EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY A survey of the mud-brick buildings of Qena Mud brick was the main building material used by Egyptians from antiquity until modern times. Maria Correas-Amador reports on her survey of mud-brick buildings in Qena, funded by an EES Centenary Award. At the end of 2009, the Egypt Exploration Society generously granted me a Centenary Award towards a survey of mud-brick buildings in Qena in Upper Egypt. The motivation for this project was the belief that further research was needed concerning technical aspects of mud-brick buildings, ancient and modern, together with investigation of the social and cultural aspects of life in and around the buildings. One of the main characteristics of vernacular architecture, regardless of its building materials, is the continuity of building methods throughout time, as well as the permanence of certain structural or design features that may remain unchanged for centuries or even millennia. Research suggests that this is the case for Egyptian vernacular mud-brick architecture, which now survives mainly in rural areas but which has been rapidly disappearing for the past decades, as red-brick and The inner wall of the old Shenhur mosque, showing the decorative brickwork concrete have become the principal building materials following a ban in 1984 on using Nile silt to make bricks. The implications for the study of ancient Egyptian mudbrick buildings are significant since the recording of their modern equivalents can help us to understand the often fragmentary remains that are found in the archaeological record. It is worth noting, however, that exposed mud brick is particularly vulnerable to erosion and weathering and that the ancient structures (and modern ones when not regularly repaired) are rapidly deteriorating. It is thus important to record mud-brick buildings of all dates before they fall into ruin. The Qena governorate was chosen for the survey since it has a wide range of relatively well-preserved modern mud-brick buildings. In addition, the area is home to many archaeological sites, some of which include remains of mud-brick buildings, and a number of these were selected for comparative surveys; namely sections of the enclosure wall and sanatorium of the temple of Hathor at Dendera, the ancient sites of Koptos and Naqada, the Roman fort in Hu and the remains of an old mosque in Shenhur, located next to the temple of Isis. This mosque is at least 100 years old, according to local sources, with a modern mosque built in front of it and a minaret behind, sandwiching a wall of the old mosque. On the side of the wall that faces the more modern minaret, stretchers had been used at intervals to create a decorative effect. While the aim of the survey of ancient sites was to The remaining wall of the old mosque at Shenhur 14 EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY Small pieces of straw ready to be mixed with mud An area of mud brick production. The bricks at the back are ready for use record the brickwork – brick dimensions, composition and colour, characteristics of mortar and render, type of bonding, etc. - the survey of modern houses also included observation of sociocultural aspects associated with mudbrick buildings. The survey of modern mud-brick houses confirmed that a particular brick size and building mixture is used consistently throughout the region. The composition of the bricks is mainly mud (collected from surrounding soil or dredged from canals) with straw temper mixed with water pumped up from the subsoil. Once this has been mixed to a uniform consistency, the brick-maker fills a wooden mould with a handle, similar to those depicted in ancient Egyptian sources. He then smooths the surface and removes the mould, repeating the process many times. The lines of bricks are then covered with straw and left to dry for several days in the sun, and the brick-maker stands them up on edge, once they are solid enough, to speed the drying process. Some of the bricks can then be fired on request, normally for use in areas that would be more susceptible to damage, while the rest are sold as mud bricks. The dimensions of the mud bricks currently being produced in the Qena area are 26cm x 13cm x 8cm, but other brick makers identified the ideal brick size as being 24cm x 12cm x 9cm. When comparing modern and ancient mud-brick buildings, the inclusion of straw in bricks as temper for the mixture is a common denominator. Both the ancient and modern bricks in buildings surveyed in Qena lacked pebble inclusions; a feature that is found elsewhere in ancient buildings, for example at the North Palace at Amarna. The brick mortar at Qena, however, did sometimes contain pebbles as well as small pottery sherds. The making, composition and sizes of bricks in Qena appears to have changed little since ancient times. As regards the appearance of the finished bricks, colours can vary for several reasons. Although bricks used for the construction of any one house are normally of the same colour, two modern houses within the same village may have been built with slightly differently coloured bricks, possibly as the result of different provenances for the mud used and/or factors such as proximity to water resources. Ancient brickwork, however, can appear to have differently coloured bricks within the same wall but this apparent variation is often a result of the erosion and weathering of the most exposed brickwork. Colour differences can also be the result of repairs and additions carried out throughout time. In terms of layout and design, the survey of modern mud-brick houses showed that the flexibility of mud as a material allowed for an organic development of houses, resulting in a great degree of variation in layout, both Brickwork of the enclosure wall of the temple of Dendera 15 EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY A mud-brick staircase with a below-stairs cupboard in a house at Dendera The badly-damaged wall of a modern mud-brick building in Qift within any one village and between different villages. This seems worth considering when interpreting domestic architecture in the archaeological record. Modern houses are usually two storeys high with the main door opening straight on to the street, although better-off houses often have a front courtyard with trees. The first few brick courses at the bases of the walls are sometimes built in red brick and rendered with cement to protect the walls from damage caused by rising subsoil water, weather and animals. The bonding is normally one or two courses of stretchers alternating with a course of headers, usually with bricks on end at intervals. The brick courses are levelled with mud mortar which is sometimes repaired with, or replaced by, cement, and the wall faces can be rendered with a mud or cement plaster or left unrendered, especially in the case of walls other than the front façade. Stairs to the upper floor can be straight or dog-legged and are normally solid but several examples of suspended stairs were also found. In these, the steps were made of mud bricks which were placed on top of reed matting in turn laid over tree trunks, in a construction method attested in an ancient house at Amarna. Like that ancient house, these stairs featured a cupboard underneath. In an exceptional house (belonging to the mayor of Dendera) the stairs had wooden treads as well as a wooden balustrade. A feature found in the wall of several staircases was an alcove, reportedly to place an oil lamp to be used for going upstairs at night. Other alcoves or niches, serving as cupboards, are also found in other walls of the houses. Finally, there is a series of non-technical factors affecting design that needs to be taken into account in the interpretation of ancient mud-brick buildings, such as financial considerations, social status and cultural aspects. However, it is worth noting that, in modern buldings, practical considerations appear in many instances to prevail over cultural requirements. For example, a room can reportedly be used for a different activity if the usual room fitted for that purpose is subject to adverse conditions, such as being exposed to the sun in the summer. This initial survey has shown that mud brick has been regarded as a sturdy, reliable building material throughout history because it is flexible enough to be adapted to the building requirements of the people, which reflect their social and cultural needs. It is hoped that further comparative work – especially in other areas of Egypt – will help to determine whether the mud-brick buildings in Qena of different periods have more in common with each other than they do with buildings of the same periods located in other areas. q Maria Correas-Amador is a PhD research student at the University of Durham. She is grateful to the Egypt Exploration Society for funding her survey and would like to thank Ayman Wahby, Ayman Hendy (SCA inspector in Qena) and the people of the Qena region – in particular at Dendera – for their kind help and assistance during this project. Photographs by the writer. An alcove in a mud-brick wall to house an oil lamp, for use on the stairs in the dark, in a modern house at Hu 16