Natural Materials Programme

Coordinator: Riham Miqdadi, PhD in Near Eastern Archaeology

Our Natural Materials Programme is conducting research into natural local materials and ancient techniques using clay and earth materials.

Our findings will be applied to the construction of buildings and water harvesting systems, as well as the production of pottery.

The goals of this programme are closely tied to the RBG’s mission to promote sustainable living and eco friendly building,  while stressing the aesthetic value of natural materials.

The earth-based structures that we create at the RBG site will demonstrate what can be built using locally available natural materials, while keeping construction and maintenance costs to a minimum.

Our keywords are sustainability, compatibility with the context and duplicability.

The Natural Materials Programme is divided into four projects with the following goals:

• Produce burnt bricks out of sediments from King Talal reservoir, to be used in building eco-friendly structures
• Reconstruct the recipes of original, historical mortars and plasters from selected archeological sites in Jordan, and reproduce them for use in the RBG's buildings and water harvesting structures
• Form baked-clay water pipes and channels similar to those used by the ancient Nabatean people, for natural water harvesting
• Establish a pottery workshop to produce ceramic pots out of local clay and pigments, and train the local community to make pottery decorated with Islamic floral, zoomorphic, geometrical and calligraphical designs

For all these projects, the investigation of earth samples from King Talal reservoir and original mortars and plasters from historical sites is being conducted in collaboration with Dr. Ayoup Ghrair and Dr. Adi Said from the Royal Scientific Society (RSS).

Further information on the Natural Materials Programme, please email us at: