Ashlar Paving Pattern - All You Need to Know

Human civilization uses natural stones for shaping establishments right from Cave Era to Skyscraper Era in unimaginative ways by creating myriads of stone products. Ashlar is one of the great stone products evident in our prolonged history.

Do You Know Everything about the Ashlar Paving Pattern?

What is Ashlar?

Ashlar is finely cut and worked stone used as the masonry unit. Most often, Ashlar is found in rectangular cuboid shapes and less frequently in trapezoidal shapes. 

We know that Rubble Masonry uses irregularly shaped stones. Still, Ashlar Masonry uses worked stone units with minimal or rough finishes or finely dressed stones. 

Ashlar in Our Civilization

•  Vitruvius also had mentioned Ashlar in opus isodomum.
• The tholos tombs of the Bronze Age Mycenae had used ashlar stones to construct the "beehive" dome. 
• Ashlar is also used in facades on Crete, and Knossos & Phaistos are the best instances. 
• Dry Ashlar was used in the construction of Cusco and Machu Picchu during Incan civilization.

Types of Ashlar Stones

The dimension industry uses different terms for ashlar stones. For instance,

Perfect Ashlar: When ashlar stones have a precise cut on all faces and forming fragile joints with adjacent stone blocks, it terms as perfect Ashlar.

Rough Ashlar: When ashlar stones have rough or irregular surfaces cut on all sides, it forms big/large grouts between two units. It needs to be filled with more mortar.

Quarry Faced Ashlar: When ashlar stones have a visible face left as such cut into the quarry, and remaining sides/faces have smooth or precise cuts, the entire masonry looks natural but ends up with very thin grouts/joints. In short, quarry faced Ashlar is a combination of perfect ashlar and rough ashlar thanks to a natural cleft finish on the front face.

I hope the given terms may help you select ashlar stones and place an order for your next project.

What is an Ashlar Paving Pattern?

Natural stones are available in tiles, slabs, and blocks with precise dimensions at World of Stones USA. We can lay Ashlar paving stones in a particular pattern. I have discussed paver patterns in a previous blog. So, I am leaving that basic behind and going to give you an outline at a glance.

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