page_title: Portuguese pavement
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: Portuguese pavement / Origins
caption_attribution_description: English: Vários tipos de aplicação de calçada.
context_page_description: Portuguese pavement is a traditional-style pavement used for many pedestrian areas in Portugal. It consists of small flat pieces of stones arranged in a pattern or image, like a mosaic. It can also be found in Olivença and throughout former Portuguese colonies. Portuguese workers are also hired for their skill in creating these pavements in places such as Gibraltar. Being usually used in sidewalks, it is in town squares and atriums that this art finds its deepest expression.
  One of the most distinctive uses of this paving technique is the image of Saint-Queen Elizabeth of Portugal, in Coimbra, designed with black and white stones of basalt and limestone.
context_section_description: Paving as a craft is believed to have originated in Mesopotamia, where rocky materials were used in the inside and outside of constructions, being later brought to Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.
  The Romans used to pave the vias connecting the empire using materials to be found in the surroundings. Some of the techniques introduced then are still applied on the calçada, most noticeably the use of a foundation and a surfacing.
caption: Some styles of Portuguese pavement are:[1] irregular pavements, thought to be the oldest stylecrushed pavement, similar but with more spaces between the stonesclassic style, with one primary diagonal and one secondary, both at 45 degrees to the adjoining kerb and/or wall.linear pavement, with stones aligned in parallel filescircular pavementhexagonal pavementartistic pavement, with specific forms and/or highly contrasting stoneslarge wavy patternsegmented fansflorentine fanspeacock tailsless regular peacock tails
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