures present a significant variety of entrances, from simples ones (corresponding to a simple interruption of the ditch) to more complex ones, that can correlate ditches with wood structures.

In the wavy ditches, the extremity of the ditch can be turning inside (like Santa Vitória (7) or Xancra (2)) or outside (as in Outeiro Alto 2 (8)), depending if it was used the inside or outside curvature to make the interruption of the ditch.

Sometimes, though, the interruption is lateral in the curvature, as in Moreiros (4 and 6). In this way the entrance is not open in a straight line, but implies an also sinuous path to walk through.
This same conditioning can also be obtain by adding a semicircular small ditch or palisade in front of the entrance, like some of the doors at Perdigões (1) or Xancra (3). At Perdigões, this kind of entrance is also monumentalized by two large negative structures, defining a second, but interrupted, semicircular ditch.

These different, but at the same time quite alike, ways of designing the doors of the enclosures have some similar parallels in Europe, showing there are shared ideas relating the building of enclosures, although we can observe regional particularities.

No comments:

Post a Comment