File:Velia brick fragment 002.JPG

English: Fragment of a so called "Velia brick" (also called "Velia tile"), a very peculiar type of baked clay bricks, as were manufactured only in the Greek colony of Elea (the Roman Velia), in Hellenistic period, from about IV-III century BCE: they were huge and weighty, with one or two flutes/grooves or recesses (only one in the exemplar of this image) in which brick stamps are printed.

Standard shapes and dimensions were:

• square-shaped: 38 x 38cm
• rectangular-shaped: 56 x 30cm or 28 x 23cm
• thickness (all shapes): 9.5 cm

(source: Paolo Mingazzini, Scavi dalla fornace di mattoni, Atti della società Magna Grecia, 1954, pp 21 ff.)

The brick in the photo lied under a layer of rubbles, outside of any archaeological context, discarded among others building materials resulting from a quite recent renovation of a house.

This brick was dumped in a heap located in Casal Velino, a hamlet which is only 3 km far from Elea-Velia. In Casal Velino such building materials, resulting from the ruins of Elea, were frequently recycled and reused in the past.

The surface shows evident marks of carbon black, probably due to the ancient usage of the brick, or to its following reuses in a more recent past, as part of something like a chimney, fireplace, furnace, hypocaust...