A tile is a manufactured piece of hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, or even glass. Tiles are generally used for covering roofs, floors, and walls, showers, 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.
Tiles are often used to form wall and floor coverings, and can range from simple square tiles to complexmosaics. Tiles are most often made from ceramic, with a hard glaze finish, but other materials are also commonly used, such as glass, marble, granite, slate, and reformed ceramic slurry, which is cast in a muld and fired.
The spread of the roof tile technique has to be viewed in connection with the simultaneous rise of monumental architecture in ancient Greece. Only the appearing stone walls, which were replacing the earlier mudbrick and wood walls, were strong enough to support the weight of a tiled roof.
Tiling was extensively used by Sinhalese kings of ancient Sri Lanka. most of the time they used polished and smoothened stones, which were laid on floors and swimming pools. Historians suggest that they have used advanced techniques and tools for tiling because each tile fits perfectly to the other that not a blade can be inserted in between.