The Fayoom and the Delta, which contain vast quantities of rich alluvial mud, and which are remote from the principal quarries, undoubtedly presented, at the most ancient period of Egyptian history, the appearance of an enormous brick field. The mud brought down by the Nile was particularly suitable for the manufacture of brick and pottery.
Like the valley of the Nile, the plains of Assyria were abun dantly supplied with clay by inundations of the Tigris and Euphrates, and the material was largely employed for the manufacture of brick, which were easily moulded from the common clay tempered with water and mixed with stubble in small quantities to bind the mass together. The formation of the high artificial platforms or mounds on which the Assyrian city edifices were erected was the chief employment for brick. These platforms were usually about twenty feet high, and the clay for the manufacture of the brick was excavated from the trench or dry ditch by which the city was surrounded. But in addition to this employment they were also used in enor mous quantities for the walls of the city, and also for the con struction of the edifices of the citizens and the burial-places of the dead. The brick were probably made in a square wooden mould of the proper depth, and some of them are impressed with marks somewhat resembling the Egyptian. The Assyrian adobe brick are not so carefully and regularly made as those of Egypt and Babylon, and there is great difficulty in accurately measuring them. The Assyrians employed burned brick prin cipally in positions where it was desirable to keep out moisture, and in addition to being used for ground-floors and outer-walls of the palaces, they were also employed for the construction of some tombs.
The unburned brick are called, in hieroglyphs, teba, which is the same word as the one used for a chest or box, and the term probably originated from the shallow wooden box or mould in which they were shaped and afterwards turned out. It is thought that the business of brickmaking was a royal monopoly in Egypt, as a very large number of brick are found in that country with prxnomens and names of monarchs, Thothmes I. and III., Amenophis II., Thothmes II., and Amenophis III., of the Eighteenth dynasty ; of Rameses II., of the Nineteenth, of the High Priests of Amen Ra, named Pthameri, Parennefer, and Ruma, etc.
No brick appears to have been impressed before the Eigh teenth dynasty, nor later than the Twenty-first. Thothmes III. is believed to be the prince who reigned at the time of the Exodus of the Hebrews. The brick made during the reign of this prince are impressed with his cartouche, which is an oval, on which the hieroglyphic characters used for his name are stamped, and adobes made in his time were 1 2 inches long, 9 inches wide, and 60 inches thick, and one in the British Museum weighs 37 pounds and to ounces.
It is probable that the brick bearing the names of kings were intended to be used in the construction of public works.
It is not probable that, in either Assyria or Chaldea, any re strictions were imposed as to the length of time which the brick should be dried before being used, and this statement is cor roborated by the evidence of M. Place, who excavated numer ous shafts through the massive Assyrian buildings for the pur pose of exploration, and from these shafts it was possible to form an idea of the condition in which the brick had been laid in the walls. The sides of these exploring shafts showed a uniform surface without any evidence of joints. It has been supposed by some that the crude brick were first dried in the sun, and then before being used were dampened with water before being laid ; but this supposition is repudiated by Place, who explains that, should the brick have been laid in that manner, each joint would be marked and made more dis tinguishable by rather darker tints than the remaining portions of the wall, but there is in reality no such discoloration. The fact that the horizontal portions are often distinguishable from each other by their differences of tint proves that the excava tions of Place were made through brick, and not through a mass of earth solidly compressed by employing the rammer.
It is not possible that sun-dried brick ever become sufficiently hard not to be destroyed by the action of water. The walls of Matinea were thrown down by Agesipolis, King of Sparta, who turned the water of the Ophia along the base of the walls of unburnt brick. The walls of Eion, on the Strymon, were attacked in the same manner by Cimon, son of Miltiades.