Ancient Masonry
In Ancient Egypt, according to archeology, straw was mixed with mud in order to produce building bricks. Straw produces stronger bricks that are less likely to break or lose their shape. Modern investigations have found that humic acid is released from straw when mixed with mud, basically a mixture of sand and clay. Humic acid increases clay's plasticity.
Read more about this topic: Humic Acid
Famous quotes containing the words ancient and/or masonry:
“An ancient bridge, and a more ancient tower,
A farmhouse that is sheltered by its wall,
An acre of stony ground,
Where the symbolic rose can break in flower,
Old ragged elms, old thorns innumerable....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“I learn immediately from any speaker how much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his speech. Life lies behind us as the quarry from whence we get tiles and copestones for the masonry of today. This is the way to learn grammar. Colleges and books only copy the language which the field and the work-yard made.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)