[47] MARIETTE, _Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte_, vol. i. p. 59.
Bricks were employed to a vast extent by the Egyptians. They made them of Nile mud mixed with chopped straw, a combination which is mentioned in the Biblical account of the hardships inflicted upon the Israelites. "And Pharaoh commanded the same day the taskmasters of the people and their officers, saying, Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick as heretofore; let them go and gather straw for themselves. And the tale of the bricks which they did make heretofore ye shall lay upon them; ye shall not diminish aught thereof, for they be idle."[48]
This manufacture was remarkable for its extreme rapidity--an excellent brick earth was to be found at almost any point in the Nile valley. An unpractised labourer can easily make a thousand bricks a day; after a week's practice he can make twelve hundred, and, if paid "by the piece" as many as eighteen hundred a day.[49] Sometimes drying in the sun was thought sufficient; the result was a crude brick which was endowed with no little power of resistance and endurance in such a climate as that of Egypt. When baked bricks were required the operation was a little complicated as they each had to pass through the kiln. Egyptian bricks were usually very large. Those of a pyramid in the neighbourhood of Memphis average 15 inches long by 7 wide and 4-3/4 inches thick.[50] After the commencement of the Theban epoch they were often stamped with the royal oval--as the Roman bricks had the names of the consuls impressed upon them--and thus they have preserved the dates at which the buildings of which they form part were erected (Fig. 33).[51]
[49] MARIETTE, _Traité pratique et raisonné de la Construction en Égypte_, p. 59. All these operations are shown upon the walls of a tomb at Abd-el-Gournah (LEPSIUS, _Denkmæler_, p. 111, pl. 40). Labourers are seen drawing water from a basin, digging the earth, carrying it in large jars, mixing it with the water, pressing the clay into the moulds, finally building walls which are being tested with a plumb-line by an overseer or foreman (see also Fig. 16).
[50] PRISSE, _Histoire de l'Art Égyptien_, letter-press, p. 179.
[51] LEPSIUS (_Denkmæler_, part iii. plates 7, 25A, 26, 39) has reproduced a certain number of these stamped bricks.