Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (19.2007(2010))

TELL QARAMEL

SYRIA

In Northern Mesopotamia, the best
example of the mud-brick technique is
House 1A in Nemrik 9. Its walls were built of
mud bricks laid on foundations made of hard
rocks and clay. Each layer of mud bricks was
laid in the parallel arrangement [Fig. 8b].


Fig. 8. Examples of parallel arrangement of
mud bricks: A) PPNA house, M’lefaat,
Iraq (afierKozlowski [ed.] 1998:250);
B) House 1A, Nemrik 9, Iraq (after
Kozlowski [ed.] 1992)

The brick bonding was rather accidental. In
the last phase of the building process, internal
faces of walls were covered with approx.
0.50-1.50 cm thick coat of clay plaster
(Kozlowski [ed.] 1992: 23-35). The same
technique was used in the construction of the
wall of the circular House 8 in M’lefaat
[Fig. 8a], with plaster coat thickness ranging
from 1 to 4 cm (Kozlowski [ed.] 1998: 194).
The parallel arrangement occurs in just one
house in M’lefaat, while it is the most
popular technique used in Nemrik. On the
latter site, walls with transversal and mixed
arrangement appear only occasionally. The
best examples are provided by walls nos 2 and
3 discovered inside House 2 (Kozlowski [ed.]
1990: 48-50). Wall 3 is a typical example of
the transversal arrangement and wall 2 is
a very interesting example of the mixed
arrangement [Fig. 9].
In all of the mentioned examples, mud
bricks were bonded with specially prepared
mortar. In M’lefaat it was made of clay mixed
with ash (Kozlowski et alii 1998: 149). In


Fig. 9. Fransversal arrangement of mud bricks
in PPNA House 2, Nemrik 9, Iraq
(afier Kozlowski [ed.] 1990: Fig. 18)

596

Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean 19, Reports 2007