Branches, which nowadays are often considered waste products, were used extensively. They are stronger and more pliable than sawed pieces of wood of the same girth, but generally they do not have…
Category: Tools & Invention
The lathe
This tool came into use during the Persian period (ca 500 BCE). Two planks were connected forming a frame into which the workpiece was inserted. A piece of cord was wound around…
The vice
When a piece of wood could not be sawed one-handed, the carpenter tied it to a pole rammed firmly into the ground. To make sawing easier a wedge was possibly inserted into…
The drill
Drills were bows, the strings of which were wound around a shaft to which a drill bit had been fastened. The top of this shaft was held steady with a little upside…
Copper tools
Copper may have been the first metal to be worked in Egypt, even before the metallic gold. The ores had a 12% copper content and given the scarcity of fuel and the…
The adze
The adze was used for planing and carving. It was made of a wooden handle, often fashioned from a branch cut at its ramification, to which a blade was fitted. These were…
Glue and plaster
The receptacle being warmed quite possibly contains glue, made from bones, sinews and cartilage. What the two workers are doing is less clear. The one on the right is spreading something on…
The saw
An indispensable implement for shaping wood when the cut is not in the direction of the grain. Saws were probably among the first new tools to be made of metal. Still, copper,…