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Glossary of features

Architectural features that come up again and again in old world buildings. Click a feature to see what it is, why it interests the alternative view, and every building in this repo that has it.

The building lists and the index below are generated automatically from the Features row in each building's entry. Don't edit them by hand: edit the definitions instead, or add a feature to a building's entry. See How the glossary works.

Feature Buildings
Built on older ruins 4
Buried ground floor 1
Clock tower 2
Coloured tilework 1
Courtyard 1
Dome 7
Inscriptions 1
Iron and glass construction 6
Landscaped park 7
Minaret 2
Monolithic columns 1
Moorish arches 3
Onion dome 2
Raised streets 1
Rooftop sculpture 1
Rose window 0
Spire 2
Star fort 2
Stucco decoration 2
Tower 7
Undercroft 1
Underground tunnel 3

Built on older ruins

A building said to have been constructed on, or around, the remains of an earlier structure such as a medieval castle, fort or church.

Why it matters: if a "new" building reuses older foundations or walls, how much of it is really new? The line between restoration and new build is often where construction dates can be questioned.

Buildings (4):

Buried ground floor

Windows, doors or whole floors that sit at or below today's ground level, often reached by steps down or hidden behind light wells.

Why it matters: a central piece of evidence in mud flood theories, which suggest earlier ground levels were buried by a sudden, widespread event.

Buildings (1):

Clock tower

A tower carrying a large public clock, often the tallest point of a town hall, railway station or church.

Why it matters: clock towers appear in near-identical forms across the world in the same period. Some researchers link towers and spires to ideas about lost energy or communication technology.

Buildings (2):

Coloured tilework

Walls, floors or ceilings covered in glazed, coloured ceramic tiles, often in geometric patterns.

Why it matters: large areas of high-quality tilework took specialist workshops and time. Where the records of who made it are thin, the timeline can be questioned.

Buildings (1):

Courtyard

An open space enclosed by the walls of a building, often with arcades, a fountain or a garden.

Why it matters: enclosed courtyards modelled on famous examples (such as the Alhambra's Court of the Lions) show up far from their supposed origins.

Buildings (1):

Dome

A rounded roof shaped like half a sphere, rising above the main building.

Why it matters: domes are one of the most common features of "old world" architecture. The same forms appear on palaces, casinos, churches and exhibition halls across continents in the same decades. Some theories link domes to lost energy or acoustic technology.

Buildings (7):

Inscriptions

Words, mottos or symbols carved, painted or moulded into a building's walls or decoration.

Why it matters: inscriptions can carry clues to a building's purpose or origin, and many have never been fully recorded or translated.

Buildings (1):

Iron and glass construction

Large buildings framed in cast or wrought iron and covered in glass, such as exhibition halls, railway sheds, conservatories and markets.

Why it matters: enormous iron and glass structures appeared around the world in a few decades and were often put up very quickly. Many were later demolished or burned.

Buildings (6):

Landscaped park

Large designed grounds around a building, often with exotic trees, paths and water features.

Why it matters: mature parks with exotic trees raise questions about when they were really planted, and whether the grounds are older than the building's official date.

Buildings (7):

Minaret

A tall, slender tower, traditionally part of a mosque, used in Orientalist buildings as a decorative feature.

Why it matters: minaret-style towers appear on 19th-century European villas and halls with no Islamic connection. Are they a fashion, or part of a shared older style?

Buildings (2):

Monolithic columns

Columns, obelisks or pillars carved from a single block of stone, often weighing tens of tonnes.

Why it matters: quarrying, moving and raising huge single stones by hand raises questions about the methods really used. Monolithic columns are often cited as evidence of lost building technology.

Buildings (1):

Moorish arches

Horseshoe, pointed or multi-lobed arches in the style of Islamic Spain and North Africa.

Why it matters: Moorish-style buildings appeared across 19th-century Europe, in regions with no Moorish tradition. The alternative view asks whether this "revival" style was really new.

Buildings (3):

Onion dome

A dome that swells out wider than its base and tapers to a point, shaped like an onion.

Why it matters: strongly associated with Russia and the East, and often cited in Tartaria theories. Onion domes on Western European buildings are of particular interest.

Buildings (2):

Raised streets

Streets whose level was raised by a storey or more, leaving older ground floors, doorways and sidewalks below the new surface.

Why it matters: raised streets and the buried levels beneath them are central to mud flood theories. The question is whether deliberate engineering explains every case.

Buildings (1):

Rooftop sculpture

Statues or sculpture groups standing on a building's roofline, often figures from mythology or allegories of ideas such as industry, steam or electricity.

Why it matters: the subjects chosen for rooftop sculpture can hint at what a building's makers valued or knew. Figures representing electricity or energy on 19th-century buildings are of particular interest to old world research.

Buildings (1):

Rose window

A large circular window divided into sections by stone tracery radiating from the centre, often filled with stained glass.

Why it matters: rose windows need precise geometry and skilled stonework. Their consistent design across countries and centuries raises questions about how the knowledge was shared.

No buildings tagged yet.

Spire

A tall, tapering pointed structure on top of a tower or roof, typical of Gothic churches and Gothic Revival buildings.

Why it matters: spires appear in very similar forms around the world. Some theories link spires and towers to lost energy or communication technology.

Buildings (2):

Star fort

A fortification laid out with angled bastions, giving a star shape when seen from above.

Why it matters: star forts appear all over the world with very similar geometry. Some researchers question whether they were really built for defence, or for another purpose.

Buildings (2):

Stucco decoration

Ornamental plaster work moulded or carved onto walls and ceilings, such as arabesques, mouldings and reliefs.

Why it matters: elaborate stucco covering whole interiors suggests a large, skilled workforce. Who did the work, and how quickly?

Buildings (2):

Tower

A tall structure rising above the main body of a building, whether square, round or polygonal.

Why it matters: towers and spires are common in old world architecture. Some theories link them to lost energy or communication technology.

Buildings (7):

Undercroft

A vaulted space underneath a building, at or below ground level, often used for storage.

Why it matters: large spaces below street level are often linked to mud flood theories. Were they built as basements, or were they once the ground floor?

Buildings (1):

Underground tunnel

A passage running underground from a building, for example to another building, a garden or the shore.

Why it matters: tunnels and hidden passages come up often in old world research. Where they go, who built them and when are often poorly recorded.

Buildings (3):

How the glossary works

  1. Tag a building. In the building's entry, add the feature to the Features row of the details table, separated by commas:
| **Features** | Dome, Tower, Rose window |

Use the feature's name exactly as it appears as a heading in this glossary (capitals don't matter).

  1. Add a new feature. Add a new ## Feature name section to this file with a short description and a Why it matters line, plus the two buildings marker comments (copy them from another section). If you tag a building with a feature that isn't here yet, the script adds a placeholder section for you to fill in.

  2. Update the lists. Run:

python3 scripts/build_index.py

This rebuilds the index and building lists here, and turns each building's Features into links back to this page. It also runs automatically on GitHub whenever a change is pushed to main.