subject: Egyptian And Roman Tool Making [print this page] A lot about the Egyptians and their tool making is known and documented throughout ancient history. Egyptian tool making and their influences on many different areas such as buildings, jewellery, glass work, agriculture, ship building, and so on reports back to 3400 B.C. Much was learnt from the Egyptians and even some of the tools used today stems back to the ancient Egyptians. For example the tool for determining horizontal direction is called a level.
The Egyptians used an A frame to determine this horizontal line. An A frame is a plumb line suspended from the vertex of the A. When the feet of the A were set on the surface to be checked, if the plumb line bisected the crossbar of the A, the surface was horizontal. The A-frame level was used in Europe until the middle of the 19th century.
Egyptian Tool Making and Buildings
Many buildings from Ancient Egypt are still standing today which is one of the main reasons why Egypt draws in so many tourists year after year. The Egyptian buildings are among the largest constructions ever conceived and built by humans and human tool making. Many of the tools used by Egyptians were made from stone and their use of copper. Flint was the first mineral that was collected by the Egyptians and used in tool making.
One of the first documented tools by the Egyptians used for the building of their structures are hand axes. Pieces of flint were carefully flaked away to make blades and arrow heads for the use of the hand axes and other tools. Copper was also one of the first materials used in Egyptian tool making and it was one of the most important for their development as it was smelted in furnaces from malachite ore mined in the Sinai. The Egyptians tool making from copper included copper chisels, saws, adze with a copper blade, and copper drills.
Still to this day it has not been found or agreed upon as to how the Egyptians built some of their buildings especially the Great Pyramids and what tool making skills were used to build it.
Roman Tool Making
Many of the Roman tools, methods, and tool making ways are still used in our modern world today. For example the width of our roads and railway tracks we use today are all based on what the Romans established centuries ago. Due to us still using these same methods the width of our cars and our railway trains are the same width as well. Even now we are still discovering ancient Roman tools and tool making techniques that are truly remarkable.
Romans actually had their own form of power tools. Of course they did not have electricity back then but using different tool making techniques they were able to have and use power tools. The Romans developed a powered milling lathe. The system was turned by ropes and gears which was powered by a treadle press or by water from a near by stream. Due to these developments in tool making entire shops and machine shops were found next to waterwheels. Many of the Roman tools were made from wood, iron, and bronze and a lot of the tool making techniques came from stone shaping.
Many farm tools were developed from Roman tool making skills such as the scythe. The first scythe was made from bronze, and then later in iron to make it stronger and sometimes from black steel. The Romans did have the use of steel but it was only used in small batches as they couldn't produce a lot of steel tool making techniques, and so iron, bronze, and wood were the commonly used material. It is also thanks to the Romans that we still use hammerheads, blades, and piths.
The Romans, using the stone shaping tool making process, fashioned many blades and hammers to aid them in their farmer work and in general construction as well. Of course hammerheads and blades are still used today in our modern world and for many different applications and products.
