Walls

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible on Walls

All over the East, where wood is not plentiful, walls of houses and even palaces havf WALLS WALLS 891 been Imilt from the earliest times of crude or sun- burnt brick. It is only in certain localities, where stone was plentiful, and in later ages, that stone has been used. Strabo (xvii. 2. 3) tells us that the houses in the cities of Ethiopia were formed by interweaving split pieces of palm wood or of crude bricks, and says (xvi. 1. 5) of Seleucia (Assyria, near Babylon) that on account of the scarcity of timber the beams and pillars of the houses were made of palm wood : they wound ropes of twisted reeds round the pillars, painted them over with colour and drew designs on them ; thej' covered the doors with asphalt. All the houses were vaulted on account ot the scarcity of timber. The earliest edbrts of construction in Egypt were made in wood, probably like the dwellings now found in Nubia — palm branches interlaced, plastered over with c^lay and straw, roofs of branches or planks, or faggots of wood. Bricks were an advance upon this. The palaces of Egypt were of verj' slifjht constr…