 Earth is probably still the world's most common building material and rammed earth was the ingredient with which the Egyptian pyramids and Etruscan buildings were made of. Hundreds of years ago people used to make their homes by mixing lumps of earth with straw and sand with their hands and feet, a sensory and aesthetic experience similar to sculpting with clay. This technique was easy to learn, inexpensive, it lent itself to organic shapes: curved walls, arches and niches. Earth homes were cool in summer, warm in winter and resistant to rain, so it is no wonder that this technology has started to revive in the last few years: earth does not contribute to deforestation, pollution or mining nor depend on manufactured materials or power tools; it is non-toxic and completely recyclable so in this age of environmental degradation, dwindling natural resources, and chemical toxins hidden in our homes it seems to make sense to return to nature's most abundant, cheap and healthy building material. In the Marches, this technology has been known for millennia and was especially popular in the countryside of central-southern Marches, such as the rural areas of Ancona and Macerata. In the suburbs of the charming village of Treia amongst the few earth houses still somehow defying the passage of time, there is one at Fontevannazza which after restoration thought out to the smallet detail has been turned to a museum providing fresh insight into an early 19th century typical marchigiano home. It is worth noting that at least a couple of villages were named after the material with which they were built - Pagliare del Tronto (where paglia translates as straw) and Casette d'Ete (where casette stands for little houses).
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