The history of making brick by hand can be traced back thousands of years to the early Babylonian and Egyptian civilizations where clay from the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates and Nile Rivers were formed by hand and left to dry in the sun. Later, in about the third millennium BC, the brick makers discovered that heat applied to the bricks would greatly increase their durability and be much more resistant to cold and wet weather conditions. This enabled the construction of permanent buildings where harsh, cold and wet conditions prevented the use of earlier mud brick. The early field kilns were fired with either wood or coal.....Click for more