How ancient carpenters carved civilization

There is an extraordinary relationship between humans and trees.

Trees not only provide the oxygen we need to breathe, but also provide the most primitive wood.

For thousands of years, carpenters, turners and joiners have turned this basic material into objects and made great contributions to the progress of civilization. Until now, wood is still processed into buildings, furniture and decorations.

Chances are you are sitting on a wooden structure, working or sleeping. Although there are substitutes for plastics, steel and concrete, our amazing relationship with wood began with Neanderthals and never stopped.

The origin of woodwork and its development in history is a fascinating topic.

Woodworking enables us to travel abroad, build communities, improve personal safety and build all the life and prosperity we need.

When early humans first stood on their legs, they made simple wooden spears and other weapons to fight against the enemy and kill predators or prey.

But ancient humans did not stop using sharp sticks.

They developed wooden tools suitable for reclaiming land and harvesting crops to create a guaranteed diet.

As these farmers continue to evolve and consider expanding their horizons, wood has been turned into a ship that can cross the vast ocean, and carpenters have developed woodworking tools.

Clean up the land and build ships.

Here is an old hand-sawmill.

Early humans, ancient Europeans, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and China all perfected their woodworking styles at different times. With the progress of woodworking technology, the country they support has also improved. The stronger ships, safer houses and more and more beautiful trade goods made by carpenters have promoted the prosperous economy. In a stable community, if there were no carpenter's tools, building and shipbuilding skills, we would still live in caves and hunt wild animals.

From bed to coffin, every life stage of carpentry occupies an important position in ancient life. However, our oldest woodworking works belong to the Neanderthal gatherers in Europe.

Archaeologists found wooden spears, spears and double sharp sticks 300,000 years ago when investigating the Paleolithic site in Scheiningen, Germany. Scheiningen's wooden spear was used for hunting in the Paleolithic Age, which is an early example of the early woodworking age.

(AxelHH/CC BY-SA 3。

0), researchers from Bogettiviki, Italy, found boxwood digging sticks beside animal bones, which can be traced back to 17 years.

65,438+0,000 years ago, an excavation tool made of 90,000-year-old Chinese fir 65,438+0.5 cm (6 inches) was found in Alanbaza, northern Spain.

Experts believe that these early wooden tools were used to hunt and find flint, tubers or clams.

Dating shows that these tools are probably made of sharp edges of stones, and the most obvious stone is flint.

Some tools are even burned first, which makes the scraping process easier and hardens the finished product.

Such a discovery is very rare, because oxygen, moisture and fungi can quickly decompose wood.

These wood products were preserved because they fell into peat or sedimentary lakes, where dense organic matter prevented them from rotting.

Yes, they did survive.

Take Higil's statue as an example, it is a little close to our time, but it is still a long way from our time.

The carbon age of archaeologists is 5 meters (16.

The 4-foot-tall humanoid statue was carved 1 1000 years ago.

Statues living in Siberian peat bogs are covered with decorative symbols and patterns.

Other artistic examples of woodwork are complex veneers in the same period in ancient Egypt and China about 5,000 years ago. The most beautiful carved and inlaid wooden furniture was found along the ancient Silk Road.

The cosmetic box of Kemini, the royal housekeeper, became a work of art in Egypt in BC 18 14- 1805.

Romans also like beautiful wooden objects.

In the ruins of Pompeii, archaeologists found carbonized decorative furniture, such as camp beds, tables, chairs, boxes, beds and even thrones. These beautiful examples of ancient carpentry work clearly show that ancient carpenters not only created practical necessities of life, but also created beautiful and respected items.

Practical examples of ancient wood products show us the craftsmanship of carpenters, but it is ancient literature that shows us the importance of carpenters to society. For example, the Christian Old Testament tells us that Noah made a wooden cabinet out of cypress wood and got instructions directly from God to make the size of the ark 330×50×30 cubic meters.

In the New Testament, Yue Se and Jesus were carpenters, and carpenters built Noah's Ark.

In the East, the works of Luban, a carpenter from China who lived from 507 BC to 444 BC, are highly respected. He is regarded as the patron saint of builders and contractors.

Lu Ban introduced airplanes and ink lines into ancient China, which is said to be a religion.

Romans also liked wood preserved in writing.

Vitruwe's Architectural Art has a whole chapter about wood and its uses, and there are many texts and archaeological examples about ancient carpentry. Obviously, our ancestors made full use of their seemingly endless forests and those who had the skills to make tools and furniture. Prehistoric tools extracted from peat bogs and mud lakes show that stones, flints and fires are all used to carve wood into usable shapes.

Flint heads and sharp stones are not shocking, but what about bones? Before civilization developed into metallurgy, bones and antlers were also used to shape wood.

Archaeologists are trying to rebuild the ancient environment with rare bones of scattered cattle, which are much more durable than the cattle raised in our factory.

Their experiments show that bones are used to chisel wood, which requires a lighter touch than flint axes.

