Stonemasonry, also called stonework or stonecraft, is the creation of buildings, structures, and sculpture using stone as the primary material. Stonemasonry is the craft of shaping and arranging stones, often together with mortar and even the ancient lime mortar, to wall or cover formed structures. The basic tools, methods and skills of the banker mason have existed as a trade for thousands of years. It is one of the oldest activities and professions in human history. Many of the long-lasting, ancient shelters, temples, monuments, artifacts, fortifications, roads, bridges, and entire cities were built of stone. Famous works of stonemasonry include Göbekli Tepe, the Egyptian pyramids, the Taj Mahal, Cusco's Incan Wall, Taqwesan, Easter Island's statues, Angkor Wat, Borobudur, Tihuanaco, Tenochtitlan, Persepolis, the Parthenon, Stonehenge, the Great Wall of China, the Mesoamerican pyramids, Chartres Cathedral, and the Stari Most. While stone was important traditionally, it fell out of use in the modern era, in favor of brick and steel-reinforced concrete. This is despite the advantages of stone over concrete. Those advantages include:
Many types of stone are stronger than concrete in compression. Stone uses much less energy to produce, and hence its production emits less carbon dioxide than either brick or concrete. Stone is widely considered aesthetically pleasing, while concrete is often painted or clad. Modern stonemasonry is in the process of reinventing itself for automation, modern load-bearing stone construction, innovative reinforcement techniques, and integration with other sustainable materials, like engineered wood.
Stonemasonry disciplines
A quarryman splits or cuts rock in the quarry, and extracts the resulting blocks of stone. The cut or split pieces are collected and transported away from the extraction surface for further refinement. A sawyer stonemason cuts these stone blocks into dimension stone, to required size with saws. The resulting block, if ordered for a specific component, is known as sawn six sides (SSS). A sawyer mason is similar to a banker mason (see below) in that they work with rough pieces of stone and shape them according to certain standards. The main difference between a sawyer mason and a banker mason is the size of the stone they work with. A sawyer mason typically works with much larger pieces and uses diamond-coated tools. Sawyer masons may work in quarries or be found in tile or flooring stores, possessing a range of specific skills, such as examining grain patterns to determine cleavage, creating smaller stones from larger pieces, and carving precise outlines and drilling holes using various tools like chisels. A banker mason, sometimes referred to as a bank mason, is workshop-based, and specializes in working the stones into the shapes required by a building's design, this set out on templets and a bed mould. A banker mason uses various hand and power tools to cut, carve, and shape stone. They can produce anything from stones with simple chamfers to tracery windows, detailed mouldings and the more classical architectural building masonry. When working a stone from a sawn block, the mason ensures that the stone is bedded in the right way, so the finished work sits in the building in the same orientation as it was formed on the ground. Occasionally though some stones need to be oriented correctly for the application; this includes voussoirs, jambs, copings, and cornices. The stone's size and shape are usually predetermined by builders or other parties involved in a project, and the banker mason works according to a brief or a set of designs provided for that project. Once the stone has been crafted to the required specifications, it is transported to the construction site or another location for use in a building or other structure. A fixer mason specializes in the fixing of stones onto buildings, using lifting tackle, and traditional lime mortars and grouts. Sometimes modern cements, mastics, and epoxy resins are used, usually on specialist applications such as stone cladding. Metal fixings, from simple dowels and cramps to specialized single application fixings, are also used. The precise tolerances necessarily make this a highly skilled job. A fixer mason is responsible for traveling to a job site to fit and lay pre-prepared stone or cladding for buildings. They might do this with grouts, mortars, and lifting tackle. They might also use things like single application specialized fixings, simple cramps, and dowels as well as stone cladding with things like epoxy resins, mastics, and modern cements. A memorial mason or monumental mason carves gravestones and inscriptions. A carver mason crosses the line from craft to art. They use their artistic ability to carve stone into foliage, figures, animals or abstract designs. Carver masons are the artists of stonemasonry, responsible for creating designs and/or patterns from stone, as well as on stones. This work can include stone sculptures of figures or animals, or other projects of a similar nature. Throughout history, carver masons have been renowned for their exceptional skills in crafting beautiful pieces from stone.
Classical stonemasonry techniques
Stone has been used in construction for thousands of years, in many contexts. Listed below are six types of classical stonemasonry techniques, some of which still see widespread use.
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