Ceramic building material, often abbreviated to CBM, is an

umbrella term In linguistics, semantics, general semantics, and ontologies, hyponymy () is a semantic relation between a hyponym denoting a subtype and a hypernym or hyperonym (sometimes called umbrella term or blanket term) denoting a supertype. In other wor ...

used in

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

to cover all building materials made from baked

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...

. It is particularly, but not exclusively, used in relation to

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

building material Building material is material used for construction. Many naturally occurring substances, such as clay, rock (geology), rocks, sand, wood, and even twigs and leaves, have been used to construct buildings. Apart from naturally occurring materia ...

s. It is a useful and necessary term because, especially when initially found in

archaeological excavation In archaeology, excavation is the exposure, processing and recording of archaeological remains. An excavation site or "dig" is the area being studied. These locations range from one to several areas at a time during a project and can be condu ...

, it may be difficult to distinguish, for example, fragments of bricks from fragments of roofing or flooring tiles. However, ceramic building materials are usually readily distinguishable from fragments of ceramic

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...

by their rougher finish.

External links

''Current Archaeology'' Archaeological Ceramic Building Materials Group
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ceramic Building Material Archaeological artefact types Ceramic materials Soil-based building materials Bricks

See also

Further reading

External links