Charles Ellicott Commentary Genesis 11:3

"And they said one to another, Come, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar." — Genesis 11:3 (ASV)

Let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. —Hebrew, for a burning. Bricks in the East are usually simply dried in the sun, and this produces a sufficiently durable building material. It marks a great progress in the arts of civilization that these nomads had learned that clay when burned becomes insoluble; and their buildings with “slime,” or native pitch, for cement would be virtually indestructible. In fact, Mr. Layard says that at Birs-Nimroud it was scarcely possible to detach the bricks one from another, as the cement by which they were united was most tenacious (Nineveh and Babylon, p. 499).