The church's tympanum shows local hero Sir John Somerville killing the Linton Worm, or dragon, for which he was knighted by King William the Lion, and granted much land in the parish.
Some of the capitals that depict Christ's infancy are gentle and tender, but the tympanum contains fierce and frightening scenes of judgment and damnation.
Most species have an external tympanum (eardrum), a structure that is absent in salamanders and caecilians.
In reptiles that can hear, the tympanum vibrates in response to sound waves and transmits the vibrations to the stapes.
When the stapes is set in motion by the tympanum, it develops vibrations in the fluid of the inner ear; these vibrations activate cells in the lagena, the seat of the sense of hearing.
In England, the concept of the Great Portal, with its carved tympanum, voussoirs, and side figures, was virtually ignored.
Following his training at Cluny, Gislebertus traveled to Vézelay, where the early tympanum (decorated area within an arch or pediment) for the main doorway was once attributed to him.
His early work there was on the eastern part of the church, which was finished and dedicated in 1130, and he then worked for four or five years on the west tympanum.
The reptilian auditory apparatus is typically made up of a tympanum, a thin membrane located at the rear of the head; the stapes, a small bone running between the tympanum and the skull in the tympanic cavity (the middle ear); the inner ear; and a eustachian tube connecting the middle ear with the mouth cavity.
