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The Tsuglagkhang is built on an eastwards slope. The stone base on which the brick walls stand is more than a metre higher in the east than in the west. The outer face of the stone base follows the same vertical line as the brickwork above, and contains many round stones with poor bonding. When the stone base/retaining wall at the east was exposed it was found that much of the mud mortar between the stones had been weathered away, allowing the stonework to settle. This would account for the outward and overturning movement of the east wall above.
A thin battered stone facing had been built around the base by KT’s father some 30-40 years ago. Although this prevented further surface erosion of stonework mortar, and brickwork on the west side, it can have had little structural effect.
The movement of the east wall opened a large crack in the southeast corner, 4ins/10cm wide at the top, and a crack in the north running through the wall. The two large external eastern buttresses, built by Lamayuru in 1996 and sponsored by Togdan Rimpoche, stopped further outward movement (confirmed by paper tell-tales placed in 2000).
The brick walls, 30ins/75cm thick (11⁄2 bricks), were generally in good condition except where affected by the movement in the east. Lower courses in the west external wall had been heavily eroded by passing animal abrasion over the centuries.
The brickwork of the east porch wall had moved outwards with the main east wall, and had been eroded by rainwater running through the consequent gap in the roof. A stone pier had been built by KT’s father to fill the damaged brickwork, and to provide support for the end of the main east-west porch beam.
Inside the temple the central pillar had been forced down into the earth floor, and the main east-west beam over had a deflection of 3ins/8cm in the centre. (A large flat stone was found above the central pillar when the roof was excavated, supporting the story of the missing upper roof, and explaining the deflection of the main beam caused by the excessive point load from above). The outward movement of the east wall had reduced the seating for the eastern end of the main beam, and displaced the bracket below the beam.
The secondary beams in the northern half of the roof, mostly squared sections, were in good condition. In the southern half, smaller round poles had deflected badly, and, when the roof was opened up, were found to be extremely rotted at their seating in the south wall.
Some evidence of rot could be seen in the south ceiling boards, but when the roof covering was removed a large proportion were found to be affected by wet rot.
The roof parapet walls, exposed to the weather, were much decayed. Missing yamang/slate cappings had permitted rainwater to dissolve the inner faces of the brick walls, exposing the ends of the taloo/willow sticks of the string courses, and to damage the two external string courses. There was a considerable build-up of earth on the roof, half a metre thick at the north end. This had at least provided better protection to the wall paintings below. As the roof drained to the south, the roof covering was relatively shallow over the south wall, where the paintings had suffered extensive damage from water.
The outward movement of the east wall had opened up a gap between parapet and the roof at the southeast, with consequent damage to the paintings below.
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