Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
A.
Origin and Development
Stone is a conveniently occuring material which can be used conveniently to build
various structures, but the earliest “buildings” (i.e. habitable shelters for men) were
certainly not built of stone. Rather the earliest use of stone in building was for
barrier walls and for terracing. However there was a continuous development in
stone building which is closely connected with developments in earth construction.
h is has an interesting pattern (O. Aurenche,
La Maison Orientale, pass
).
Field stones were used either dry or drowned in mud to constitute low barrier
walls. From this emerged the concept of hand modelled mud bricks in the image
of such i eld stones and as a substitute for them, the supply of which could be con-
trolled. In turn these gave rise to form moulded mud bricks, with their advantages
of regularity and mass production. h e advantages of such mud brick construc-
tion led to the perception that stone could be dressed into the regular form of
moulded brick, thus giving rise to i nely dressed quarry stone / dimension stone
masonry. It is also possible to extend this chain another link. h e advantages of
durability inherent in stone masonry eventually promoted and fostered the use
of burnt brick in place of mud brick—i rst as a special material, then as a general
all purpose building material.
In addition to this line of development shared with earth, stone af orded an
alternative usage of its own. Properties of matter (e.g. cohesion) restricted the size
of bricks to small units. However stone also occurs naturally in large units—or
such units can be extracted fairly readily. h us it was possible to use stone as a
building material in a dif erent way from brick.
With this recital the parameters of stone as a building material have been estab-
lished: i eld stone masonry; quarry stone masonry; small block masonry; (very)
large block masonry. A skeleton chronology of this categorisation may now be
proposed.
Field stones were used for building low barrier and enclosure walls in Mesolithic
times. h e i rst use of i eld stones in upstanding load bearing masonry was at the
beginning of the Pre-pottery Neolithic era in the Middle East, ca 8th Millenium
BC. h e use of i nely dressed regularly shaped blocks of stone developed in Egypt
from early in the third millenium BC. h is development refers to stones of limited
size (which can be handled by one man), i.e. small stone masonry. Quite distinct
was the use of large units of stone, e.g. units weighing several or many tons.
Unexpectedly something of this nature occured at Jericho at the beginning of
stone building (8th millenium BC). Large boulders were used in constructing a
terrace wall and a tower ca 10 m high built up solid which housed an internal
stepped passage ascending from base to terrace roof. Nothing approaching it has
been reported from elsewhere at this period. h e connected history of very large
stone building (megalithic construction) began during the i t h millenium BC,
Develop-
ments
in use
of stone
inter-
related
with use
of brick
328
320, 331
334
195, 196
349
153, 154
146
150
153, 154
