On the Development and Distribution of Primitive Locks and Keys

by Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers

We now come to the principle of the revolving key in common use at the present time. It has been already shown that in using the Roman lock (figs. 15B to 20B, Plate III.) the part of the key containing the pins had to be put in vertically, and then turned a quarter circle, so as to bring the teeth horizontally beneath the tumblers previously to lifting them. It is possible that this may have suggested the first idea of employing the twist thus given to the key to the shooting of the bolt. Fig. III, Plate IX., taken from M. Liger's work,[34] represents a Roman key found in London; it has a plate furnished with teeth, evidently intended to raise tumblers, and the stem of the key is piped for the purpose of fitting into a broach or pin, so that the plate with the teeth, when the key is turned round on its pivot, may fit into its proper place beneath the bolt and raise up the tumblers. Fig. 112, Plate IX., is a drawing of another key similarly formed, having two teeth and a piped stem; it was found in Lothbury, in London, 16 feet beneath the surface, and is figured in Mr. Syer Cuming's paper on keys in the 'Journal of the Archæological Association.'[35] These keys appear hardly to admit of any doubt as to their mode of use, and may therefore be regarded as the earliest specimen of revolving keys, although applied to a different purpose from the revolving key of our own time. The most primitive kind of lock with a revolving key that I have met with is one represented in figs. 113, 114, 115, 116, Plate X. It is from India, and is in the India Museum. The key is applied to a square vertical tumbler of the Scandinavian type with two arms to fit into two notches in the bolt; the lower end of the tumbler terminates behind the bolt, in a semicircular form; the key, when turned upon its broach or pin, as the case may be, impinges upon the sides of the semicircular portion and raises the tumbler out of the notches on the top of the bolt, and afterwards the end of the key-plate passes into one of a series of notches on the under side of the bolt and moves it, whilst the tumbler is, at the same time, raised clear of the bolt. The key being turned several times continues the movement, pushing the key forward notch after notch, until the tumbler again falls into other holes provided for it, and keeps the bolt secure. All here is of wood, except the key, which is of metal, and it is provided with slits to pass the wards, adjusted to them in the revolution of the key-plate upon its pivot. It might be supposed from this that it was a modern adaptation to an ancient system of vertical tumblers, had not a very similar, but simpler, lock existed in China. The drawing (figs. 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, Plate X.) of a Chinese lock was kindly sent me by Mr. Romilly Allen. In this specimen the bolt is shot in nearly the same manner as the last specimen, but the tumblers are raised independently by means of a T-shaped key (fig. 121, Plate X.), similar to that used with the Scandinavian lock (fig. 3C, Plate IV.). The key from the outside is put into the vertical slit between the tumblers, when it is turned a quarter circle so as to bring the arms of the T in a horizontal plane. It is then pressed back, when the returns of the T enter notches provided for them in the tumblers. The tumblers are then raised, and the key or handle, a, turned. From the inside the tumblers are raised with the two fingers before shooting the bolt.

M. Liger supposes that the lifting key of the Roman lock was of Asiatic origin, and that the revolving key came into use amongst the Romans about the commencement[36] of our era, and many of the keys from Pompeii are constructed on this principle having slits for the passage of wards. Fig. 122, Plate X., is a Roman key of this kind in my collection. The ward system came into general use afterwards and was much relied upon to the exclusion of others in the Middle Ages. The ward system may be defined as a system of lock in which obstructions are placed to prevent any but the proper key from entering to turn the bolt; as such it is distinct from the tumbler system, in which security depends on obstruction introduced to prevent the bolt from being drawn by the key. The tumbler is, in fact, a bolt of a bolt. Reference to fig. 10B, Plate II., representing the Egyptian lock, will show that besides the two pins with which the key is provided for lifting the tumblers, there is a pin attached to the under side of the lock opening, which enters a hole in the key. This is of the nature of a ward, since none but a key with a hole in the proper place could be raised up high enough to lift the tumblers clear of the holes in the bolt. Mr. Romilly Allen also mentions that in one of the Scotch locks from Snizort, a notch is placed in the key and a corresponding pin in the lock, to prevent the lock from being picked, and that the key-hole is divided by a thin iron plate which is the only thing approaching a ward that appears in any of the wooden locks of Scotland. The peculiar shape of the tumblers and tumbler-holes in the bolts of the Roman lock, already described, with teeth made especially to fit them, must be regarded as a kind of ward, although applied to tumblers, since their object is to prevent any but the proper form of key from entering.

