Inventions & Discoveries · Building and engineering

Fired brick

5000–4500 BCE · Also known as Baked brick, Burned brick, Ceramic brick

Fired brick is brick of clay and shale baked in a kiln, harder and longer-lasting than the older sun-dried mudbrick. Mesopotamia had discovered it between 5000 and 4500 BCE, and the earliest fired bricks of China appeared around 4400 BCE at Chengtoushan, a walled settlement of the Daxi culture, where they paved house floors. Indus Valley cities such as Kalibangan used it by 3000 BCE, and the Roman legions stamped the bricks of their mobile kilns across the empire. The first brick-making machine was patented in 1852, as the Industrial Revolution multiplied production.

Fired brick
Image: Lungoleno · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

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First known
5000–4500 BCE
Where
Mesopotamia

Also arose independentlyChengtoushan, China (c. 4400 BCE)

NoteFired bricks are also said to have been used only since c. 4000 BCE. In China proper brick construction of walls and vaults emerged only in the third century BCE.

Built onPotteryc. 18,000 BCEMudbrickc. 9000 BCE

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Mentioned in 1 profile

Painted Grey Ware cultureBeliefs

See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Fired brick. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/fired-brick
MLA
“Fired brick.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/fired-brick. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Fired brick.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/fired-brick.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Fired brick’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/fired-brick (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