Squinch

Squinch (pronounced skwinch)

(1) In architecture, a small arch, corbeling, or the like, built across the interior angle between two walls, as in a square tower for supporting the side of a superimposed octagonal spire or generally to support any superstructure such as a spire or dome.  Also called a squinch arch.

(2) To contort (the features) or squint (now rare).

(3) To squeeze together or crouch down, as to fit into a smaller space (now rare).

1490–1500: A variant of the obsolete scunch, short for scuncheon, from the Middle English sconch(e)on from the middle Middle French escoinson (The reveal of an aperture (such as a door or window) from the frame to the inner face of the wall) & esconchon.  Escoinson is drawn from its original formation es- & ex- (both from the Latin ex (out of, from)) + coin (corner).  The meaning in the sense of a squinting of the eyes emerged during the 1830s, the origin uncertain but likely an imperfect echoic.

The Hagia Sofia

Built by Byzantine Emperor Justinian I between 532 and 537 AD, the Hagia Sophia ((from the Greek `Αγία Σοφία (Holy Wisdom), Sancta Sophia or Sancta Sapientia in Latin)) sits at what has often been the strategically important point on the Bosporus between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, long thought the boundary between Europe and Asia.

The four minarets were added at different times after 1453.  Thought aesthetically successful, they add also to structural integrity.

The Hagia Sophia was originally a Greek Orthodox Christian patriarchal cathedral in Constantinople (modern day Istanbul, Turkey), consecrated briefly as a Catholic church in the thirteenth century.  Noted for its vast dome, it was an extraordinary achievement of engineering, architecture and mathematics, for centuries the biggest building on Earth, remaining the largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years until the dedication in 1520 of the basilica in Seville.  In 1453, when Constantinople fell to the Ottomans, it became a mosque, remaining one until 1935, when, as part of the modernity project that was the Turkish Republic created by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938; (President of the Republic of Turkey 1923-1938)), it was made a museum, later becoming one of the country’s most popular tourist attractions.

Hagia Sofia dome with four (corner) squinch arches with supporting pendentives.

The pendentive is the construction element which permits a dome to be placed over a square or rectangular space.  Pendentives are triangular segments of a sphere that spread at the top, tapering to points at the bottom, thereby enabling the continuous circular or elliptical base needed to support the dome.  The horizontal curve of the dome’s base is connected directly to the vertical curves of the four supporting arches on each corner. Where the curve of the pendentive and dome is continuous, the vaulting form is known as a pendentive dome. 

Pendentives receive the outward force from the dome’s weight, concentrating it at the four corners from where it's transferred down the columns to the foundations below.  Before there were, pendentives, domes needed either the supporting structure to be round (The Pantheon) or were supported by corbelling or the use of squinches allowing the dome to sit on top of four arches.  Both methods imposed limitations of width and height whereas pendatives, which directed forces away from the walls, made possible bigger structures.  Invented in Ancient Rome, Byzantine architects perfected the technique and they came to be seen too in Islamic, Renaissance and Baroque architecture.

From the late twentieth century, religious sentiment in the secular state became more combative and by the early 2000s, demands were being heard from both the Christian Orthodox and Sunni Islam for the Hagia Sofia to again be a place of worship.  Political sentiments hardened and, in July 2020, on the very same day a court annulled the 1934 law which enabled the site to become a museum, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (b 1954; prime minister of Turkey 2003-2014 & president since 2014) signed a presidential decree under which the museum reverted to being the Great Mosque of Ayasofya.  Mr Erdoğan had flagged his intentions and the move was no surprise, this the fourth Byzantine church converted from museum to mosque during his time in office.  Architectural repurposing is hardly unknown west of the Bosporus either, thousands of mosques in Spain and Greece having over the centuries been converted to Christian churches.

The court’s rationale for annulling the 1934 decree was interesting, the judges finding it unconstitutional, under not only the contemporary Turkish constitution but also Ottoman law.  The court held that Mehmed II (1432-1481, محمد ثانى‎ in Ottoman Turkish, romanized as Meḥmed-i sānī), who conquered Constantinople in 1453, gained the Hagia Sofia as his personal property and, by the creation of a waqf (In the Arabic وَقْف‎ (ˈwɑqf), also known as a hubous (حُبوس); an inalienable charitable endowment of property under the Hanafi (Sunni law)), had lawfully made the structure permanently a mosque and thus unable to be used for any other purpose.  Under the Hanafi, Mehmed’s waqf was held to be valid, as was his gaining personal ownership in 1453 by virtue of the war code of the time.

Sconce

Sconce (pronounced skons)

(1)  A bracket for candles or other lights, placed on a wall, mirror, picture frame etc (a development of the earlier use relating to candles).

(2) The hole or socket of a candlestick (for holding the candle).

(3) A fortification; a small detached fort or defense work, as to defend a pass, bridge etc; a protective screen or shelter (obsolete but there was a revival in video gaming).

(4) A hut for protection and shelter; a stall.

(5) In architecture, a squinch (a structure constructed between two adjacent walls to aid in the transition from a polygonal to a circular structure, as when a dome is constructed on top of a square room).

(6) A fixed seat or shelf.

(7) The head or skull; sense or wit (now rare, probably obsolete); a piece of armor for the head; headpiece; helmet (now for historic reference only).

