History of bricks (Part one)
History of bricks (Part one)
Bricks as carriers, protectors and witnesses of our culture. Indications of the earliest use of brick as a
building material go back about 5,000 to 6,000 years in the archaeological rubble of our history. Where,
when and by whom the first bricks were formed and assembled, no one can say. They were certainly not invented
on one day, at one place, by one person. Just like the wheel, spaghetti and neuroses.The search through time
and space for traces of brick usage, leads first to Mesopotamia, where still today rich loam and clay deposits
can be found in the flood zones of the Euphrates and the Tigris.
In the great city of Babel, in which a mighty king ruled over a great empire, it is said that an unprecedented
building was constructed. Without rest, slaves pulled and pushed endless rows of carts with heavy brick loads
upward over narrow, steep work paths. Ring around ring, the building towered toward heaven in a mighty spiral,
lost in the clouds. How much higher could it go? One day, just after the start of the early shift, for reasons
still not explained today, the numerous workers drawn from all corners of the land began to experience difficult
and increasingly burdensome communication problems. Panic broke out. Slowly, the precise machinery of the
gigantic construction site ground to a halt. When the enormous tower could not be completed due to insurmountably
complex communication difficulties, it at least became the most famous building ruins in the history of art.