the.com/bitumen

means A thick, sticky black form of petroleum (natural or refined) used to make asphalt, waterproof surfaces, and seal things watertight since antiquity.

from Bitumen comes from Latin bitumen, a word the Romans themselves likely borrowed from an older language in the region — possibly Gaulish or another ancient Italic/Celtic source — meaning pitch or mineral tar. The Romans used it to describe the natural asphalt seeping from pits in the Middle East, the same stuff Mesopotamians had already been digging up for thousands of years to mortar bricks and waterproof boats. The word barely changed as it passed into English, because the substance barely needed explaining — black, sticky, and useful, then as now.