Arabic Rural Dwelling 3

This is a ‘Dar al Tuba’ (home of earthbrick – adobe) was typical of arabic single room rural dwellings built by ‘Sharq Alawsat Arab‘ (Middle Eastern Arabs) and ‘Mugh Arib’ (North African Arabs), it was commonly found throughout the arabic world.

On the outside there is a purpose built ‘hajar’ (stone) floored ‘daraj’ staircase to an open air ‘ghurfa’ (suspended floor). This upper floor was considered as another room of the house (often used for sleeping) as the climate in much of the arab world meant it could be used as an open air room for much of the year. The ‘Suwr’ (walls) are built from ‘at Tuba’ (adobe bricks), which is a mix of ‘libbin‘ (straw) and ‘teen’ (earth mud). These walls were then rendered with a coat of ‘teen’ – weathering (often more from sand storms than rain) often leaves the tops of such walls with their brickwork exposed. Though wood is often not a common material for such buildings the ‘shubak’ (windows) have an option to be simply framed or lattice woodwork, there is also the option for ‘safaqa‘ (wooden shutters); ‘shandal’ (roof joists) were so valuable they were often left extending beyond the outside of the wall so they could be reused again in the future. The ‘saqf’ (roof) of this building would have had a covering of ‘basjeel’ (woven cane) then three layers of ‘manqrur’ (woven palm matting) over which was coated several layers of ‘teen’ to give a finished surface strong enough to walk on.