Brushing Up on the History of Concrete

As many already know, concrete is a compound material made from sand, gravel and cement. The cement is a mixture of various minerals, which when mixed with water, hydrate and rapidly become hard, binding the sand and gravel into a solid mass. But what many do not know is how concrete materials first came into use and how long it has been an integral tool in building civilizations around the world.

Amazingly, the oldest known surviving concrete surface was found in the former Yugoslavia. It was used as flooring and thought to have been laid in 5,600 B.C. The first major concrete users were the Egyptians around 2,500 B.C. and the Romans starting around 300 B.C. From structural concrete columns to polished concrete flooring with mosaics, concrete was a highly valued building material of ancient civilizations to architecturally beautify their structures.

The Romans discovered it by mixing a pink, sand-like material from a local volcano, Mt. Pozzuoli, with their normal lime-based concretes and from doing so obtained a far stronger material. The pink sand turned out to be fine volcanic ash that had properties much like today’s Portland cement, which is the fine gray powder used to produce concrete today. Since the late 1800s, Portland cement has been produced in an industrial rotary kiln.

In today’s world, concrete is a fact of life — it’s everywhere we look. As in the past, we still use concrete for its structural strength and its potential architectural beauty. Today, with advances in diamond polishing, hardening and coloring, Lokahi Concrete Polishing can use concrete as a stunning finish flooring material.

Inspired by the classical traditions and modern uses of concrete, Lokahi diamond-polished concrete flooring is the result of concrete being mechanically and chemically refined with the aid of diamond tooling, liquid hardeners and dyes that hone and color the concrete. The end result is a colorful, sealed and polished surface. Diamond polishing easily transforms any concrete surface into a stylish and sustainable floor. Not only can newly poured concrete be polished, if you have existing concrete under that carpet, tile or wood surface, it can be polished as well, bringing out the beauty that is concealed right under our feet!

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