"7,200 years old constructions and mudbrick technology: The evidence from Tel Tsaf, Jordan Valley, Israel". ^ a b c Rosenberg, Danny Love, Serena Hubbard, Emily Klimscha, Florian (22 January 2020).^ Roman Ghirshman, La ziggourat de Tchoga-Zanbil (Susiane), Comptes-rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, vol.These mudbricks were often made with straw or dried vegetable matter. In the Ancient Greek world, mudbrick was commonly used for the building of walls, fortifications and citadels, such as the walls of the Citadel of Troy (Troy II). Mudbrick use increased at the time of Roman influence. The mudbricks were chemically suitable as fertilizer, leading to the destruction of many ancient Egyptian ruins, such as at Edfu. Workers then tramped on the mud while straw was added to solidify the mold. Workers gathered mud from the Nile river and poured it into a pit. Mud from some locations required sand, chopped straw or other binders such as animal dung to be mixed in with the mud to increase durability and plasticity. Sun dried mudbrick was the most common construction material employed in ancient Egypt during pharaonic times and were made in pretty much the same way for millennia. In Minoan Crete, at the Knossos site, there is archaeological evidence that sun-dried bricks were used in the Neolithic period (prior to 3400 BC).
Some walls had a few courses of fired bricks from their bases up to the splash line to extend the life of the building. Some were formed in a square mould and rounded so that the middle was thicker than the ends. The Mesopotamians used sun-dried bricks in their city construction typically these bricks were flat on the bottom and curved on the top, called plano-convex mud bricks. In the Mature Harappan phase fired bricks were used. Mud bricks were used at more than 15 reported sites attributed to the 3rd millennium BC in the ancient Indus Valley Civilization.
The South Asian inhabitants of Mehrgarh constructed and lived in mud-brick houses between 7000–3300 BC. Evidence suggests that the mudbrick composition at Tel Tsaf was stable for at least 500 years, throughout the middle Chalcolithic period. Well-preserved mudbricks from a site at Tel Tsaf, in the Jordan Valley, have been dated to 5200 BCE, though there is no evidence that either site was the first to use the technology. The 9000 BCE dwellings of Jericho, were constructed from mudbricks, affixed with mud, as would those at numerous sites across the Levant over the following millennia. Unfired mud-brick is still made throughout the world today, using both modern and traditional methods. chopped straw and chaff branches), and were the most common method/material for constructing earthen buildings throughout the ancient Near East for millennia.
These sun dried mudbricks, also known as adobe or just mudbrick, were made from a mixture of sand, clay, water and frequently temper (e.g. The history of mudbrick production and construction in the southern Levant may be dated as far back to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (e.g., PPNA Jericho). The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London Mud-brick stamped with seal impression of raised relief of the Treasury of the Vizier.