Page 60 - buvkeramika

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Introduction of building ceramics in Europe
Builders of ancient dwelling houses preferred the building materials that were easily available. The
first structures were built of wood. However, dry wooden houses easily caught fire and quickly burnt
down in case people were careless handling fire in their household. Also, the wooden buildings were
easily destroyed when fire was set to them during an enemy attack. Initially, a large number of low-income
town dwellers built wooden houses, but starting from the formation of towns, large and significant public
buildings, churches and rulers’ residences were built of inflammable material. In areas where no rocks
were available in nature, artificial “stones” of clay – bricks – were produced.
Clay as a building material was used already during the Neolithic period (about 8000–6000 years BC),
but baked clay blocks – bricks were first applied in Mesopotamia around 3000 BC (Davey 1961, 67). Clay
bricks were made and distributed in the Roman Empire where legion soldiers established field brick-
kilns and built brick masonry walls (Lat.: opus latericum) even in distant provinces. Roman bricks were
thin and traditionally they were used in hollow revetment walls with loose rubble filling – a mixture of
lime, sand, water and small stones or gravel (Lat.: opus caementitium, http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opus_
caementitium). After the collapse of the Roman Empire, brick building traditions were preserved only in
the Apennines. In the late 11th century or early 12th century, in Lombardia, North Italia, when building
monastery churches, monks gradually replaced stone with building elements of baked clay – bricks. These
were made in wooden moulds and were of a smaller size so that the mason could take a brick in one
hand and easily lay it into the wall. It was the turning point when bricks were distributed in the countries
northward from the Alps (Schumann 2008, 167). Around 1160, brick masonry buildings appeared in lands
of the southern coast of the Baltic Sea – they were used, for example, for construction of the Ratzeburg
Cathedral in Mecklenburg and St. Nicholas Church in Brandenburg (Holst 2008, 169, 171, 172).
Beginning with the mid-12th century, bricks were started to be used in Frisia, but around 1170, the
Danes built the 4 km fortification wall – Dannevirke (Holst 1999, 222). The most ancient brickwork in
the north German town of Lübeck were dated around 1180 (Gläser-Mührenberg 1996, 62; Gläser 2010,
276; Stammwitz 2014, 188). Further bricks were distributed in the Hanseatic region – especially in places
where natural stones are hardly available. In mid-13th century, monks and later also the Teutonic Order
started brick masonry in the present-day Northern Poland (Torbus 1998, 316). In the mid-13th century,
ceramic building materials were used in buildings of the Swedish king, and around 1300, they appeared
in Finland, in Häemeenlinna Castle (Drake 1968, 124, 130). In the second half of the 13th century, Vilnius
Castle in Lithuania was built of bricks (Kitkauskas, Sliogieris 1992, 111). Beginning with the 14 th century,
bricks were used in construction in southern Estonia (Bernotas 2013, 139). The 14th and 15th centuries
saw the boom of Brick Gothic in the countries of the Baltic Sea coast.
Building ceramics in medieval Livonia
Designations of baked clay articles in Latvian show that in Livonia building ceramics has been
introduced from the area of distribution of Germanic languages. The Latvian name ķieģelis (brick) has
originated from tegel – the name of a building element made of baked clay in Middle Low German
Ieva Ose. Building ceramics of Turaida Castle in the 13th–17th centuries