The further development of the ward-system in the Roman tumbler-locks, though it certainly existed, is involved in uncertainty, since none of the wards appear to have been preserved, but the fact of some kind of ward having been used is evident from the slits in the keys represented in fig. 122, Plate X., which are of common occurrence. The cross-shaped wards beneath the Indian spring padlock already described in connection with figs. 53C, 54C, and 55C, Plate VI., must certainly be considered to be wards, although open to view, and not concealed beneath the lock-plate. There are also found in association with Roman remains, keys of which fig. 123, Plate X., from Chalons, fig. 124, Plate X., from the Museum at Saumur, and fig. 125, Plate X., from the Museum at Saint Germain, are examples.[37] These keys so greatly resemble the Asiatic keys used with the spring padlock, that it is difficult to believe they were not employed in the same way, but as they also resemble the Roman perforated plates of the tumbler-lock keys that are provided with teeth, it is probable they may have been intended for raising tumblers in some way not yet explained. No tubular spring lock adapted to be opened with a key inserted underneath, and opened with a lateral movement like the Indian and Egyptian ones, has to my knowledge been found amongst Roman remains. Fig. 126, Plate X., is a modern English latch-key of similar form, furnished with a ward-plate and used for raising a common latch: they are now generally disused, from being unsafe. With the revolving keys resembling the modern form, found at Pompeii and elsewhere, slits for fixed wards are common, and show that the Roman keys of the commencement of the present era resembled our own. During the Middle Ages reliance was placed almost entirely on the ward system, and many complicated contrivances were introduced, of which fig. 127, Plate X., is a specimen, until the close of the last century, when their insecurity led to the re-introduction of tumbler-locks.

It is not known exactly when this took place, but probably at some time during the 18th century, and possibly earlier. This time, the tumblers instead of being vertical (as was the case during what may be called the early tumbler period) were horizontal, resting on a pivot above the bolt and kept down by a spring. Figs. 128, 129, and 130, Plate X., is a tumbler lock in the possession of Mr. Chubb, found whilst repairing an old house at Funtley, Hants, said to be 200 years old. If so it must be regarded as the earliest specimen of the second tumbler period. The tumbler moves on a pivot, and is kept down by a spring, the revolving key raises the tumbler by pressing up the curved bar attached to it, which raises the stud of the tumbler out of the notch provided for it on the upper side of the bolt, thereby freeing the bolt, so that by further turning the key it is enabled to shoot the bolt. The tumbler, it will be seen, cannot be raised too high. If the plate of the key is long enough to raise the stud of the tumbler out of the notch, a key with a longer plate will answer the same purpose. To remedy this defect and necessitate the employment of a key of exactly the proper size, Mr. Barron, about the year 1778, introduced an improvement known by his name, represented in fig. 131, Plate X., in which the bolt is provided with a slit along the middle just wide enough to allow the stud to pass; the slit has notches both above and below, so that if the stud is raised too high by a key with too long a plate it is forced into the upper notch and the bolt continues immovable. He also introduced two tumblers requiring to be raised to different heights in order to coincide with the slit in the bolt by means of different projections on the edge of the key plate, so that the bolt could only be shot by means of a key with a plate expressly constructed to fit the lock, and having two projections of the requisite length. This principle of employing two or more tumblers is the one on which nearly all subsequent improvements have been effected. Those who desire to prosecute the subject further will find a variety of modern tumbler locks in my collection introduced during the latter half of the last and commencement of the present century. They are all, in the main, varieties of one principle, terminating in the Chubb and Hobbs locks of the present time. As this paper relates only to primitive locks I do propose to describe them here. The continuity which pervades all the ramifications of the modern lock is not less complete than in the earlier forms, and would well bear treating in the same manner as those which I have described. The Bramah lock, though in external appearance differing from the others, is no less based upon the earlier forms, and may be described as a union between the ward and the tumbler systems. It is a ward system, because the obstructions introduced into the mechanism are intended to prevent the turning of the key to shoot the bolt by any but a key of the proper construction. It is a tumbler system because the impediments so placed upon the turning of the key are in fact tumblers packed round the cylinder of the key (retained by springs), and allowing the passage of the key-plate only when pressed down to the various depths to which each separate tumbler is adapted in order to provide an open passage for the key-plate all round. This union of ideas developed separately in different branches of the same trade, device or industry, corresponds to the crossing of individuals and breeds in nature, which is so necessary to reproduction. The analogy, as I have already intimated elsewhere, might be carried even further and closer if space permitted. It is a necessary condition of the absence of creative power in nature, and applies equally to all the processes of evolution whether of species or of ideas, but the subject requires broader treatment than can be given to it here. My object in writing this paper being to trace the development of particular forms rather than to generalise, I must leave the philosophy of the subject for separate treatment.

