Therefore, ancient bricks may unveil unexpected know-how forgotten technologies and concepts. This is not the case since the ancient bricks proved to intrinsically incorporate modern concepts such as sustainability, durability, green and environment friendly materials and buildings, materials reuse/recycling. This may induce the idea that the ancient bricks might be viewed as obsolete and deprecated. These features can explain their outstanding durability to changes of weather/climate and mechanical load.īricks are old building materials (~ 8000 BC for mudbricks and ~ 3000 BC for burnt bricks, Mesopotamia 1, 2) and they are still in use nowadays, mostly for facades and walls between structural concrete elements, but on a significantly lower scale than in the ancient times when buildings were entirely made of bricks. We discuss the Roman bricks as materials that can adapt to external factors, similar, to some extent, to modern “smart” or “intelligent” materials. Remarkably, our analysis and comparison with literature data indicate possible control and wise optimization by the ancient brickmakers through the recipe, design (size, shape, and micro/macrostructure), and technology of the desired physical–chemical–mechanical properties. The results correlate well with each other, being useful for conservation/restoration purposes and as reference data for other ceramic materials.

Along with local soils, bricks are investigated by petrographic analysis, X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), electron microscopy (SEM/EDX), X-ray microtomography (XRT), thermal analysis (DTA-TG), Mӧssbauer spectroscopy, magnetometry, colorimetry, and mechanical properties assessment. Sesquipedalian mud and burnt bricks (second to third century AD) were excavated from the Roman city of Romula located in the Lower Danube Region (Olt county, Romania).

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