Mathematicians find that geometric patterns in medieval Islamic tiles even more complicated that previously thought, with one configuration not discovered in West until 1970s.

Lu suggests that Islamic architects used these shapes, which he calls girih tiles, to scribe the patterns onto the walls. That would explain how they tiled large surfaces with such precision.

Islamic tile is an important art form in the history of Islamic art. Islamic artists and artisans developed it over centuries as a branch of architecture and interior decoration. Islamic tiles can be ...

Those wondrously intricate tile mosaics that adorn medieval Islamic architecture may contain a mastery of geometry not matched in the West for hundreds of years.

Islamic architects and mathematicians were creating quasi-crystalline patterns some 500 years before similar patterns were described in the West, claim two physicists in the US. Peter J Lu of Harvard ...

WASHINGTON - Those wondrously intricate tile mosaics that adorn medieval Islamic architecture may cloak a mastery of geometry not matched in the West for hundreds of years.

Ars Video However, examination of medieval Islamic decorations, called girih patterns, reveal plenty of five and ten-fold symmetric patterns that, apparently, do tile a surface.

Medieval Islamic mosques, palaces and other buildings were routinely covered in ornate tile work, called girih, that inscribes stars and other shapes [see images above and below].