A blast from the very ancient past

Building structures out of dirt was not uncommon in Biblical times. At Tel Dan you can seen a mudbrick gate that Abraham probably walked through. The bricks that the ancient Israelites in Egypt made during their time of slavery were mudbrick. Mudbrick is simply taking moist dirt (often supplemented with straw) and packing it very tightly into bricks, then letting them dry. If they dried in ovens, the brick would last a lot longer than bricks dried in the sun. Either way, maintenance was a must. Rain, snow, etc. would eat away at the mudbrick and the people would have to patch it up. No one should be surprised that we have moved past mudbrick to stone, brick, wood, etc. for buildings. Imagine my surprise then when I read about the Sublette County Library building an addition out of dirt. It will be the first ever rammed-earth public building in the United States. I think probably for good reason. When this is done, I think I might be up for a trip to Wyoming--simply to see this dirt structure. I also will be interested to see how it's holding up in 10 years. I wonder what kind of protection they will give it and how they will maintain it.