Roman brick
Roman brick is a type of brick used in ancient Roman architecture and spread by the Romans to the lands they conquered, or a modern adaptation inspired by the ancient prototypes. Both types are characteristically longer and flatter than standard modern bricks.
Ancient
The Romans only developed fired clay bricks under the Empire, but had previously used mudbrick, dried only by the sun and therefore much weaker and only suitable for smaller buildings. Development began under Augustus, using techniques developed by the Greeks, who had been using fired bricks much longer, and the earliest dated building in Rome to make use of fired brick is the Theatre of Marcellus, completed in 13 BC.[1] The process of drying bricks in a kiln made it so these bricks would not have cracks in them when they dried.[2] The mudbrick took a very long time to dry and limited brick creation to certain seasons.[2] The fire dried brick allowed the brick production to increase significantly, which created a mass production of bricks in Rome.[3]
Roman brick was almost invariably of a lesser height than modern brick, but was made in a variety of different shapes and sizes.
The Romans perfected brick-making during the first century of their Empire and used it ubiquitously, in public and private construction alike. The mass production of Roman bricks led to an increase in public building projects.[2] Over time the public and private relationship diminished as the brick business turned into an imperial monopoly.[2] The Romans took their brickmaking skills everywhere they went, introducing the craft to the local populations.[7] The Roman legions operated mobile kilns and introduced bricks to many parts of the empire. The bricks became time records and geographical pinpoints to where the Roman military was operating.[3] Roman bricks are often stamped with the mark of the legion that supervised their production. Roman brick was used to construct famous architecture such as the Red Basilica in Pergamon, Domus Tiberiana and the Basilica of Maxentius in Rome.[8][2] The use of bricks in southern and western Germany, for example, can be traced back to traditions already described by the Roman architect Vitruvius, although he probably refers to mud brick. In the British Isles, the introduction of Roman brick by the Ancient Romans was followed by a 600–700 year gap in major brick production.
When building in masonry, the Romans often interspersed the stonework at set intervals with thin courses of bricks, sometimes known as "bonding tiles".[9] This was done in order to give the structure added stability, and was particularly valuable when building with irregularly shaped building materials such as flint as the bricks would help level up the bed. The practice also had a secondary aesthetic effect of giving a polychromatic appearance to the walls.
In the 1530s, the English antiquary John Leland successfully identified Roman bricks (albeit under the misleading designation of "Briton brykes") at several geographically dispersed sites, distinguishing them by size and shape from their medieval and modern counterparts. This has been described as one of the earliest exercises in archaeological typology.[10]
Medieval Europe
After the
When brick production resumed in earnest in the British Isles, the 1½" to 2" height of the Roman-style brick gradually increased during the early
Modern
Modern "Roman" bricks were introduced at the beginning of the 20th century. They are invariably longer and flatter than other modern brick types, but there are no fixed dimensions. Those used in the United States in the early 20th century had nominal dimensions of 4 by 2 by 12 inches (10 cm × 5 cm × 30 cm):[16][17] this gave them a 6:2:1 ratio, compared with a roughly 4:2:1 ratio of most modern brick types. Others with nominal dimensions of 16 by 6 by 4 inches (41 cm × 15 cm × 10 cm) are also known. Demand has increased the availability of all types of bricks; there are more than a dozen commercially available brick types in modern construction.[18] In 2011, the Roman Brick Company of Glasgow was offering "Roman" bricks in heights of 40, 52, 65 or 71mm; widths of 90 or 115mm; and lengths of 290, 365, 440, 490 and 600mm.[19]
Roman brick was introduced to the United States by the architectural firm
Ancient Roman brick stamps
Around the middle of the 1st century BC Roman brick makers began using unique identifying stamps on their bricks.[26] The first of these brick stamps were simple and included minimal information, such as the name of a person and sometimes the name of the brickyard the brick was produced in.[26] These earliest Roman brick stamps were emblazoned into the wet clay using a hardwood or metal mold prior to the firing of the brick.[27] As the early Roman Empire progressed, fired brick became the primary building material and the number of brick producers increased dramatically as more and more wealthy land owners began to exploit clay deposits on their land for brick-making.[27] Brick stamps began to become more complex and the number of distinguished names multiplied on the brick stamps .[27] In 110, the stamps included, for the first time, the name of the consuls for the year of production, which allows modern observers to pinpoint the year a brick was created.[28]
These brick stamps, once viewed more as a curiosity than archaeological artefacts, allow scholars to learn about the demand for bricks in Ancient Rome because through the dates on the stamps they provide a chronology.[26] Today, brick stamp discoveries are carefully documented and that documentation, combined with the use of architectural context, has helped provide a reliable method of dating Ancient Roman construction.[26] In addition, brick stamps have proved helpful in determining general Ancient Roman chronology.[26]
Ancient Roman brickyards
Most of the Roman bricks were created at brickyards. These brickyards were typically at large estates owned by a wealthy family that had access to clay deposits.[3] There was a hierarchy in the brick production: the domini were the owners of the estate and were typically aristocrats, the officinatores, typically of lower middle class, supervised the brick making process and manufacturing of them, and the figlinae, typically slaves, were those who made the bricks.[3] Men, women, and children all served in varying degrees as members of the landowners, supervisors, and makers.[2] The brick stamps gave recognition to the domini, officinatores, the brickyard it was created at, and consuls serving at the time.[2] Regulations were made on the number of bricks that could be produced in a day and, past that limit, bricks became a public entity.[3]
A Roman brickyard owned by
Gallery
-
Roman brick factory in Germany, near the Roman provincial capital of Augsburg
-
The city walls of Constantinople, showing several courses of brickwork
See also
- Roman concrete – Building material used in ancient Rome
- Opus mixtum
- Opus reticulatum
- Opus spicatum
Notes
- ^ Blagg
- ^ a b c d e f g Anderson Jr., James (1997). Roman Architecture and Society. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 151–166.
