Publication
Between the beginning of the 17th century, when the carpentry manuscripts dealing with western muqarnas (muqarbas) were written and the present day, several concepts have been popularized while remaining sometimes attributed to the original authors, being these later interpretations. The iteration of this process, not only on the original texts but on the hypotheses of secondary authors, ends up establishing beliefs about muqarbas that find no theoretical foundation in the original works and sometimes do not correspond to the constructed reality. This article reviews this process, exposing the specific cases of the terms “chaplón” and “jaira”, as well as the use of a single profile of the muqarbas template. Tracing the key authors these deviations reveals how thes basic concepts have influenced the current understanding of western muqarnas, leading to inconsistencies regarding their hypothetical craftmanship and construction.