Hog-Back Brick

Sun-dried mud brick has been the standard building material in the middle east for thousands of years. This is one of the earliest known. Kenyon’s excavations at Jericho revealed that the earliest settled occupation there began around 8000 BC. The inhabitants at the time were not yet making pottery. However they constructed circular houses, with entrance porches, out of hand-made, sun-dried mud bricks with a typical ‘hog-back’ shape. Such bricks were found over an area of about four hectares, suggesting that even this earliest settlement was quite large. The whole was surrounded by a massive stone wall.