The best-known example of a royal building project using bricks is that of the pharaoh who oppressed the Israelites in Egypt by forcing them to make the bricks (Exod 1:13-14; 5:6-9)."The land of Rameses," in which the family of Jacob settled (Gen 47:11), was in northeastern Egypt, where they maintained a royal residence from about 1300 BC onward. The region took its name from Ramesses II (1279-1212 BC), who sponsored building projects at several sites in the region, including Per-Ramessu and Per-Atum, the "Pithom and Rameses" of Exod 1:11(Mays 1988). In Exodus 1:11 it states, " So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh." In this text it states store cities, this would have been a large project and would require many bricks to complete. .
Early attempts at wall-building with solid masses of mud would have been unsuccessful, as shrinkage of the mud while drying would have resulted in severe cracking. Instead it became normal practice to make the mud into lumps or bricks that would be dried in the sun before being incorporated into the building. A brickyard with bricks laid out to dry was found at Tell el-Kheleifeh near the Red Sea and has been dated 850 BC. They mixed mud for bricks with chopped straw which not only provided coherence, but also accelerated drying and prevented the mud from adhering to the mold during casting. Rectangular wooden molds were used from 4000 BC in Mesopotamia, and sometime later in Palestine ( New Bible Dictionary, Architecture).They generally mortared mud bricks to each other with mud and then coated with a mud plaster. Each year they would replaster the entire building on the outside, and perhaps also on the inside, to keep it waterproof. Without this maintenance, mud brick buildings soon decay. This form of architecture was common in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Mud bricks were used in many different areas of buildings from a simple house to the tombs of the Pharaohs.