The roof has a grey-greenish cast to it, to my eye, I thought ancient copper or bronze sheeting for
the exterior. One report was that after a while the fire when to green for a while. That would
definitely be copper burning up.
But, hard to tell for sure from so far away. Either metal is an exceptionally durable exterior surface.
The cathedral at Bayeux has a lot of lead sheeting capping the top surfaces of the flying buttresses, lining all
the gutters, and lead pipes inside the gargoyle rain spouts. I believe it uses slate tiles, IIRC.
JW, IMO being Holy Week is another reason to suspect arson by a terrorist.
Al, Looking around in Paris, what I see is sometimes sad, and my suspicions are also not PC, will be left alone in
this forum, too.
My wife and I have visited France many times since the early 70s, and we always spend time at cathedrals. My wife
has a degree in architecture, with a specialty in civil engineering. I am a mechanical engineer who specialized in
structural work, and I have been fascinated with ancient buildings since living in Italy in late grade school and
again when in college, being surrounded by aquaducts, the Colosseum, Tajan's Market and lots of other truly
spectacular ancient Roman engineering works. We both enjoy leaning about how the ancient engineers
and architects worked with the serious limitations of stone, brick and wood to produce these truly magnificent
and amazingly durable structures. We will often spend an half an hour to an hour walking around the exterior
of a cathedral or half a day in Trajan's market examining the structural details, and decorative details, too.
It contained about 80+ individual ~20ft by 40 ft arched roof shops, each able to be secured at night at
the front, much like a modern mall. This is all understandable from close observation.
If anyone is interested in spectacular Roman structural engineering, spend some time researching
Trajan's Market, a wonderful indoor and outdoor shopping mall built in Rome about 60 years after
Christ walked the Earth. Largely still intact, has been in constant use for various purposes for just
about 2000 years. Or the Pantheon, a fully intact, still magnificent 2000 year old domed building
with a 140 ft diam unsupported dome. It was the largest on the planet until the 1880s. Actually, the Pantheon
dome was made of poured concrete, with variable density aggregate, dense trertine aggregate near the
bottom for max strength, medium weight tuffa aggregate above that and pumice aggregate in the top
portion to lighten the concrete. By the 12th century, we still could not yet once again understand or
duplicate that engineering feat.
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
The cathedrals are only a bit less than half as old, but still spectacular engineering and art/architecture
too. Not much more was known in materials by the 12th century, so the same sort of design
constraints were upon the cathedral builders as the Roman builders. But they had learned some
great things in 1000 years, even through the Dark Ages.
The more I understand what they did and how they did it, the more impressed I am with the
ancient engineers, architects and building workmen, the artisans.
Bill
