Nail facts for kids
Imagine a small, strong piece of metal with a flat top and a pointy end. That's a nail! People use tools like a hammer or a special nail gun to push nails into wood or other materials. Nails are super useful for holding things together, like building a treehouse or putting up a picture frame.
A Look Back in Time: The History of Nails
Nails have been around for a very long time. Their story can be split into three main parts, showing how they changed over the years:
- Hand-made Nails: For a long time, nails were made by hand. Blacksmiths would heat metal and hammer it into shape. This was how nails were made from ancient times all the way up to the 1800s.
- Cut Nails: Around the early 1800s, machines started to cut nails from sheets of metal. These "cut nails" were faster to make. They were popular until the early 1900s.
- Wire Nails: Starting in the mid-1800s and continuing today, most nails are made from wire. Machines quickly cut and shape wire into the nails we use now.
Ancient Nails
Nails are truly ancient! People used them as far back as Ancient Egypt. Bronze nails have been found that are over 5,000 years old, dating back to 3400 BC.
The Bible also mentions nails. For example, King David gathered iron to make nails for what would later become Solomon's Temple. This shows how important nails were even in very old construction projects.
Nails in the Roman Empire
The Romans were big users of nails. They built many things with them. A famous example shows just how many nails they used: when the Roman army left their fortress at Inchtuthil in Scotland around 86 or 87 AD, they left behind seven tons of nails! That's a huge pile of nails, showing how much they relied on them for building their forts and camps.
