Talk:Bricks without straw

Purpose of straw

What was the straw for? I don't get it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.56.65.24 (talk) 01:30, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

many clay products require the addition of other materials to add strength and durability. In the case of bricks in OT Egypt -- river clay is usually composed of very fine particles and so would dry slowly. Adding straw would "open up" the clay, allowing it to dry more readily and so be more promptly and successfully fired. Adobe bricks used around the world are generally only sun dried but grasses, straw and other materials are added to the clay for the same basic reasons. Hope that helps. WBardwin 09:17, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I've added this to the main article. 86.134.123.235 (talk) 13:11, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Reasons for the punishment

The article right now says Moses and Aaron tell Pharaoh, "Let my people go," then Pharaoh punishes the Israelite labourers and foremen. That seems to make little sense. But before they sent delegates to the king, didn't the Israelites also revive an old custom of taking Sabbath day off work? That seems to have been part of the trouble.

Dialogue attributed to Pharaoh paints him as concerned that time off for religious holidays cuts into the labour he's ordered, yet Pharaoh's subsequent actions suggest he puts a higher priority on re-establishing control over the workforce, than upon its output, since the measure he takes to punish the Israelites reduces their brick production.

Incidentally, BibleisTrue.com cites a scroll from a few lifetimes later, which records a missed quota attributed to slaves who hadn't gathered enough straw that day to complete the expected 2000 bricks. (This daily quantity could represent the output of one busy brickmaker per gang.)

The same page mentions that straw, along with reinforcing (and perhaps ventilating, as User:WBardwin asserts above) the clay binder, the straw creates an ordinary-temperature chemical reaction with the clay. The page cites another reference averring the straw more than triples the strength of those Lower Egyptian bricks. Possibly straw may both speed and strengthen the curing process, but I could be confusing straw's properties with what I've heard elsewhere about the role of silica in hempcrete and Roman concrete. Sorry I haven't time to sort it out or compose properly encyclopedic revisions.

Oh, and Egypt didn't fire bricks like everywhere else. Forests were too scarce to burn in kilns. They invented the straw technique instead, so they could use sun dried bricks everywhere. --Egmonster (talk) 07:22, 2 February 2015 (UTC)