Roman brick

The Romans only developed fired clay bricks under the Empire, but had previously used mudbrick, dried only by the sun and therefore much weaker and only suitable for smaller buildings.

[4][5] Shapes included square, rectangular, triangular and round, and the largest bricks found have measured over three feet in length.

[7] There is often little obvious difference (particularly when only fragments survive) between Roman bricks used for walls on the one hand, and tiles used for roofing or flooring on the other, and so archaeologists sometimes prefer to employ the generic term Ceramic Building Material (or CBM).

The Romans perfected brick-making during the first century of their Empire and used it ubiquitously, in public and private construction alike.

When building in masonry, the Romans often interspersed the stonework at set intervals with thin courses of bricks, sometimes known as "bonding tiles".

In the 1530s, the English antiquary John Leland successfully identified Roman bricks (albeit under the misleading designation of "Briton brykes") at several geographically dispersed sites, distinguishing them by size and shape from their medieval and modern counterparts.

[10] After the Fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, many of the commercial stone quarries in Europe were abandoned.

[11] For example, in the 10th century, the abbots of St. Albans gathered enough Roman brick to have their own stockpile of the building material.

[13] In Great Britain, where construction materials are less plentiful, Roman structures were quarried for their stone and brick for reuse.

"[18] By 1920, there were at least five types of bricks commonly available to builders and architects, among them: Roman, Norman, Standard, English and Split.

[23] Frank Lloyd Wright used Roman brick in his design for the Robie House in Chicago, and he favored it in many of his Prairie style homes.

[24] Wright's use of Roman brick in his masonry subtly emphasized the horizontal lines common to much of his Prairie style work.

[2] The brick stamps gave recognition to the domini, officinatores, the brickyard it was created at, and consuls serving at the time.

[3] A Roman brickyard owned by Domitia Calvilla, the mother of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius has been discovered at Bomarzo, 40 miles north of Rome.

Roman bricks in the Jewry Wall , Leicester . The 20th-century bracing arch in the background utilises modern bricks.
The Constantine Basilica in Trier , built in Roman brick
The Red Basilica at Pergamon , built using Roman brick
Wall of the Roman shore fort at Burgh Castle , Norfolk, with alternating courses of flint and brickwork
The "Foraine" brick is a medieval heir of the Roman brick in the region of Toulouse (France), still used nowadays.
Modern Roman brick in Frank Lloyd Wright's 1905 Frank L. Smith Bank
The Robie House in Chicago
Ancient Roman stamp on a hypocaust brick, used by the third cohort of Roman citizens from Thrace