(8) A fragment of a floe of ice.

(9) A poll tax; a mulct or fine.

(10) In the University of Oxford, informally to fine an undergraduate for a breach of rules or etiquette (the alternative to paying the penalty being to drink a specified quantity of ale); a fine so imposed; a mug or tankard used in sconcing (typically a beer bong).

(11) To shut within a sconce; to imprison.

(12) As the verb ensconce, to place in a secure environment; comfortably to settle.

1350–1400: From the Late Middle English sconce, sconce & sconse (defensive fortification or fortification work), from the Old French esconce (hiding place; lantern) from the Medieval Latin scōnsa, an aphetic variant of abscōnsa (noun use of feminine past participle of abscondere (to conceal; dark lantern) (also the source of the modern abscond)).  The Latin absconsus (hidden) was the perfect passive participle of abscond (hide).  Related was the Dutch schans (defensive fortification or fortification work) and the Middle High German Schanze (bundle of brushwood).  The Dutch word also had an interesting evolution, used to mean (1) a type of small fort or other fortification, especially as built to defend a pass or ford, (2) a hut for protection and shelter; a stall, (3) a fragment of a floe of ice ( (4) as fixed seat or shelf.  In English, while other meanings emerged, in military use sconce continued to be used to refer to fortifications or defensive works and during the English Civil War (1642-1651) a sconce was a small fortification or earthwork that was built quickly to defend a position.  Sconce & sconcing are nouns & verbs and sconced is a verb; the noun plural is sconces. 

An Oxford tradition

Sconce: Beer bong half-yard.

A tradition of the Oxford colleges, a sconcing was a demand a person drink a tankard of ale as a penalty for some breach of etiquette.  The word in this context is attested from 1617 and originally described a monetary fine imposed for a more serious breach of discipline, the use as a kind of high table drinking game becoming common only in the early nineteenth century.  Offences which might have attracted a sconce included talking at dinner about women, religion, politics, one's work, the portraits hung in the college hall or making some error in the reciting of the Latin Grace.  Originally reserved for the senior scholar or fellow at each table, the right to demand a sconce (usually in Classical Latin (and mixing in later variants was not tolerated) or Ancient Greek) was later extended to all.  The quantity of a sconce varied from two imperial pints (1.1 litres) and three and three-quarters (2.1 litres) although the larger measures are believed to have been "rare".  The Oxford tradition was essentially the same as "fining" at Cambridge although in the narrow technical sense, a sconce was the act of issuing a penalty rather than the penalty itself, a distinction often lost on undergraduates, especially after a couple of sconces.  In 1945, while at Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, Bob Hawke (1929–2019; Prime Minister of Australia 1983-1991) was sconced (fined) for neglecting to wear his academic grown (then daytime wear for students and dons).  Not wishing to pay the fine, he opted to scull a yard glass of ale (2½ imperial pints (3 US pints, 1.4 litres) achieving the feat in 11 seconds, setting the world record.  In his memoir (The Hawke Memoirs (1994)), wryly he observed setting this mark was remembered by more Australians than any of the reforms or achievements of his seven year premiership.

Lindsay Lohan with bandaged sconce: Falling for Christmas (2022).

In the Netflix film Falling for Christmas, the plot line includes Lindsay Lohan suffering trauma-induced amnesia after a blow to the sconce.  In English slang (UK and most of the Commonwealth although it seems not to have reached the critical mass needed for survival in the US & Canada) the use of sconce (which may have peaked in the early nineteenth century although any measure of oral use is difficult to estimate) to mean "the head, the skull" remained common until just after World War I (1914-1918).  Etymologists suspect the decline may have been the result of UK & Commonwealth troops mixing with those from other nations and developing a preference for their slang, reflecting the trend of US English (formal & informal) for well over a century being the most influential "change dynamic".  An aspect of cultural imperialism (often called linguistic imperialism), US forms "infecting" use in other parts of the English-speaking world is just the organic way languages evolve and users settle on whatever works best for their purposes.  

1960 Volkswagen Type 2 with factory-ordered Westfalia conversion SO23 (camper with small roof hatch) in Sealing Wax Red and Beige Grey over Grey vinyl and plaid cloth upholstery.  The clamshell light sconces are original Westfalia part numbers but the switches are after-market.  Sconces with the original switches appear in the two images at the lower right.

Part of Westfalia’s SO23 conversion package was a pair of interior lamps with clamshell sconces, described by the company as providing “a warm light”.  The Volkswagen Type 2 (sometimes referred to generically as “Microbus” or “Kombi” although those were specific variants) played a role in post-war culture on both sides of the Atlantic and the most desirable of the classic, early “split screen” (1950–1967 (and built in Brazil 1953–1975)) models such as the 21 & 23 window “Sambas” have become a cult and in the bubble market which inflated in the immediate post-pandemic period, some restored examples sold at auction for over US$200,000.  The VW originality police are no less exacting than those who examine Ferraris, Jaguars or Corvettes and they can tell the difference between a light’s original clamshell sconce and one of the 3D-printed reproductions now available.  The original, quite delicate switch has for years been unobtainium and the usual replacement is the “Euro-type” push-button unit once common on bedside table-lamps.