by Phyllis Logie

Created on: October 24, 2009   Last Updated: May 18, 2012

Tiles have been used to beautify and enhance the appearance of homes and living environments for over 4000 years. Used by the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians and throughout the Islamic world, tiles have been used for both decorative and practical purposes to adorn walls, floors and sometimes ceilings. In the Middle East tiles were used to decorate their Mosques and there are examples of its use to display holy scripts of the Koran.

The word tile comes for the Latin word 'Tegula' which simply means baked clay and the word for ceramic comes for the Greek word, 'Keramos' meaning pottery. In the early stages of its development, tiles were made by hand which was very laborious work and the artisans jealously guarded their techniques, keeping it secret and only passing it down from father to son or from teacher to pupil and because each tile was handmade, each tile could be regarded as a stand alone piece of art.

The early tiles were produced by cutting out a piece of clay, shaping and flattening it, then it was placed in the sun to dry. If a pattern was desired, a wooden mould was made into which a pattern was carved, the wet clay was then pressed into the mould and either placed in the sun to dry or in a kiln (an oven which generates extremely high temperatures) to bake. The next stage was to decorate the tile and glaze it to protect the pattern then baked again, at very high temperatures for a second time.

It was not until the 12th century that the Europeans began to uses ceramic tiles, at first it was used to decorate and adorn their churches and other religious establishments. Then much later it was used by the wealthy to decorate and beautify their homes. The Spanish and Italians made beautiful and elaborate designs in numerous geometric shapes and sizes, examples of which can be found in Spain at the Alhambra palace and also the Great Mosque in Cordoba.

The Dutch arrival on the scene in the 17th century was very important to the development in the European tile production. It came about when the Dutch East India Company began importing Chinese blue and white porcelain ware into Holland, which became very popular, so they set up a factory to try to imitate the Chinese porcelain, but their efforts failed. However, they were able to arrive at a very high quality earthenware, which became known as delft blue. Eventually an international market was developed and delftware was exported throughout the world. Initially the company prospered but demand

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>