Gargoyles

History

Origins

If you are an architect, a gargoyle is a carved stone grotesque designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building. Preventing water from running down masonry walls is important because the water erodes the mortar holding the blocks together. Multiple gargoyles were often used on buildings to divide the flow of rainwater off the roof to minimize the potential damage from a rainstorm. Typically, a trough is cut in the back of the gargoyle and rainwater exits through the open mouth. Since the length of the gargoyle determines how far water is thrown from the wall, most gargoyles are elongated fantastic animals.

The term gargoyle originates from the French gargouille, originally "throat" or "gullet" and similar words derived from the root gar, "to swallow", which represented the gurgling sound of water. The Spanish term is garganta, "throat" or gárgola, "gargoyle". In Italian, the word for gargoyle is doccione o gronda sporgente, an architecturally precise phrase which means "protruding gutter." Germans use the word Wasserspeier, which means "water spitter" and the Dutch word for gargoyle is waterspuwer, which means "water spitter" or "water vomiter." If your building has gargoyles on it is "gargoyled."

Most of today’s gargoyles are actually grotesques, a sculpture that does not work as a waterspout and serves only an ornamental or artistic function.

Examples

Types and Locations

The term gargoyle is most often applied to medieval structures, but throughout all ages some means of water diversion, when not conveyed in gutters, was adopted. Ancient Egyptian architecture is full of gargoyles, typically in the form of a lion's head. Lion-mouthed water spouts were also seen on Greek temples, carved or modeled into the cornice. There are 39 of the original 102 lion-headed gargoyles remaining on the Temple of Zeus.

Many cathedrals built during medieval times included gargoyles and chimeras. Some of the most famous examples are those of Notre Dame de Paris.

Significance

Gargoyles are/were viewed in two ways. Some, the ancient church included, consider gargoyles to be evil. Gargoyles were used on the churches to remind people entering that the end of days in near and they should be afraid of the evil that waits for them but that it does not enter the church.

The other view is that gargoyles scare off and protect the building and occupants from any evil or harmful spirits. (We prefer this view.)