How Tiles Evolution Affected Global History

Humans started building houses made of wood and stones since prehistoric era. Those houses in the starting were made for the sole purpose of temporary living. People started to make societies and colonies soon after they discovered new ways of farming and hunting to fulfill their needs.

In thirteenth century when the world was emerging into colonies and art and culture was prospering across the globe art and crafts were started to be seen on walls and exteriors of housing societies.

A thin square or rectangular object made of materials like ceramic, stone powder, or baked clay made in different colors was coming in light and started to see all over on the exteriors of housings made of different materials. They stood tall as a protection layer for the exterior walls as well as making the exterior more beautiful.

Tiles of early world were made of clay or ceramic and the word may come from Latin word tegula though it then changed to tuile in French subcontinent and by the time passed it started to be pronounced as tile in modern-day English. Modern-day tiles are made of more than just clay-like these are Glass, perlite, wood, and mineral wools.

Today the tiles can be made in almost all sizes and shapes along with all the colors imagined by human eyes and one can almost find millions of designs based on the culture, era, subcontinent, and society, and even religion played a huge role in tile designing over the time.

While the tiles were originally made to cover the exteriors of the housings and community places. Its evolution made tiles an accessory to almost every household over time and thus it is been used for floors walls and roofs in modern-day housings. Even the countertops and shelves are nowadays covered with beautiful tile designs.

Different designs of tiles can be found in different era according to their respective cultures are as below.

The Middle East at an early age was ruled by Alexander and Achaemenid when they first started using tiles for writing up the constitutional messages to transport them to the far places from the capitals. The tiles were made of stones basically and carved with their Elamite language which was the common language of people at that time in the Middle East. Mesopotamia, on the other hand, used sun-dried bricks and tiles for building houses for ages, and much stronger bricks were made of fire heating and were one of the much-advanced versions as those were stronger and has almost no effect of the climate outside the walls. These bricks were used to cover important buildings like temples and government institutions to make them a safer place.

Indian subcontinent at early ages had rooms covered with clay tiles which were used to decorate the floors and roofs in geometrical patterns. We can also see tiling used in the second century Srilankan dynasty where they used these tiles made of hard stones to cover their swimming pools floors.

Iran in early ages was a territory of Achaemenid Empire where they decorated the buildings with glazed bricks and were followed by the next Sassanid Empire used geometrical designs printed with flowers, plants, and birds of different colors to make tiles even more attractive and colorful as well as covering the outer wall against heated climate.

Islamic era in early ages was a turning point for the tile manufacturing and designing when the emerging mosques and mausoleums were all over the subcontinent of Islamic states o the globe and they decided to make their buildings as then modern-day landmarks and thus created the new standards of tiles in Persian dynasty. Timurid empire looked through the advances technology to make mosaic tiles were single-color tiles were cut and shaped into small geometrical designs and then put together in two or more colors to form a new design that was unique but time-consuming and the artifacts came out were marvelous. They did not stop at only flat surfaces but learned to curve the tiles with small shapes and decorated almost every place in the buildings with these mosaic tiles. The exteriors and interiors of the wall and even roofs were not separated by the decoration of tiles. These were proven to be the golden age of tiles refinements.

Europe in the starting of cultural societies used painted tiles as a means to decorate their housings. Tiles painted in such a way that a different story was there in each tile. Tiles with Old Testament scenes were placed on the floor in Jan van Eyck. Tring tiles in the British Museum show the childhood scenery from the life of Christ. Delftware Polished wall tiles were made of two prime colors like blue and white and were very popular in different designs.

Far East countries like morocco used bright colors in zellige tiles for decoration purposes.

Tiles all across the globe have their own importance and values id all eras and culture. Tiles can also be described as a single common object to be used by different cultures and empires to build the landmarks that stood beyond the boundaries and their dynasties to tell the stories of what they believed in.

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Sasha lynch is a working senior editor at Gravity Ceramic. Gravity Ceramic is award-winning tiles manufacturing in Morbi, India. It finds and ceramic companies the latest industry data so you get all the market solution you want - instantly, in one p