The shapes and sizes of mud-bricks varied
over the centuries. The earliest bricks were long
and thin. In the fourth and third millennia,
bricks were generally rectangular, often twice
as long as they were wide. In the Early Dynastic
period, rectangular bricks with convex tops, socalled
plano-convex bricks, were often used.
From the Akkadian period onward, bricks in
Mesopotamia tended to be square, although
other shapes could be used. Mathematical texts
recorded bricks of various shapes and dimensions
and many of these have been found in
archaeological excavations: in particular bricks
of about thirty-five square centimeters (twothirds
cubit) are common, but many other sizes
are also found.
Baked bricks and sometimes sun-dried mudbricks
used on royal buildings were often
stamped with the titles of the royal builder and
sometimes with the name of the building. Normally
these inscriptions can be used to date or
identify the building but there are cases when
bricks intended for one building were actually
used on another.
Ifmud-brick or baked-brick arches and vaults
were used, no other structural materials were
needed, but more often than not the lintels and
roofs were made of timber or reed. In ancient
Mesopotamia, as in the Near East today, the
buildings usually were made of rectangular or
square mold-made mud-bricks laid with mudmortar
and covered with mud-plaster. Wooden
beams supported a roof that consisted of layers
ofbrushwood or matting covered with a layer of
earth and capped with mud-plaster.