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.

How did romans lock their doors.

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. Archeologists found the oldest known lock in ruins near nineveh. The clumsy egyptian pin tumbler locks were transformed into elegant roman pin tumbler locks of steel fitted with an ingenious roman invention steel springs.

The simple key and pin principle has persevered over the century. 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. It spread from egypt to greece and eventually to the roman empire where it was further adapted to smaller locks that could secure. Discover more about the history of locks.

The locks were often tiny masterpieces in terms of both precision and design. The lock is estimated to be 4 000 years old. Presumably the vast majority of locks being used were padlocks as there would have been more versatile in their application. Roman locks too were an improvement on the egyptian model.