02-14-2007, 05:20 PM
Quote:Any idea if this brickwork was rendered (plastered), or was the brickwork the formwork for the concrete and the decorative facing? The lower brickwork looks like what I would call face brickwork, whereas the battlement brickwork looks like it should have been covered up/plastered over.
As Graham said, it was standard practice to veneer or render brick-faced concrete in Rome so it would be surprising if the CP was an exception. Render, whitewash, and bold red lines marking pseudo-ashlar would probably be the order of the day.
Quote:If brickwork was indeed the decorative facework of the structure, then I would suggest that experienced craftsmen would have been well aware of colour variations within the bricks. This is also experienced with modern bricks, and any decent brick layer or site manager will mix bricks from different batches to ensure an even look, and not display colour variations in bands or large areas.
Hmm. Observations of The Largest Gerry-Built Structure in Britain (aka Hadrian's Wall) suggests quality control may not always have been up to ISO standards amongst the Romans (one thinks of Juvenal talking of apartment buildings collapsing for starters, so the standard of HW may have been the rule, rather than the exeption).
Mike Bishop
