Paint was one of the earliest inventions of humanity. Paintings have been found in cave’s Interior walls done over 20000 years ago paintings have been found to incorporate individual stones painted in yellows, reds, and oranges, using ochre pigment made of hematite mixed with animal fat, milk or eggs made by early homosapiens.
Ancient coloured walls at Dendera, Egypt, which were exposed for years to the elements, still possess their brilliant colour, as vivid as when they were painted about 2,000 years ago. The Egyptians mixed their colours with a gummy substance and applied them separately from each other without any blending or mixture. They appear to have used six colours: white, black, blue, red, yellow, and green. They first covered the area entirely with white, then traced the design in black, leaving out the lights of the ground colour.
Decorative paints have come a long way from then. Today they are a function of protection as much as of decoration. Not only do the paints of today beautify the painted surface they also protect the walls from weather elements, protect reinforcement from carbonation and prolong the lives of structures.