• Did You Know?
    The Watchtower—2012 | January 1

    • What evidence is there that bricks were made in ancient Egypt?

      ▪ The Bible book of Exodus states that the Egyptians put their Hebrew slaves to work making bricks. The slaves had to make a prescribed number each day, using clay mortar and straw.​—Exodus 1:14; 5:10-14.

      The making of sun-dried bricks was an important occupation in the Nile Valley in Bible times. Ancient monuments built from this material still stand in Egypt. A wall painting in the 15th-century B.C.E. tomb of Rekhmire in Thebes, almost contemporary with the events recounted in the book of Exodus, illustrates the process.

      The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia describes the scene in this painting as follows: “Water is brought from a pool; mud is mixed with a hoe and then carried to a spot convenient for the brickmaker. This mud is pressed into a wooden mold which the brickmaker holds to the ground. The mold is then lifted off, leaving a newly shaped brick to dry in the sun. Rows and rows of bricks are molded and, when dry, stacked preparatory to use. This procedure is still followed in the Near East.”

      Different papyrus documents from the second millennium B.C.E. also refer to the making of bricks by serfs, to the use of straw and brick-clay, and to the daily production quota of bricks that workers had to meet.