A tile is a manufactured piece of hard-wearing material such as terracotta, stone, metal. Tiles are generally used for covering roofs or other objects. The word is derived from the French word tuile, which is, in turn, from the Latin word tegula, meaning a roof tile composed of baked clay.
In the past twenty years, the technology allowing more mass production has been able to mass produce tiles of all kinds. Roof tiles are ‘hung’ from the framework of a roof by fixing them with nails. The tiles are usually hung in parallel rows, with each row overlapping the row below it to exclude rainwater and to cover the nails that hold the row below. Fired roof tiles are found as early as the 4th millennium BC- it was, and still is one of the most durable roof solutions today as in the far past.
