The Getty Conservation Institute Newsletter Volume 10, Number 3, Fall 1995 Feature continued Adobe Preservation Adobe ruins of Fort Selden, New Mexico, where the GCI is conducting research on adobe preservation. Today the remains of these structures built of mud and straw brick still can be seen in Egypt.
Earth is among the oldest of humanity's building materials.
For tens of centuries, people have combined sand and clay with straw and formed sun-dried bricks, known as adobe in the United States. Even today a significant proportion of the world's population constructs with earth, in many guises and with different techniques. Adobe preservation is among the most intractable of conservation problems. Under the impact of the weather, rain, and rising damp, adobe reverts to mud and slumps inexorably back into the earth. Traditionally, inhabited earthen houses and buildings undergo annual repair and maintenance, often with the introduction of natural additives in the mud for greater durability.