<P> In modern times, the creation of relatively simple dome - like structures has been documented among various indigenous peoples around the world . The wigwam was made by Native Americans using arched branches or poles covered with grass or hides . The Efé people of central Africa construct similar structures, using leaves as shingles . Another example is the igloo, a shelter built from blocks of compact snow and used by the Inuit people, among others . The Himba people of Namibia construct "desert igloos" of wattle and daub for use as temporary shelters at seasonal cattle camps, and as permanent homes by the poor . Extraordinarily thin domes of sun - baked clay 20 feet in diameter, 30 feet high, and nearly parabolic in curve, are known from Cameroon . </P> <P> The historical development from structures like these to more sophisticated domes is not well documented . That the dome was known to early Mesopotamia may explain the existence of domes in both China and the West in the first millennium BC . Another explanation, however, is that the use of the dome shape in construction did not have a single point of origin and was common in virtually all cultures long before domes were constructed with enduring materials . </P> <P> Corbelled stone domes have been found from the Neolithic period in the ancient Near East, and in the Middle East to Western Europe from antiquity . The kings of Achaemenid Persia held audiences and festivals in domical tents derived from the nomadic traditions of central Asia . Simple domical mausoleums existed in the Hellenistic period . The remains of a large domed circular hall in the Parthian capital city of Nyssa has been dated to perhaps the first century AD, showing "...the existence of a monumental domical tradition in Central Asia that had hitherto been unknown and which seems to have preceded Roman Imperial monuments or at least to have grown independently from them ." It likely had a wooden dome . </P> <P> Persian architecture likely inherited an architectural tradition of dome - building dating back to the earliest Mesopotamian domes . Due to the scarcity of wood in many areas of the Iranian plateau, domes were an important part of vernacular architecture throughout Persian history . The Persian invention of the squinch, a series of concentric arches forming a half - cone over the corner of a room, enabled the transition from the walls of a square chamber to an octagonal base for a dome in a way reliable enough for large constructions and domes moved to the forefront of Persian architecture as a result . Pre-Islamic domes in Persia are commonly semi-elliptical, with pointed domes and those with conical outer shells being the majority of the domes in the Islamic periods . </P>

Rotated 180 degrees on its axis is called a dome