# When did the ancient Egyptians start burning mud to produce clay..

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-ancient-egyptians-start-burning-mud-to-produce-clay/151624>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 30, 2003, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-ancient-egyptians-start-burning-mud-to-produce-clay/151624 "2003-01-30T15:24:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Beastal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Beastal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beastal)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-ancient-egyptians-start-burning-mud-to-produce-clay/151624/1 "2003-01-30T15:24:54Z")

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… in order to use it as a building material?

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**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2003, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-ancient-egyptians-start-burning-mud-to-produce-clay/151624/2 "2003-01-30T18:24:52Z")

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Appearance of mud brick seems to be in the late pre-dynastic phase, around 3500-3150 BC-- they had pottery before that, though. The first bigger mastabas in the 1st dynasty (around 3100 BC; eg. Queen Merneith’s at Saqqara) seem to have still been brick.  
But I’m sure brick was used much earlier than that somewhere. . . I assume Jericho was brick, for example.