With our development from prehistoric times, we invented advanced tools to perform complex woodworking techniques.

An example of a Roman chisel.

Ancient Egyptians used basic axes and chisels, as well as bow drills and saws.

With the deepening of our understanding of metals, the early practice of making tool heads from copper gradually evolved into bronze.

In fact, the Egyptians used so much wood that the Nile valley suffered serious deforestation and their wood needed to be imported.

Today, we use many hand tools like our woodworking ancestors.

Hand tools have hardly changed since the Middle Ages, although steel is used to cut edges in modern times.

Our chisels, pipes, saws and hammers are still like the images drawn 5000 years ago.

Today, we use many hand tools like our woodworking ancestors.

(ermes/Adobe), scraping wood into a point with bones and flint is a simple construction method used by ancient carpenters, but joinery technology is much older than we thought.

The first examples of joinery and veneering can be traced back thousands of years. Joinery is the ability to connect different kinds of wood.

There are many different joinery techniques, but the classic mortise and tenon forming a right angle from two different parts is the most powerful and seems to be one of the oldest techniques. An example of tenon-mortise connection was found in a 7000-year-old wood-lined well in Leipzig, Germany.

The researchers preserved a 20-foot-deep underground cave and found that it served 65,438+000 wooden longhouses in the Neolithic Age. These longhouses are made of 3-foot-thick oak covered with tool marks, subverting the idea that joinery technology is too complicated to scrape off Neolithic people with wooden sticks.

Ancient Egypt provides us with another example of millenary joinery.

For example, the Khufu boats found in the pyramids of Giza are connected by tenons and mortises, and the buildings built by ancient carpenters in China are connected by tenons and mortises beside the arches, beams and columns, which is incomparable.

Ancient Egypt preserved a rich historical record of using veneers, sculptures and animal glue.

Examples of these advanced woodworking techniques were found in the tomb of Semicht 5000 years ago. We know that the first use of woodworking glue was in BC 1570- 1069.

Although we don't know the formula of "no more nails" in ancient Egypt, it is recorded in the text, and advanced woodworking technology was also found on the Silk Road connecting Asia, the Middle East and Europe in the Middle Ages.

Ancient furniture was combined with joinery and decorated with veneers, which can be traced back to the 4th century BC and has high enough trade value.

Every culture that leaves evidence of its existence records carpentry in the form of pictures or words.

Although we tend to describe carpenters as humble manual workers, they occupy an important position in the whole era and even in the global society.

In the field of eloquence, prehistoric people created basic wooden tools and used joinery to serve the community.

Later, carpenters built houses, boats, weapons and furniture with one of the few materials at that time, so it is not surprising that carpenters' guilds were established in the Middle Ages.

These guilds have formulated quality regulations, provided charitable gifts and pensions, and trained apprentices.

The London Carpenter Company is such an association, which protected the interests of its members in the 1666 London fire. Parliament ordered all houses to be built of bricks.

1685- 1994, the carpenter company hired 54 apprentices from all walks of life and maintained their working standards through quality inspection.

1999, 1700 The account book of an American pioneer carpenter was exposed.

Fortunately, it was found in a hidden drawer in Victoria, which provided historians with the daily accounts of skilled carpenters and helped lay the foundation of modern America.

This account book records the life of a carpenter named Ezra Bryan.

He makes boxes, tables, chairs, beds, bell-shaped shells, window frames, cheese presses, tool handles and even buttons.

A particularly interesting account lists 10 pounds (about 10 dollars at that time) of family furniture purchased by a newly married couple.

A few months later, another coffin was added for the couple's children.

During the cold months, Ezra hired people from the town to help cut down trees, split boards and weave rattan chairs.

He teaches apprentices and paid employees.

Ezra the carpenter caters to everyone and uses his skills to do the basic things endlessly.

In the summer months, probably the harvest season, the king and the citizens are very busy. He made furniture without help, and Ezra's account book is a valuable contribution to his personal history.

It shows how carpentry has improved the lifestyle. As far as newlyweds are concerned, Ezra caters to their fate and misfortune on the road of life. Who in the whole history can't be a good carpenter? Today, carpenters are supported by the progress of modern technology.

The discovery of electricity and the development of cheap plywood, particleboard and fiberboard.

Power tools and CNC machine tools enable us to produce a large number of wooden handicrafts with amazing speed and certain precision.

Our demand for wood and woodworking technology is still high, but it is more expensive than ever, because deforestation has surpassed and surpassed this once abundant material.

Interestingly, despite other modern materials, such as plastic and concrete, we have not forgotten our wooden roots.

Our relationship with wood is so deep-rooted that we can't leave it behind.

Woodworking engaged in hand-made technology has a direct connection with our ancestors, which can be traced back to the first Neolithic Age 300,000 years ago, when sharp sticks were burned and scraped.

The connection between wood and our natural world is a part of human evolution.

You can even say that it has pushed us forward.

Woodworking not only provides us with a way of survival, but also provides us with a way of progress and improvement.