With Father’s Day rapidly approaching, we wanted to wish a happy Father’s Day to the father of the oldest known lock.  The inventor’s name is not known, but the oldest one found by archeologists dates back 4,000 years to the Khorsabad Palace ruins near Nineveh.  It used a large wooden bolt to secure the door and had several holes in the top that were filled with wooden pegs to prevent the bolt from being opened[i].  This concept was later adapted by Egyptians into a wooden pin lock which consisted of a bolt, door fixture, and key.  Similar to modern-day locks, when the key was inserted, the pins in the top of the bolt lifted allowing the bolt to move.  When the key was removed, the pins fell back into place, securing the bolt.[ii] The next big leap in the evolution of locks came from the Greeks who added bars to the bolt.  The Romans then expanded the concept of the tumbler and created cylinders of different sizes and shapes. Lock evolution died off with the fall of the Roman Empire, and no major changes were made until the Renaissance.[iii] Locks have certainly evolved and they are now so advanced that you have to use a retinal scanner to access some doors.  We have these forward-thinkers to thank for something we currently take for granted most every day – the ability to secure the people and things we prize most.

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