How Did Romans Lock Their Doors

The clumsy egyptian pin tumbler locks were transformed into elegant roman pin tumbler locks of steel fitted with an ingenious roman invention steel springs.

How did romans lock their doors.

You can see that the pin mechanism is not that different that what you would find in the lock in your front door. The shackle or hasp which was separate from the body carried on its lower side a pair of spreading springs which entered a hole in the end of the body when the two pieces were being put together. Roman engineers modernized them and other lock constructions by replacing the wooden parts with corresponding parts made of metal. The simple key and pin principle has persevered over the century.

It spread from egypt to greece and eventually to the roman empire where it was further adapted to smaller locks that could secure. Archeologists found the oldest known lock in ruins near nineveh. Roman locks too were an improvement on the egyptian model. The romans created new types of door locks and developed the idea of the egyptian lock substituting iron for the wooden lock and often bronze for the key.

Keys were no longer too big to lose or lift indeed some roman keys were small enough to wear on a finger. You ll notice that the section on padlocks is far more extensive than the section on door locks. The locks were often tiny masterpieces in terms of both precision and design. Discover more about the history of locks.