Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
early Mesopotamian history (3rd Millennium BC); nor that of square bricks dur-
ing later (e.g. Neo-Babylonian) times had any parallel in Egyptian brick building.
Secondly most of the later developments in Egyptian brick masonry are ascribed
predominantly to the period of Roman rule. Now while the use of square bricks
and of burnt bricks is compatible with their age since these features were endemic
in Roman brick masonry; however the intricate developments in bonding ascribed
to Roman times have no relation whatever to Roman brickmasonry.
Surviving Roman brickwork is in large part
opus testaceum
facing where, strictly
speaking, no question of bonding arises. Also where solid brickwork can be identi-
i ed the bricks are square bricks, so that inevitably bonding is of the simplest form,
viz
stretcher bond and certainly no question arises of setting bricks on their sides.
h e manifest conclusion from these observations is that if the earlier development
in Egyptian brick masonry did not follow that in Mesopotamia and if develop-
ments during the period of Roman rule have little relation to Roman brick masonry
practice; then what ever its origin may owe to foreign inl uence, brick masonry
development in Egypt must have been of largely autonomous inspiration.
Some brick masonry in Egypt certainly comprehends devices unknown elsewhere.
h e most notable of these is the alternating (or rotating) of bedding between l at
and curved (both concave and convex) which is ef ected in a series of horizontal
“runs” of the wall. Associated with this in both theory and practice is the device of
building a long wall on an undulating plan as opposed to a rectilinear plan. Both
these devices stif en the masonry against deformation (i ssuring and collapse);
the former in the vertical sense, the latter in the horizontal sense. h ey embody
the principle of corrugation once familiar in the traditional building materials of
corrugated iron and corrugated asbestos sheets. h e devices are regularly incor-
porated in long and massive enclosure walls (about sanctuaries). h ey remain
visually striking in their preservation from earliest dynastic times (cf Spencer,
pp. 114-117; Jequier, pp. 64-65).
Again the occurrences of these devices at the very earliest stages of solid brick
construction in Egypt (ca 3000 BC) indicates that if the introduction into Egypt
of large scale construction in brick masonry was inl uenced by the prior existence
of this building construction in Mesopotamia, its subsequent evolution in Egypt
owed nothing to foreign inl uence since nothing like curved bedding or wavy walls
occurs in Mesopotamia.
When attention is shit ed to spanning devices in Egyptian brick construction, it
is very clear that, once established, brick construction in Egypt required no external
models for its development. h e realisation that space can be entirely enclosed by
small pieces of sun dried mud is a very signii cant step in material progress. And
the circumstances of Egyptian archaeology are such that an extensive record is
preserved of the earliest stages in the development of spanning devices in Egyptian
Individ-
uality of
Egyptian
brick
masonry
365
364
