The word “ceramics” comes from the Greek word “keramos”, which means pottery clay. In Ancient Greece, Keramos was the name given to a large clay storage facility in Athens.
From the time of the construction of the first stone-brick building in Kyiv at the end of the 10th century until the middle of the 13th century, the bricks used in Rus' took the form of thin and relatively wide tiles. In ancient Russian written sources, bricks were called plintha by the Greek word.
The word "brick" is borrowed from Turkic languages. Before brick, Rus' used a “plinth” - a thin and wide clay plate measuring about 40 x 40 cm, with a thickness of 2.5 to 4 cm. Such a plinth, for example, was used in the construction of the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv. The shape and size of the plinth are explained by the ease of molding, drying and firing “thin” bricks. It was made in special wooden forms, dried for 10-14 days, and then fired in a kiln.
