The eternal brick

Bricks express the essence of architecture. They possess all three qualities that 1st-century BC Roman architect Vitruvius said characterise architectural excellence – commodity, firmness and delight. A well burnt brick of good clay properly mixed is incredibly strong, almost invariably of a beautiful mellow colour and can be put to many structural and decorative uses.

Bricks, in the past at least, also possessed an almost magical quality. I suppose this was because they were a fusion of the four elements – clay transformed by flame or the fire of the sun into a virtually indestructible material that none of the four elements can harm. It was alchemy. And the soundness of a fine brick made it a symbol of eternity, an emblem of immortality.

When walking through the 6000-year-old remains of Uruk in Iraq – a pioneering creation of the Sumerians and one of the world’s first cities – I found myself confronted by some of the oldest bricks on earth. They are made from sun-dried clay, dusty dull yellow in colour and slab-like in form with each about a foot square. They had been used to form the core of the vast stepped pyramid or ziggurat that formed the heart of the city’s temple area. This pyramid, perhaps as much as 1400 years older than the first of the Egyptian masonry-built pyramids – that of Djoser at Saqqara – was probably clad originally in harder material that has long since been looted for reuse elsewhere. The original cladding could have been especially hard sun-dried or even kiln-fired brick although it is probable that kiln technology was pretty limited 6000 years ago …

It is no doubt for this reason that the Sumerians devised another solution. The site of Uruk is covered with tens of thousands of clay cones of various colours and sizes. Even the largest is considerably smaller than the bulky bricks and consequently much easier to kiln fire to its core. These hard cones will indeed last until the end of time and some I found still in situ, forming the weatherproof outer skin of temples built from sun-fired brick. To my amazement, the patterns formed with these cones of different colours are those familiar from mosque design and Romanesque architecture in Europe – chevrons, spirals and lozenges, all of which ancient and sacred motifs appears on the early 12th-century transept and nave columns of Durham Cathedral.

As well as developing brick architecture, the people of Uruk also applied the newly evolved art of writing, using what is now called cuneiform lettering, to the recording of stories. The world’s first known book, the Epic of Gilgamesh, is thought to have been written about 4700 years ago and was rediscovered in the mid 19th century on hundreds of clay tablets. The text is not complete but what survives is remarkable and remains moving. It tells of Gilgamesh, a king of Uruk, and his quest for immortality – a goal that he eventually finds through architecture. Build well, build cities and temples and your name and fame will live for ever – and central to this immortality is the brick.

The belief in immortality through architecture – expressed by the use of name-bearing bricks – became a tradition in Iraq, or Mesopotamia as it was called by the Greeks. As I walked through the mighty works completed by Nebuchadnezzar in the 7th century BC at Babylon and at the nearby ruined and remote city of Borsippa, I could not help but admire the wonderful pale yellow, slab-like bricks – 2600 years old but as hard as the day they were made, with sharp arises intact.

Like the earlier Sumerian bricks, each was about a foot square and two-and-a-half inches deep and occasionally one would be stamped with an inscription: “I am Nebuchadnezzar, king of kings …” By stamping his name on bricks, a ruler would not only ensure his name would be read for centuries – and so ensure a form of immortality – but by signing bricks he literally built himself into the fabric of the country. He and the great buildings that give a people pride and national identity would become one. This was a trick not lost on Saddam Hussein who, in the 1980s rebuilding of Babylon, had many of the new bricks stamped with the proclamation that he was responsible for the rebirth of Babylon and was – by implication – the new Nebuchadnezzar.

Bricks may appear the most humble of building materials but their unyielding strength has for thousands of years haunted man’s imagination so that they have become symbols of stability. Timber rots, limestone gradually dissolves, iron and steel corrodes – but well-wrought brick will last for eternity.

Dan Cruickshank is a consultant, TV presenter and author of Around the World in Eighty Treasures published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson at £20