La construction en terre crue dans l’Antiquité en Algérie : historiographie et données archéologiques

Abstract

Recent discoveries from pre-Roman and Roman archaeological sites in the Maghreb reveal the use of unbaked earth in local architecture. This article reviews Algerian data through a historiographical investigation, focused mainly on excavation reports and archives. A provisional list is presented of the discoveries belonging to domestic buildings and military architecture. It is observed that the attitude of excavators at the beginning of the twentieth century regarding unbaked earth construction was quite negative. This in part explains the small number of attestations of earth architecture from Algeria in antiquity.

Keywords

• Unbaked earth
• domestic architecture
• military architecture
• mud brick
• pisé
• rammed earth