During the restoration of a 16th Century colonial convent in Cartagena,
Colombia, I made an inventory of bricks and tiles found during excavations
and of those recovered for reuse. The bricks and tiles ranged from early
16th Century spanish to locally made bricks and tiles from first half of the
twentieth Century.

This proved to be extremely useful when dating other architectural
structures/remains  in the City. If anyone is interested, I can indicate
where to find the data.

Adriana Balen
Architect
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Jay and Beth Stottman" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2008 3:28 PM
Subject: Re: brick sizes


> Brick size has been extremely useful for helping establish chronology for
> buildings at the 19th century plantation where we work.  We discovered
that
> one owner of the property (1830s-1850) used a particular size of brick for
> construction, while a subsequent owner (post 1860) used another size of
> brick.  While we don't have specific dates, we can attribute particular
> building sites, features, etc. with brick to a specific period in the
> plantation's history.  This has been extremely helpful for understanding
the
> evolution of outbuildings and site structure.  This would have been much
> more difficult without the brick data.
>
> M. Jay Stottman
> Kentucky Archaeological Survey
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ned Heite" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2003 7:01 AM
> Subject: brick sizes
>
>
> > Brick size can be a useful tool, coupled with composition, finish,
> > and method of manufacture.  Too often the bricks, our commonest
> > ceramics, are ignored during site survey and interpretation.
> >
> > We need to be more sensitive to bricks.
> >
> > Several studies, going back at least 30 years, have shown that brick
> > size changed with architectural styles, especially the trend toward
> > "smooth" appearance and "buttered" joints from about  1780 to 1850.
> > Color, too, was subject to shifts in style.  Patches of surviving
> > finish brickwork, as small as a half-dozen bricks, can be very
> > accurately dated on stylistic bases.
> >
> > Architectural historians tend to concentrate on the bonding of bricks
> > as a dating clue, but I've seen middle nineteenth-century pressed
> > brick, with thin mortar joints, laid in English bond, on a Federal
> > building. The whole picture of brick on a site must be considered.
> >
> > Here in Delaware, as in Virginia, the little Dutch yellow Klinker was
> > briefly popular during the middle seventeenth century, which actually
> > may reflect commercial or political relationships. I've heard that
> > there were local bricks in that size range, but I have not seen them.
> >
> > Much has been made of the "statute" brick sizes, which inevitably
> > varied locally. All the studies, of which I'm aware, point to
> > development of local brick traditions that are deviant from the
> > statute. There were also many personal eccentricities, such as the
> > oversize bricks that were used in construction of the Fredericksville
> > iron furnace in Virginia.
> >
> > Brick analysis is a really powerful dating tool for site survey,
> > because it is much more precise than the accompanying artifact
> > scatter.  Most of the bricks on a site, especially a residential
> > site, will arrive at the time of construction, whereas the rest of
> > the artifacts accumulate over the life of the site, and frequently
> > are "heirloom" materials brought to the site.
> >
> > As far as I can see from the survey literature, bricks are typically
> > underrated by survey archaeologists.
> >
> > --
> > [log in to unmask]
> >
> > For any awkward moment, in any conversation,
> > there is always an appropriate, or insanely
> > inappropriate, limerick.
>