They probably used wood or trees to hold the stucco and/or plaster. If so, the termites would target the wood in the walls. However they could probably hold up for a while even if the wood was gone.
Jonathan Mohler On Jun 22, 2013, at 11:00 AM, [email protected] wrote: > Nir: > > On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 2:03 PM, Nir cohen - Prof. Mat. <[email protected]> > wrote: > karl, > > really, looking a bit closer into the problem, i discovered that moth is > indeed considered the > main destroyer of cloths. the difficulty in assessing the termites in this > respect is that > today's clothes and houses are different than the BH standard. > > My understanding is that Biblical era houses tended to have plaster > interiors, and stucco exteriors. Therefore there wasn’t much in the way for > termites to eat. > > > in general, termites eat cellulose: lumber, doors, furniture, cardboard, > paper, wallpaper etc. > but as garments used to be made from cotton and linen mostly, i imagine that > they would > destroy them too. to do this, they build thin tunnels along the house walls, > until they find cellulose. > > But wouldn’t people notice those tunnels and destroy them? > > > http://laundry.about.com/od/laundrybasics/ss/Insects-That-Destroy-Clothes-Insect-Clothes-Pests_8.htm > > > what they excel at is the other property you mentioned: building houses. > > True. > > > nir cohen > > ps is ($ used in other semitic languages? > > > I noticed that not one word is used for “termite”, I wonder what it would > have been. > > Karl W. Randolph.
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