The roof ornaments which can be seen in old photographs of the synagogue are still missing: three bare plinths, like chimneys, mark the gables on either side of the building.

This would explain why Plan de Ayala also shares important architectural features with Tonina, overlord of Bonampak, such as the layout of the ballcourt, column shaped altars and roof ornaments on Structure 13.

While the 19th- and 20th-century items - 70 carved doors, roof ornaments, storage chests, potion jars, weapons and jewelry - have practical functions, their forms and surface decorations reveal otherworldly concerns.

A Gorgon's viciousness is tempered to giddiness by its toothy grin on a fifth-century terra-cotta roof ornament.

A painted and carved roof ornament of a winged dragon is $10,000.

But in a religious-civic compound, he noted, buildings were crowned with roof ornaments made of clay from which project clay simulations of three drops of liquid, possibly blood.

Morgan saw that all of the weathercocks and roof ornaments - beaten brass shapes which spun at exactly the same speed whether the wind was perfectly calm or howling up a hurricane - had stopped moving.

However most of Malay houses have a typical roof ornament, a crossed roof edge structure forming "x"-like pinnacle ornament on the edge of the roof.

Another feature is a "small, golden, roof ornament" or cupola, called a kalash, which one MSV architect says improves the connection between the residents and heaven.

Sometimes elements of traditional temples are used, like multi-tiered tiled roofs, golden spires, tympani (gables) and roof ornaments.