Tessellations
Learning Intention
Today we are going to investigate meaning of the word Tessellation.
Success Criteria – You will know you have been successful when:
# You can identify the attributes of a tessellation.
# Draw a tessellation.
Defining the Tessellation
Definition:
The word ‘tessera’ in latin means a small stone cube. They were used to make up ‘tessellata’ – the mosaic pictures forming floors and tilings in Roman buildings
Notice, in the example at right, that the artists used many small square tiles to create one big picture of a bull.
Nowadays, the term “tessellation” has expanded to have at least four meanings.
Now it has the original meaning, of big pictures made from small square tiles, but it also means tile-sized uniformly shaped pictures or big pictures made from tiles that aren’t just square-shaped.