Throughout history, the many cultures and civilizations inhabiting the Mediterranean have found slaked lime (hydraulic lime) useful as a binder for both interior and exterior paints.
In the city of Jericho (Palestine's West Bank) lime has been discovered to have been in use 10,000 years ago. In the first known civilization, Mesopotamia, lime and clay were used to coat the walls of temples, water pipes, baths, cisterns, tombs and houses. It was also used in Cappadocia (Anatolia, Turkey) for coatings and frescoes. This is where the oldest known fresco has been found, some 8,200 years old. The Hittites used lime to line the interiors of the caves they lived in, preventing little bits of the walls and ceiling from falling while still allowing the walls of the cave to transpire humidity. The Egyptians used lime as a preparatory coat for paintings discovered in the interior of the pyramids. In many of the Greek monuments there are remains of polychrome decorations made with lime, mineral pigments and organic additives. The romans coined the term that we use today, stucco, and perfected techniques used by Greeks. Pompeii is the best example of how stucco walls with frescoes were prepared at that time. In Moorish Spain, there are extraordinary decorations of great technical skill such as the lime paintings of the Alhambra in Granada or the Great Mosque of Córdoba. During medieval times, lime continued to be used to decorate interior and exteriors, as in the case of Segovian sgraffitos, but the Italian renaissance gave us examples of techniques best suited for today: fresco painting and stucco finished with a hot iron.
With the arrival of portland cement, lime fell into disuse. The benefits of modern cement were recognized (ease of workmanship, versatility and rapid hardening) while the advantages of traditional lime mortars (healthier for buildings and people) were ignored.
However, lime stucco has
regained importance with the emergence of the environmental
construction movement - the practices of green building and natural
building. In addition to being a very beautiful technique which uses
natural materials without any sort of additives, it also is very
durable, does not shrink, is an excellent thermal and acoustic
insulator, allows vapors to breathe very well, and has fungicidal and
flame retardant qualities.