Tiles are usually thin, square rectangular coverings manufactured from hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, baked clay, or even glass. They are generally fixed in place in an array to cover roofs, floors, walls, edges, or other objects such as tabletops. Alternatively, tile can sometimes refer to similar units made from lightweight materials such as perlite, wood, and mineral wool, typically used for wall and ceiling applications. In another sense, a tile is a construction tile or similar object, such as rectangular counters used in playing games (see tile-based game). The word is derived from the French word tuile, which is, in turn, from the Latin word tegula, meaning a roof tile composed of fired clay, otherwise known as nga. Tiles are often used to form wall and floor coverings, and can range from simple square tiles to complex or mosaic. Tiles are most often made of ceramic, typically glazed for internal uses and unglazed for roofing, but other materials are also commonly used, such as glass, cork, concrete and other composite materials, and stone. Tiling stone is typically marble, onyx, granite or slate. Thinner tiles can be used on walls than on floors, which require more durable surfaces that will resist impacts. Global production of ceramic tiles, excluding roof tiles, was estimated to be 12.7 billion m2 in 2019.
Decorative tile work and colored brick
Decorative tilework or tile art should be distinguished from mosaic, where forms are made of great numbers of tiny irregularly positioned tesserae, each of a single color, usually of glass or sometimes ceramic or stone. There are various tile patterns, such as herringbone, staggered, offset, grid, stacked, pinwheel, parquet de Versailles, basket weave, tiles Art, diagonal, chevron, and encaustic which can range in size, shape, thickness, and color.
History Tiles have been in use by humans for thousands of years. It is unknown when the first tiles were created, however the earliest surviving examples are believed to date from around 3550 BCE. Historians at the Pretoria Research Facility used radiocarbon dating to test tiles found in the Zaba village of Beret in Ethiopia, revealing them to be approximately 5,575 years old. There are several types of traditional tiles that remain in manufacture, for example the small, almost mosaic, brightly colored zellij tiles of Morocco and the surrounding countries.
Ancient Middle East The earliest evidence of glazed brick is the discovery of glazed bricks in the Elamite Temple at Chogha Zanbil, dated to the 13th century BCE. Glazed and colored bricks were used to make low reliefs in Ancient Mesopotamia, most famously the Ishtar Gate of Babylon (c. 575 BCE), now partly reconstructed in Berlin, with sections elsewhere. Mesopotamian craftsmen were imported for the palaces of the Persian Empire such as Persepolis. The use of sun-dried bricks or adobe was the main method of building in Mesopotamia where river mud was found in abundance along the Tigris and Euphrates. Here the scarcity of stone may have been an incentive to develop the technology of making kiln-fired bricks to use as an alternative. To strengthen walls made from sun-dried bricks, fired bricks began to be used as an outer protective skin for more important buildings like temples, palaces, city walls, and gates. Making fired bricks is an advanced pottery technique. Fired bricks are solid masses of clay heated in kilns to temperatures of between 950 °C (1,740 °F) and 1,150 °C (2,100 °F), and a well-made fired brick is an extremely durable object. Like sun-dried bricks, they were made in wooden molds but for bricks with relief decorations, special molds had to be made.
Ancient Indian subcontinent Rooms with tiled floors made of clay decorated with geometric circular patterns have been discovered from the ancient remains of Kalibangan, Balakot and Ahladino. Tiling was used in the second century by the Sinhalese kings of ancient Sri Lanka, using smoothed and polished stone laid on floors and in swimming pools. The techniques and tools for tiling is advanced, evidenced by the fine workmanship and close fit of the tiles. Such tiling can be seen in Ruwanwelisaya and Kuttam Pokuna in the city of Anuradhapura. The nine-storied Lovamahapaya (3rd century BCE) had copper roof tiles. The roofs were tiled, with red, white, yellow, turquoise and brown tiles. There were also tiles made of bronze. Sigiriya also had an elaborate gatehouse made of timber and brick masonry with multiple tiled roofs. The massive timber doorposts remaining today indicate this.
Ancient Iran The Achaemenid Empire decorated buildings with glazed brick tiles, including Darius the Great's palace at Susa, and buildings at Persepolis. The succeeding Sassanid Empire used tiles patterned with geometric designs, flowers, plants, birds and human beings, glazed up to a centimeter thick.
Islamic world
Iran and Central Asia
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
