Pin tumbler lock and key
Cerradura de pasadores y llave
- Date
- c. 2000 BCE · confidence low
- Place
- Nineveh and Khorsabad, Assyria, Iraq; Egypt
- Credited to
- Mesopotamians and Egyptians (the 'Egyptian lock')
- Field
- Tools
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Wooden bolt locked by pins that fall by gravity, which only a key with pegs in the correct arrangement can lift. It is the principle of the modern pin-tumbler lock.
The Khorsabad lock (c. 700 BCE) is the oldest surviving example; Egyptian texts and finds suggest a 2nd-millennium origin. Before this, doors were secured by sealing the cord with clay and a seal.
What it led to
- Private property protected without permanent guarding: sealed storerooms, treasuries and archives
- The key as a symbol of authority and control of access (steward, treasurer)
- Metal locksmithing and, much later, the Yale pin-tumbler lock
Built on
- Cylinder sealc. 3500 BCE
- Hinge and door pivotc. 2500 BCE
- Simple wooden bolt
- Hinge and pivoting door
Made possible
- Spring-latch padlockc. 100
- Bramah lock (cylinder with sliding plates)1784
- Detector lock (Chubb)1818
- Roman iron lock
- Yale pin-tumbler lock