- ^ a b c d e Cancik, Hubert (2003). Brill's New Pauly. Boston: Brill. pp. 763–768.
- hdl:11696/34721.)
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - ISBN 0-393-73007-7.
- ^ Peet, Stephen Denison (1911). The American Antiquarian and Oriental Journal. Jameson & Morse [etc.] pp. 35–36.
roman brick stamps.
- ^ a b Walters, Henry Beauchamp; Birch, Samuel (1905). History of Ancient Pottery: Greek, Etruscan, and Roman. J. Murray. pp. 330–40.
introduced roman brick.
- hdl:11147/2488.
- ^ de Graauw, A., 2016, Reinforced concrete?!
- S2CID 161720289.
- ^ ISBN 0-19-284223-4.
- ISBN 0-7506-3091-4.
- ^ ISBN 0-415-21329-0.
- ^ ISBN 0-918678-19-6).
- ISBN 1-902653-40-8.
- ^ a b c Papier, Sheryl. "The Quest for Reproduction Bricks for the Robie House Restoration," The Newsletter of The Historic Resources Committee, 25 July 2007, The American Institute of Architects. Retrieved 3 October 2007.
- ^ a b "Buffalo as an Architectural Museum". Brick, The Buffalo FreeNet. University of Buffalo. Archived from the original on 2007-02-21. Retrieved 3 October 2007.
- ^ ISBN 0-07-137734-4). Retrieved 3 October 2007.
- ^ The Roman Brick Company website [1] Archived 2012-03-15 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 28 July 2011.
- ISBN 0-300-01519-4. Retrieved 3 October 2007.
- ^ Johnson, Nathan Clark and Hool, George Albert. Handbook of Building Construction: Data for Architects, Designing and Constructing Engineers, and Contractors, (Google Books), McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.: 1920, p. 915. Retrieved 3 October 2007.
- ISBN 0-486-24582-9). Retrieved 3 October 2007.
- ^ ISBN 0-87654-469-3). Retrieved 3 October 2007.
- ^ ISBN 0-8133-3662-7), p. 308. Retrieved 3 October 2007.
- ISBN 0-7649-1461-8). Retrieved 3 October 2007.
- ^ a b c d e Anderson, James and Widrig, Walter. "Brick Stamps Archived 2015-05-23 at the Wayback Machine", Via Gabina Villas Excavation, Rice University, 2002, accessed July 21, 2009.
- ^ ISBN 0-472-08039-3).
- ISBN 0-674-03095-8).
- ^ name = "Nick Pisa, Daily Telegraph, 2 October, 2005"
References
- Blagg, T.F.C., "Brick and tile" section, in "Architecture, 1, a) Religious", section in Diane Favro, et al. "Rome, ancient." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press, accessed March 26, 2016, subscription required
Further reading
- Brick Industry Association, "Technical Notes on Brick Construction - Number 10, Dimensioning and Estimating Brick Masonry", (Technical Notes), Reston, VA, February 2009.
- ISBN 0-86299-363-6.
- Kurzmann, Renate (2005). "Soldier, Civilian and Military Brick Production". doi:10.1111/j.1468-0092.2005.00243.x. Archived from the originalon 2012-10-16.
- Peacock, D. P. S. (1973). "Forged Brick Stamps from Pevensey". .
- Warry, P. (2006). Tegulae: Manufacture, Typology and Use in Roman Britain. Oxford: Archaeopress.
External links
- "Roman Brick Stamps: Auxiliary and Legionary Stamps on Roman Bricks", The Roman Military Museum (virtual), romancoins.info, accessed July 23, 2009.