Churches seem to use plain, adobe bricks without straw, but with cement or brick around the doors and windows. In a building that’s being used, there’s no way to tell what’s in the walls because they’re plastered and painted over. There’s an old convent in Granada that’s been converted to a museum. The restorers left bare patches so you could see what’s inside the wall — the buried beams, patched many Antique water filter (pictured above). The upper times after each attack by marauders or what-have- vessel is a thick bowl carved from porous volcanic you. Also in evidence are broken roof tiles, adobe rock. The water filters through and drips into the blocks made with straw or horsehair, plain mud lower pot. The whole thing stands about waist high. bricks, lath, reeds. Over the years they’ve used just I saw this at the Moyogalpa Museum, Isla Ometepe, about everything to build adobe buildings. in Lake Nicaragua.
Caltrops in the Gallery of Heroes and Martyrs in Masaya. Here’s a welded version of an ancient weapon. Sandinistas put them on roads to delay army vehicles in the revolution against Somoza. This museum is mostly devoted to photos of people who died in the Revolution.
The Next Whole Earth Catalog has a good section reviewing books about how to build adobe buildings. The catalog is a great way to get a sense of the scope of traditional and “alternative” technologies. It’s 25 years old now, but the good thing about traditional techniques is they never go out of date.
(ISBN:0394739515) Brand, Stewart (editor) New York, New York, U.S.A.: Point/Random House, 1980. Paperback. Folio 15" tall. 608p. index illus.
The islanders used to bury their dead in these ceramic urns shaped like a pregnant woman’s belly (shown above). The symbol on the large jar is a bat, whose spirit helps the dead see their way. The family that owns the museum has always lived in Moyogalpa. Possibly, they are descended from the people once buried in these jars. Not exactly how-to hobbyist tech, but they’re such beautiful, poetic objects I thought you should see them.
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