Paint 

is any pigmented liquid, liquefiable, or solid mastic composition that, after application to

a substrate in a thin layer, converts to a solid film. It is most commonly used to protect, color, or
provide texture to objects. Paint can be made or purchased in many colors—and in many different
types, such as watercolor or synthetic. Paint is typically stored, sold, and applied as a liquid, but
most types dry into a solid. Most paints are either oil-based or water-based and each have distinct
characteristics. For one, it is illegal in most municipalities to discard oil-based paint down household
drains or sewers. Clean up solvents are also different for water-based paint than they are for oil-
based paint.[1] Water-based paints and oil-based paints will cure differently based on the outside
ambient temperature of the object being painted (such as a house.) Usually the object being painted
must be over 10 °C (50 °F), although some manufacturers of external paints/primers claim they can
be applied when temperatures are as low as 2 °C (35 °F).[2] Paint was one of the earliest inventions
of humanity. Some cave paintings drawn with red or yellow ochre, hematite, manganese oxide,
and charcoal may have been made by early Homo sapiens as long as 40,000 years ago.[3] Paint may
be even older. In 2003 and 2004, South African archeologists reported finds in Blombos Cave of a
100,000-year-old human-made ochre-based mixture that could have been used like paint.[4][5] Further
excavation in the same cave resulted in the 2011 report of a complete toolkit for grinding pigments
and making a primitive paint-like substance.[5][6]
Interior walls, at the 5,000 year old Ness of Brodgar have been found to incorporate individual
stones painted in yellows, reds, and oranges, using ochre pigment made of haematite mixed with
animal fat, milk or eggs.[7][8]
Ancient colored walls at Dendera, Egypt, which were exposed for years to the elements, still
possess their brilliant color, as vivid as when they were painted about 2,000 years ago. The
Egyptians mixed their colors with a gummy substance and applied them separately from each other
without any blending or mixture. They appear to have used six colors: white, black, blue, red, yellow,
and green. They first covered the area entirely with white, then traced the design in black, leaving
out the lights of the ground color. They used minium for red, generally of a dark tinge.