[Compiled by: Kandiah Thillaivinayagalingam]
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| Poulnabrone dolmen in the Burren, County Clare, Ireland |
In the earliest times, people lived in
caves or or in tents like the Inuit's tupik
or in huts.Early building materials were perishable, such as leaves,
branches, and animal hides[Hides include leather from cattle and other
livestock animals,]but eventually they learned on to use natural substances
they found around them to build simple dwellings. Mud and clay were among the
first building materials used. The adhesive quality of clay made it easy to
work with and form into shapes.walls can be built up in lumps, a technique
known in Arabic as tau! and normally called pise in English. Logs, sticks,
thatch, brush [ broken or cut branches
or twigs];and wood were also used for early construction purposes. Near the
Arctic, the Inuit used ice to build igloo homes. And uncut rocks and large
stones were also often used.
Once human beings settle down to the
business of agriculture, instead of hunting and gathering, permanent
settlements become a factor of life.The tent-like structures of earlier times
evolve now into round houses. The roof of each room, still in the tent style,
is a conical structure of branches and mud ('wattle and daub).One such small
settlement evolves as early as 8000 BC at Jericho,a city located near the Jordan
River in the West Bank.Also,by 6500BC at ."CATAL HUYUK " town in southern Anatolia We found a rectangular houses,made of mud
bricks with windows but no doors. They adjoin each other, and the entrance to
each is through the roof & here,roofs have acted as streets too!
The type of house early people built
depended a lot on where you
lived.Places,where it was hot all the time, and
wood was very scarce such as west asia[Such as Iraq/Ancient Mesopotamia],People
there mostly built houses of mud-brick, and the houses were mostly a wall
around an open courtyard, with some small rooms built around the edges of the
courtyard to keep stuff in and to go into when it rained (which wasn't very
often). These are called "courtyard houses." Here the animals would
be kept in the courtyards, which often had a well or a cistern[Cisterns are
often built to catch and store rainwater] in the middle to collect water. The
roofs were usually flat, so people could sleep on them and keep cool.
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| Jericho |
Though,Many people lived in houses just
like one of these all the way through the medieval period,Around 3500 BC People
living in the area between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers (modern Iraq)
began to build really big, substantial buildings/better houses.Because there's
practically no building stone in this area, but there's lots of clay, Sumerian
architects built their buildings out of mud-brick or fired brick.While mud was
the most widely available building material, the date palm of southern
mesopotamia & other trees elsewhere provided a source of timber that could
be used for roofing normal-sized rooms.In Ur and Uruk, there are palaces for
the kings: these are mostly bigger versions of courtyard houses, with many
courtyards and rooms all around each courtyard.
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| "CATAL HUYUK " |
It was possibly in Ancient Mesopotamia when man first found out that clay could be
dried and shaped in the sun to make a building material. The first kind of
bricks made and used were the mud “ bricks. These bricks were made from a mixture
of mud and small pieces of straw or reeds.Leaving them out in the sun to dry
would harden them. This would take most of the water out of the brick making it
more durable.The straw stops the bricks from cracking as they dry. Sometimes
gravel or other material is used instead of straw. Bricks are normally made in
May to June after harvest, when there is little danger of rain and when straw
is available. The shape and size of the mud-bricks varied from period to period
and thus the type of bricks in a building can sometimes help to determine its
date.Initially,architects didn't know how to make a big building stay up if it
was hollow inside, so the first big buildings are solid - like a sand-castle -
rather than really useful as buildings. They're more like artificial hills.
This is the same as the Egyptian pyramids
and are also pretty much solid inside.Mostly what they built was huge
staircases of mud-brick which are called ziggurats. Each little city-state
would build its own ziggurat, partly to please the gods and partly to show how
powerful the town was. On top of each ziggurat, there was a small temple to
Ishtar or Anu or another Mesopotamian god.The Sumerians also built town walls
around their towns, which were also built mainly out of mud-brick, and which
could also be solid. (In fact fortification walls pretty much have to be
solid!).
Mud bricks work well when they are being
compressed (compression forces) but a cake of mud is easily broken if it is
bent (bending forces). This is because the act of bending places a tension
force on one edge.At the same time Straw has a great deal of tensile strength
(resistance to pulling forces) but it is very weak when crumpled. These early
builders were realised that if straw,
which has a good tensile strength was embedded in a block of mud, which has good
compressive strength and left to dry the resulting brick would resist both
tearing and squeezing.Hence,The walls were made of mud, the floors were made of
mud, even the roofs were made of mud.Mud also made a strong mortar and an
effective plaster for walls, and roofs. This is not surprising Without mud
there would have been no pottery,no clay tablets, and no Mesopotamian
civilization.
Over 2000 years old sangam literature
also mentioned about Mud bricks in selected few poems.Few of such tamil poems are
given below with explanations if needed.
"The streets where famed warriors with great strength live are
rutted
with the constant movement of chariots [397]
.............................The gates to the town are never closed, enabling the business of giving and taking to occur
without hindrances[400]...............The outer walls of tall, large house are
made with burnt bricks[405]"-Perumpanatruppadai
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| Mud Hut |
Here burnt brick is called as:சுடுமண் and tall, large house is
called as:ஓங்கிய
நெடுநகர்
"an elephant with large trunk eats
murungai (Moringa oleifera/drumstick tree) and rubs its high back and nape on
an old, ruined building with small rooms, loosening bricks on its tall walls,
its cross beams have fallen down,"-Akananuru 167
Here, சிறுபுறம் – tall backside/nape, உரிஞ – rub, ஒல்கி இட்டிகை – loose bricks, நெடுஞ்சுவர் – tall wall, விட்டம் – cross beams,
Not only that,from the following sangam
poems,We find that houses in sangam period have built with pillars and the
roofs have thatched with leaves and
grasses
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| [ dolmens erected by Neolithic people in Kerala] |
"You grasp a fine pillar in my
small house you ask me, “Where is your son?” -Purananuru 86
Here,சிற்றில் நற்றூண் பற்றி means:– holding onto a fine pillar in a
small house
"you have allowed to live in houses
with four stilts, their roofs thatched with koovai leaves."-Purananuru 29
Here,கூவை துற்ற – thatched with koovai leaves,
arrowroot leaves, நாற்
கால்
– four legs, பந்தர்
– roof, சிறு
மனை
– small houses,
"and in every settlement, in the
huts roofed with grass,they share the clarified toddy that has been buried and
matured in liquor jars, "-Purananuru 120
Here,நிலம் புதை – buried in the earth, பழுனிய – abundant, mature, மட்டின் தேறல் – aged alcohol, புல் வேய் – thatched with grass, குரம்பை – huts, குடி தொறும் பகர்ந்து – share with everyone in
the settlements,
PART:43
WILL FOLLOW
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