ARHIVELE OLTENIEI - Universitatea din Craiova

202Anca CeauşescuThe people from this region used, when building their houses, differentmaterials: the wood, the earth or the clay 12 , the brick, the straws, the reed etc,from which they raised the walls and the roofs. A material with multiplevalences and specific symbols, the wood was used in all respects (starting fromthe simple bark cover, after only cutting the branches, and continuing with thebeams and different carved and fashioned elements), in the entire Romanianterritory, framed within “the great civilization of the wood”. Along the time,because of the deforestation, the utilization of the wood for the construction ofthe walls was replaced with the utilization of the beams, covered with twigs andcoated with clay and, then, the only material they used was a mixture made ofstraws and clay. The clay, the raw material abundantly found in the thick lair ofloess that covered the entire Oltenian Field, was used in the simple possible way,as beaten earth, as a filling for the knitted twigs or mixed with straws (theadobes). They start using the brick to the end of the 19 th century and thebeginning of the 20 th century, in a reduced measure. In the same time, it is usedthe tin and the tile for the roof.Gradually, in the popular architecture, penetrate other constructionmaterials too. In the second half of the 20 th century was generalized the brick andthe tile and was introduced the cement, the concrete and, in the last years, theblocks of autoclaved cellular concrete. Thus, the exterior aspect of the houses ispermanently changing, the traditional element being less and less present.Referring to the building techniques, in the region we have studied, thehouses were half-timbered worked (the technique sometimes called Frachwert),from earth beaten in casings and from adobes.The foundation, of the houses from the end of the 18 th century and thebeginning of the 19 th century, was made of beaten earth or brick and, rarely,irregular quarry stone. In some cases, the foundation was integrally filled and, inothers, only in some of the rooms.The walls were built only from one type of material: timber, earth orbrick, or from combined materials: timber and earth, timber and brick. The usedtimber was that of oak, either in the raw form (round beams), either as four-facecarved beams, square-shaped or wide, rectangular boards. A main condition wasthat the timber to be well-seasoned: “the trees for the constructions was cut inthe periods when they had less sap, late in autumn or early in the spring, beforebursting into buds, when they pealed easier, removing the pests from the bark,the spores, the insects etc.” 13 .12 Was used a mixture of chopped straws or chaff, water and organic raw materials,forming the so-called ceamur. This was either cast into the casings and beaten with the rammer“until the water emerged”, or cast in special shapes of about 20X20X40 cm and was dried in thesun, obtaining the adobes, which were lately used for building. The clay was also used for thecoating the wooden walls, assuring the plaster and the warmth for the interior.13 Valer Butură, Etnografia poporului român, Cluj-Napoca, The Dacia PublishingHouse, 1978, p. 99.