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Interior of a brick-lined well in Utrecht, Netherlands. A brick-lined well is a hand-dug water well whose walls are lined with bricks, sometimes called "Dutch bricks" if they are trapezoidal or made on site. The technique is ancient, but is still appropriate in developing countries where labor costs are low and material costs are high.
Although cave temples continued to be built until the 12th century, rock-cut architecture became almost totally structural in nature. That is, rocks were cut into bricks and used to build free-standing structures. Kailash was the last spectacular rock-cut excavated temple. [7]
The chief building material was the mud-brick, formed in wooden moulds similar to those used to make adobe bricks. Bricks varied widely in size and format from small bricks that could be lifted in one hand to ones as big as large paving slabs. Rectangular and square bricks were both common.
Mortar holding weathered bricks. Mortar is a workable paste which hardens to bind building blocks such as stones, bricks, and concrete masonry units, to fill and seal the irregular gaps between them, spread the weight of them evenly, and sometimes to add decorative colours or patterns to masonry walls.
A "face brick" is a higher-quality brick, designed for use in visible external surfaces in face-work, as opposed to a "filler brick" for internal parts of the wall, or where the surface is to be covered with stucco or a similar coating, or where the filler bricks will be concealed by other bricks (in structures more than two bricks thick).
The study of ancient Mesopotamian architecture is based on available archaeological evidence, pictorial representation of buildings, and texts on building practices. According to Archibald Sayce , the primitive pictographs of the Uruk period era suggest that "Stone was scarce, but was already cut into blocks and seals.
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A number of medieval mosques, for example, incorporate ancient stone blocks with still-visible hieroglyphic carvings. [58] As early as the Roman period and as late as the 19th century, many ancient Egyptian obelisks were also reappropriated and transported to other countries, where they were often re-erected as prized monuments. [59]