ACOUSTIC VESSELS OF THE MIDDLE AGES AND RESONATORS (HOLOSNIKI) OF CHERNIHIV CHURCHES
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37445/adiu.2024.03.02Keywords:
acoustic vessels, architecture of Middle Ages, architecture of Chernihiv, architectural ceramics, acoustics of churches.Abstract
The use of so-called acoustic vessels in medieval monumental architecture is a subject of debate. These vessels were most often placed in the arches and vaults of buildings. Sometimes their necks, exposed to the interior spaces, formed decorative compositions. However, it is incomprehensible whether they actually improved the acoustic properties of buildings. It is suggested that these vessels were intended to reduce the weight of the building structures instead. There is also no clear understanding of when and where the tradition of their use originated or how it spread. Nevertheless, the presence of «acoustic vessels» in hundreds of buildings from the 10th to the 18th centuries in Europe and Asia Minor allows us to consider them as characteristic of medieval architecture and to view «acoustic vessels» as a specific building material.
The tradition of using acoustic vessels in Eastern Europe can be traced in the example of Chernihiv. In Chernihiv, they were documented during the research of the Transfiguration Cathedral and the 11th-century tomb church, as well as in the 12th-century Borisoglebsk and Assumption Cathedrals and the Pyatnytska Church of the 12th — early 13th centuries. Research materials indicate that specially made jugs were used as acoustic vessels in the construction of 11th-century Chernihiv. Later (not earlier than the second half of the 12th century), amphorae began to be used. In the example of Chernihiv, two main methods of using «acoustic vessels» in construction can be identified: numerous vessels filled the cavities of the vaults; one or several vessels were placed at the base of the vaults and arches. The first method is typically found in earlier buildings, while the second is more common in later ones.
A separate issue is the production of this specific building material. The early «acoustic vessels» of Chernihiv have no analogues among the traditional products of local potters. Most likely, their production was organized by the craftsmen who carried out the construction. Only much later the amphorae, arrived as imported items from the Mediterranean, began to be used.
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