History of concrete (12 million BC to 540 AD)

12,000,000 BC

• A natural deposit of cement compounds forms due to the reactions between limestone and oil shale during spontaneous combustion near present-day Israel.

5600 BC

• The first concrete structures were built.

3000 BC

• The Egyptians began to use mud mixed with straw to bind dried bricks. They also used gypsum mortars and mortars of lime in the building of the pyramids.

• The Chinese used cementitious materials in the construction of the Great Wall.

800 BC

• The Greeks used lime mortars that were much harder than later Roman mortars. This material was also in evidence in Crete and Cyprus at this time.

300 BC

• The Babylonians and Assyrians used bitumen to bind stones and bricks together.

299 BC to 476 AD

• The Romans used pozzolana cement from Pozzuoli, Italy near Mt. Vesuvius to build many famous Roman structures including the Appian Way, the Roman Baths of Caracalla, the Basilica of Maxentius, the Coliseum and Pantheon in Rome, and the Pont du Gard aqueduct in south France. They used broken brick aggregate embedded in a mixture of lime putty with brick dust or volcanic ash by the Romans. Many structures that used stone. They built ~5,300 miles of roads. The current U.S. Interstate Highway System has 4,200 miles.

27 AD

• Pollio Vitruvius completes his books on architecture including a discussion of the properties of concrete.

64 AD

• Nero's Golden House is built in Rome with concrete walls, domes, and vaults during the rebuilding of Rome.

540 AD

• Concrete is used in the construction of the vaults and arches on the lower levels of St. Sophia's in Constantinople.