Brick

Brick (לבֵנָה, lebenah', so called from the whitish clay of which bricks are made, as described by Vitruv. ii, 3; rendered "tile" in Eze 4:1; hence the denominative verb לָבִן, laban', to nake brick, Ge 11:5; Ex 5:7,14). Bricks compacted with straw and dried in the sun are those which are chiefly mentioned in the Scriptures. Of such bricks the Tower of Babel was doubtless composed (Ge 11:3), and the making of such formed the chief labor of the Israelites when bondsmen in Egypt (Ex 1:13-14).

1. Babylonian. — Herodotus (i, 179), describing the mode of building the walls of Babylon, says that the clay dug out of the ditch was made into bricks as soon as it was carried up, and burnt in the kilns, καμίνοισι. The bricks were cemented with hot bitumen (ἄσφαλτος), and at every thirtieth row crates of reeds were stuffed in. This account agrees with the history of the building of the Tower of Confusion, in which the builders used bricks instead of stone, and slime (חֵמָר ἄσφαλτος) for mortar (Ge 11:3; Joseph. Ant. i, 4, 3). In the alluvial plain of Assyria, both the material for bricks and the cement, which bubbles up from the ground, and is collected and exported by the Arabs, were close at hand for building purposes; but the Babylonian bricks were more commonly burned in kilns than those used at Nineveh, which are chiefly sundried, like the Egyptian. Xenophon mentions a wall called the wall of Media, not far from Babylon, made of burned bricks set in bitumen, 20 feet wide and 100 feet high; also another wall of brick 50 feet wide (Diod. ii, 7, 8, 12; Xen. Anab. ii, 4, 12; 3:4, 11; Na 3:14; Layard, Nineveh, ii, 46, 252, 278). While it is needless to inquire to what place or to whom the actual invention of brickmaking is to be ascribed, there is perhaps no place in the world more favorable for the process, none in which the remains of original brick structures have been more largely used in later times for building purposes. The Babylonian bricks are usually from 12 to 13 in. square, and 3 'in. thick. (American bricks are usually 8 in. long, 3k to 4 wide, and 2k thick.) They most of them bear the name inscribed in cuneiform character of Nebuchadnezzar, whose buildings, no doubt, replaced those of an earlier age (Layard, Nin. and Babyl. p. 505, 531). They thus have more of the character of tiles (Eze 4:1). They were sometimes glazed and enamelled with patterns of various colors. Semiramis is said by Diodorus to have overlaid some of her towers with surfaces of enamelled brick bearing elaborate designs (Di. odor. ii, 8). Enamelled bricks have been found at Nimroud (Layard, ii, 312). Pliny (vii, 56) says that the Babylonians used to record their astronomical observations on tiles (coctilibus lateroulis). He also, as well as Vitruvius, describes the process of making bricks at Rome. There were three sizes: (a), 1 ft. long, 1 ft. broad; (b), 4 (Greek) palms long, 12.135 in.; (c), 5 palms long, 15.16875 in.; the breadth of these latter two the same. He says the Greeks preferred brick walls in general to stone (35, 14; Vitruv. ii, 3, 8). Bricks of more than 3 palms length, and of less than 1w palm, are mentioned by the Talmudists (Baba Me;a, c. 10:fol. 1176; Baba Bathra, i, 3 a). See TILE.