AY Honors/Native Brush Construction/Requirements

Ceramic tiles are one of the oldest forms of decorative art. Together with architecture, they have been widely used due to its durability, technical properties and visual richness. The word “tile” comes from the French word “tuile”, which is derived from the Latin word “tegula”, meaning a roof tile of baked clay. As for the word “ceramic”, it comes from the Greek word “keramikos”, which meant “of pottery” or “for pottery”, and it is related to the Indo-European word “cheros”, which means “heat”.

The history of ceramic tiles begins with the oldest civilizations. It is known that Egyptians on the 4th millennium b.c. already used to decorate their houses with blue tile bricks. The glazed bricks were also very common in Mesopotamia; one of its famous applications is the Ishtar Door of Babylon. Originally considered one of the World Seven Wonders, it was built on the 5th century b.c. and decorated with lions, bulls and dragons with a strong glazed blue as background.