Talk:Pointed arch

Biased

This article is totally biased. It is from one point of view. This article should be neutral. It doesn't mention other sources that refute the old claim that pointed arch originated in India 106.203.253.52 (talk) 19:30, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Early arches

These Indian examples are no proper (=built) arches, but simply openings cut into stones that have a pointed tip. Correspondingly, they don't have any load-bearing function, that is they were not structural arches, since the natural stone from they were cut out from acts as a monolithical mass that supports the hole. If there were proper pointed arches made of voussoirs or bricks in early India, please provide reliable sources that explicitly say so.

That the Muslims invented the pointed arch, structurally or not, is also a myth, long debunked for example by this article which is also cited here. The Byzantine Karamagara Bridge alone, dated to the 5th or 6th century, that featured a single pointed arch of a substantial span of 17 m, disproves that contention emphatically. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 00:27, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

This does not appear to be a settled issue. See "Islam was probably responsible for the introduction of pointed and ogee arch forms into western Europe" in "Arches in Islamic architecture" (Oxford Art Online, piece by Margaret Graves, dated 2003). Викидим (talk) 06:07, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

Structural vs aesthetic in different regions

Hello all- I just reverted an addition from an IP: history here, and wanted to make note of it here. The IP's assertion appears to be at odds with one in the intro regarding where and when the pointed arch was first used as a "structural feature", which I infer is meant to differentiate between structural and aesthetic. I don't have time to research this now, but wanted to explain my revert. Eric ^talk 12:44, 31 July 2024 (UTC)