Hiraqla (Heraqla): Brick Makers
Arabic: bannāʾ
Date: c. 1996
The Syrian Directorate of Antiquities factory employs local people to make bricks using traditional technologies. These include levigation tanks, the moulding of bricks with simple wooden matrices (creating four or six at a time, depending upon the dimensions), and up-draught kilns. The kilns are similar in design to the late eighth/early ninth-century examples excavated a few kilometers to the east in Mishlab, a suburb of modern Raqqa.
Citation: Milwright, Marcus. “Wood and Woodworking in Late Ottoman Damascus: An Analysis of the Qāmūs al-Ṣināʿāt al-Shāmiyya”, Bulletin d’Etudes Orientales 61 (2012): 550, 565.
Date: c. 2000
Prior to the Syrian Civil War (2011-present), the Syrian Directorate of Antiquities brick factory employed craftsmen who made bricks using traditional technologies. The bricks were formed using a wooden matrices. These matrices could form either four or six bricks at a time. The dried bricks were then fired in an updraft kiln. See also: Mason; Carpenter; Potter; Clay Merchant.
Citation: Milwright, Marcus, ‘Wood and Woodworking in Late Ottoman Damascus: An Analysis of the Qāmūs al-Ṣināʿāt al-Shāmiyya’, Bulletin d’Etudes Orientales 61 (2012), pp. 550, 566, fig. 3.
1) Brick-making, Levigation
5) Brick-making, Moulding
9) Brick-making, Stocking
2) Brick-making, Washing matrix
6) Brick-making, Drying
3) Brick-making, Moulding
7) Brick-making, Loading kiln
4) Brick-making, Moulding
8) Brick-making, Stocking kiln