1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Wattle and Dab

WATTLE AND DAB, a term in architecture (Lat. cratitius) applied to a wall made with upright stakes with withes twisted between them and then plastered over. It is probably one of the oldest systems of construction; the Egyptians employed the stems of maize for the upright stakes; these were secured together with withes and covered over with mud, the upper portions of the maize stems being left uncut at the top, to increase the height of the enclosure; and these are thought by Professor Petrie to have given the origin for the cavetto cornice of the temples, the torus moulding representing the heavier coil of withes at the top of the fence wall. Vitruvius (ii. 8) refers to it as being employed in Rome. In the middle ages in England it was employed as a framework for clay chimneys.