Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/135

 MATERIALS. 1 1 ^ history of civilization may be traced to some lucky chance. The first inhabitants of Chaldaea fashioned rude kitchens for the cook- ing of their simple food out of moist and plastic clay, the fires of reed and broken wood lighted on these simple hearths reddened and hardened the clay till it became like rock. Some bystander more observant than the rest noted the change and became the father of ceramics. We use the word in its widest, in its etymolo- gical sense. Ceramics is the art of fashioning clay and burning- it in the fire so as to obtain constructive materials, domestic utensils, or objects of luxury and ornament. 1 Even before the first brick or pottery kiln was erected it must have been recognized that in a climate like that of Chaldoea the soil when dried in the sun was well fitted for certain uses. Among the ddbris left by the earliest pioneers of civilization we find the remains of vases which seem to have been dried only in the sun. But porous and friable pottery like this could only be used for a few purposes, and it was finally renounced as soon as the art of firing the earth, first in the hot ashes of the domestic hearth, and afterwards in the searching flames of the close oven, was discovered. It was otherwise with brick. The desiccation pro- duced by the almost vertical sun of Mesopotamia allowed it to be used with safety and advantage in certain parts of a building. In that condition it is called crude brick, to distinguish it from the harder material due to the direct heat of wood fires. In any case the clay destined for use as a building material was subject to a first preparation that never varied. It was freed from such foreign bodies as might have found their way into it, and, as in Egypt, it was afterwards mixed with chopped or rather pul- verized straw, a proceeding which was thought to give it greater body and resistance. It was then mixed with water in the propor- tions that experience dictated, and kneaded by foot in wide and shallow basins. 2 The brickmakers of Mossoul go through the same process to this day. As soon as the clay was sufficiently kneaded, it was shaped in almost square moulds. In size these moulds surpassed even those 1 G. CURTIUS is of opinion that the word /cepa/i.os, and consequently its derivatives (Kepajueus, /cepa/Aeia, /cepa/AeiKjy, &c.), springs rather from a root CRA, expressive of the idea to cook, than from the word Kepai/viyxt, to mix, knead ( Grundziige der Griechischcn Etymologic, p. 147, 5th edition). 2 See Nahum iii. 14.