From the foregoing description of the various kinds of primitive locks in use in different countries it will, I think, have been made evident that some of them most certainly have been derived from a common centre. The wooden key-drawn pin-locks have spread over the region extending from Egypt to Yarkand. The Scandinavian wooden locks of the same kind, though differing in the details of their construction, we have seen are common to Norway and Scotland, and by some means have been carried to the West Indies and British Guiana, whilst the tubular spring padlock of the Roman age in Europe is the same that is found throughout the whole region extending from Italy to China and Japan on the east, northward into England and Scandinavia, southward into Abyssinia, and westward into West Africa and Algeria, Spain, and on as far as the West Indies.

It is sometimes thought when simple contrivances such as weapons of stone and bronze, some of the simpler kinds of ornaments, and of tools obviously adapted to primeval life are found to extend over wide areas, and in places very remote from one another, that the few ideas necessary for the construction and use of them might easily have suggested themselves independently in different places. To the student of primitive culture who has become impressed with the persistency of art forms, this independent origin of such things does not appear so certain even in the case of the most simple contrivances. But when we come to a complex piece of mechanism, such as a spring padlock having several parts—the spring, the case, the parallel bar, and the key, in all of which the resemblance is maintained in distant countries, and which, with slight modification and continuously progressive improvements, are put together in the same manner in all parts of the world—such a supposition cannot be admitted, the necessity for a common origin is apparent, and the study of the periods and the circumstances connected with the distribution of it cannot be set aside as superfluous.

Assuming that the tumbler pin-lock and the spring padlock cannot be traced back earlier in Europe than the commencement of our era, it is by no means certain that they may not have existed earlier elsewhere. The commerce carried on with the East in early times was of a nature to render it very probable that any contrivance for securing goods should have spread from place to place with the merchandise exported and imported between China, India, and Europe. A brief survey of the trade relations between different countries will be sufficient to show this.

The expedition of Alexander gave rise to intercourse which was kept up by the Greek kingdom of Bactria, and recent Indian discoveries both of coins and sculptures prove more and more the great influence which Greek art exercised in India up to the commencement of our era. Strabo says that, about B.C. 22, Nicolaus Damascenus fell in with three Indian ambassadors at Antioch Epidaphne on their way to the Court of Augustus, and that their credentials were in the Greek language. Diodorus quoting Iambulus speaks of King Palibothra in the early part of the 1st century as a lover of the Greeks. Dio Chrysostom mentions that the poems of Homer were sung by the Indians, and Ælian says that not only the Indians but the kings of Persia translated and sang them. If the travels of Apollonius and Damis are to be credited, the Greek language was spoken in the Punjaub in the first half-century of our era, and frequent intercourse appears to have taken place between that country and Egypt.[38] Pliny in the 1st century A.D. says, on the authority of Varro, that under the direction of Pompey it was ascertained that it took seven days to go from India to the River Icarus, believed to be the modern Roscha, in the country of the Bactri, which discharges itself into the Oxus, and that the merchandise of India being conveyed from it through the Caspian Sea into the Cyrus, might be brought by land to Phasis in Pontus in five days at most.[39] The best steel used in Rome was imported from China.[40] Arrian, in the 2nd century A.D., speaks of a frequented way, λεωϕóρος, extending in the direction of India through Bactria; after which four embassies from the East are noticed by ancient writers, one to Trajan, A.D. 107; another to Antoninus Pius, A.D. 138-161; a third to Julian, A.D. 361; and the fourth to Justinian, A.D. 530. These are but scant memorials of an intercourse which must have been frequent between India and Rome, and which reached its highest development during the reigns of Severus and Caracalla, in the commencement of the 3rd century A.D.

