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Mudbrick or mud-brick, also known as unfired brick, is an air-dried brick, made of a mixture of mud (containing loam, clay, sand and water) mixed with a binding material such as rice husks or straw. Mudbricks are known from 9000 BCE.
From around 5000–4000 BCE, mudbricks evolved into fired bricks to increase strength and durability. Nevertheless, in some warm regions with very little timber available to fuel a kiln, mudbricks continued to be in use. Even today, mudbricks are the standard of vernacular architecture in some warmer regions- mainly in parts of Africa and western Asia. In the 20th century, the compressed earth block was developed using high pressure as a cheap and eco-friendly alternative to obtain non-fired bricks with more strength than the simpler air-dried mudbricks.
The 9000 BCE dwellings of Jericho were constructed from mudbricks, affixed with mud, as were those at numerous sites across the Levant over the following millennia. 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. Evidence suggests that the mudbrick composition at Tel Tsaf was stable for at least 500 years, throughout the middle Chalcolithic period.
The inhabitants of Mehrgarh constructed and lived in mud-brick houses between 7000–3300 BCE.Possehl, Gregory L. (1996) Mud bricks were used at more than 15 reported sites attributed to the 3rd millennium BCE in the ancient Indus Valley civilization. In the Mature Harappan phase fired bricks were used. Bricks and urbanism in the Indus Valley rise and decline , bricks in antiquity
The used sun-dried bricks in their city construction;Mogens Herman Hansen, A Comparative Study of Six City-state Cultures, Københavns universitet Polis centret (2002) Videnskabernes Selskab, 144 pages typically these bricks were flat on the bottom and curved on the top, called plano-convex mud bricks. Some were formed in a square mould and rounded so that the middle was thicker than the ends. Some walls had a few courses of fired bricks from their bases up to the splash line to extend the life of the building. In Minoan Crete, at the Knossos site, there is archaeological evidence that sun-dried bricks were used in the Neolithic period (prior to 3400 BCE).C. Michael Hogan, Knossos fieldnotes, Modern Antiquarian (2007)
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. 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. Workers gathered mud from the Nile river and poured it into a pit. Workers then tramped on the mud while straw was added to solidify the mold. The mudbricks were chemically suitable as Sebakh, leading to the destruction of many ancient Egyptian ruins, such as at Edfu. A well-preserved site is Amarna. Mudbrick use increased at the time of Ancient Rome influence.Kathryn A. Bard and Steven Blake Shubert, eds., Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, 1999, Routledge, 938 pages
In the Ancient Greece world, mudbrick was commonly used for the building of walls, fortifications and citadels, such as the walls of the Citadel of Troy (Troy II).Neer, Richard. T., Art & archaeology of the Greek world: a new history, c. 2500-c.150 BCE, Second edition, Thames and Hudson, London, 2019, pp.23 These mudbricks were often made with straw or dried vegetable matter.9780520070271, University of California Press. . ISBN 9780520070271
==Mudbrick architecture worldwide==
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