Turning now to the southern route of communication with India, Pliny describes Taprobane (Ceylon), and mentions an embassy sent from thence to the Emperor Claudius. The discovery of the monsoons during the 1st century was the means of creating a great trade between India and Alexandria. Strabo says that in the time of the Ptolemies some 20 ships only ventured upon the Indian seas, but that this traffic had so greatly increased that he himself saw at Myos Hormos, on the Arabian Gulf, 120 ships destined for India. Pliny gives in detail the route from Alexandria to India in his time, and says that it was well worthy of notice because in each year India drained the empire of at least 550 sestertii, estimated at £1,400,000 of English money, giving back in exchange her own wares, which were sold at fully one hundred times their original cost, and he says that the voyage was made every year by the following route:—Two miles distant from Alexandria was the town of Juliopolis, supposed to be Nicopolis. The distance from thence to Coptos up the Nile was 308 miles, and the voyage was performed with a favourable wind in 12 days. From Coptos the journey was made on camels to Berenice, a seaport on the southern frontier of Egypt, 257 miles, in another 12 days. Here the passengers generally set sail at midsummer, and in about 30 days arrived at Ocelis, in Arabia, now called Gehla, or at Cane, supposed to be Cava Canim Bay. From hence, if the wind called hippaulus happened to be blowing, it was possible to arrive at Muzitis, the modern Mangalore, which was the nearest point in India, in 40 days. This, however, was not a convenient port for disembarking, and Barace was therefore preferred. To this place pepper was carried down in dug-out canoes made out of a single trunk from Cottonara, supposed to be Cochin or Travancore. The return voyage was usually made in January, taking advantage of the south-east monsoon, by which means they were able to go and return the same year. But when Pliny wrote, the trade with India was only in its infancy, afterwards Greek factories were probably established at the Indian seaboards, which accounts for the Greek names for some of the towns on that coast.

But the people of Alexandria having become insolent in their prosperity, Hadrian was led to encourage the route through Palmyra, which was the most direct road to India. Even in the 2nd century A.D. the trade between Rome and India through Palmyra must have been considerable, for it drew the attention of the Chinese. Their annals speak of it as carried on principally by sea; they mention Roman merchants in relations of commerce with and visiting Burmah, Tonquin, and Cochin China, and they have preserved the memory of an embassy from the Roman emperor, which in the year A.D. 166 was received by the Chinese sovereign. Arab or native vessels appear to have brought the produce of India up the Persian Gulf to the mouth of the Euphrates. At Teredon they discharged their cargoes, and the merchandise was then carried to Vologesia by camels; at this place the merchants of Palmyra took it up and it was here exchanged for the produce of Europe. Even as late as the 5th century, ships from India and China are mentioned lying at Hira on the Euphrates, a little to the south of Babylon. Through the influence of this trade Palmyra grew rapidly into wealth and power until the widow of Galberius threw off her allegiance to Rome. This led to the destruction of the city by Aurelian, A.D. 275, which put an end to the Roman trade with India through the Persian Gulf. The Alexandrian trade with India fell off about the same time, and the barbarians occupied Coptos, the port of embarkation for India, about A.D. 279.