Throughout ancient history until our modern era, every civilization in the world has used wood to create useful as well as beautiful and decorative objects.

We see examples of woodworking by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Chinese. Many other ancient cultures around the world also practiced woodworking, employing many different styles and techniques.

Primitive weapons used for defense and hunting and simple tools used for building shelters have been used throughout the ages. Archaeologists discovered a wooden club and digging sticks at the Kalambo Falls on the Kalambo River on the border of Zambia and Tanzania.

As man developed his woodworking skills, he became better able to kill animals for food, clear land with his axe to grow crops, and build boats, buildings, and furniture. Woodworking thus became an important process that led to the advancement of civilizations.

Because of the vast amount of material to cover related to the history of woodworking, this article will focus on woodworking from ancient times to the Middle Ages, focusing on some of the more prominent civilizations. Woodworking conducted in other civilizations will be omitted – not because they are less important but again, due to the sheer volume of material. We will, however, briefly review some of the more prominent tools woodworkers used throughout history.

Many ancient Egyptian drawings going back to 2000 B.C. depict wood furnishings such as beds, chairs, stools, tables, beds, and chests. There’s also physical evidence of these wooden objects, as many were found well-preserved in tombs due to the country’s dry climate. Even some sarcophagi (coffins) found in the tombs were crafted from wood.

Ancient Egyptian woodworkers were noted for regularly practicing their craft and for developing techniques that advanced the craft for future generations. For instance, they invented the art of veneering, which is the practice of gluing thin slices of wood together.

The earliest examples of veneering are over 5,000 years old, found in the tomb of Semerkhet. Many of the pharaohs were buried with objects that had African ebony veneer and ivory inlays.

According to some scholars, Egyptians were the first to varnish, or “finish” their woodwork, though no one knows the composition of these “finishes”. Finishing is the art of placing some kind of protective sealant on wood materials in order to preserve them.

Ancient Egyptian woodworkers used a variety of tools, including axes, adzes, chisels, pull saws, and bow drills. During the earliest pre-dynastic period (circa 3100 B.C., about the time of the first pharaoh), they also used mortise and tenon joints to join pieces of wood. Pegs, dowels, and leather or cord lashings strengthened these joints. Animal glue was used during the New Kingdom period (1570 – 1069 B.C.).

Egyptologists found the world’s oldest piece of plywood in a third dynasty coffin. It was made of six layers of wood four millimeters thick held together by wooden pegs.

The Egyptians used a variety of wood to build their furniture and other objects. The wood came from native acacias, local sycamore, and tamarisk trees. However, when deforestation occurred in the Nile Valley starting from the Second Dynasty, they began importing cedar, Aleppo pine, boxwood, and oak from various parts of the Middle East. They also imported ebony from Egyptian colonies and used it to construct items that went into tombs such as inlaid wooden chests.

In the Book of Genesis, we encounter one of the Bible’s first woodworkers – Noah. After God revealed his plan to destroy a corrupt humanity by flooding the earth, He gave Noah a 120-year project – build an ark of cypress wood coated with pitch inside and out.

God furnished him and his three sons with precise instructions and dimensions. The ark was to be 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high. If we convert cubits into feet based on the common cubit of 17.5 inches used by the Hebrews, we get an Ark that is at least 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet tall (about the size of a 4-story building).

The sheer size of the Ark staggers the imagination and seems an impossible task for Noah and his sons. The Scriptures, however, do not suggest that Noah had to build the ark without the help of hired men. After all, the size of the timbers for such a huge vessel would likely have been beyond the powers of four men to handle.

After the flood, the ark came to rest upon the mountains of Ararat. The mountains of Ararat are in present-day Turkey.

While Noah and his woodworking crew displayed exceptional skills in building the ark, the Hebrew Bible paints a different picture of the Israelite woodworkers during the time of Solomon. As written in Chapter 5 of 1 Kings, Solomon had to import Phoenician artisans from the coastal city of Tyre to build his temple.

The Phoenicians were skilled in intricate woodworking such as making furniture and inlaying them with ivory carvings, but as the years passed, the Israelite’s woodworking skills improved. In Isaiah 44:13, the prophet describes the carpenter and his tools, suggesting that during the era of the kings, the Israelites were becoming more adept and involved in carpentry. In fact, carpenters were among those Israelites exiled to Babylon after the Babylonians captured Jerusalem in 597 B.C. (Jeremiah 24:1; 29:2).

Lebanese cedar, imported from Lebanon, was one of the most popular building materials used in the Biblical world by ancient woodworkers because of its high quality, pleasant scent, and resistance to both rot and insects. Many temples, palaces, and seagoing vessels were made from this wood, including Solomon’s famed Temple.

This cedar was also used in the construction of the so-called “Jesus Boat” of the first century A.D. In 1986, two brothers discovered the boat in the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee after a tremendous drought had lowered the water level. It was similar to the boats Jesus and his disciples would have used to cross and fish the Sea of Galilee.

Almost 27 feet long and over 7 feet wide, the boat’s types of nails and hull construction placed the boat’s origin between 100 B.C. and 100 A.D. It was the first near-complete boat ever found in the Sea of Galilee.

Early Chinese civilizations also promoted the art of woodworking. It’s believed that woodworking mushroomed in that country starting around 720 B.C. When that happened, the Chinese developed many sophisticated applications of woodworking, including precise measurements used for making pots, tables, and other pieces of furniture.

During this time, a well-known carpenter, Lu Ban, was credited as being one of the originators of woodworking in China. It’s believed he brought the plane, chalk line, and other tools to China. Some 1500 years after his death, his teachings were compiled in the book Lu Ban Jing (“Manuscript of Lu Ban”).

This book documented his work as a carpenter and contained descriptions of dimensions for building various objects – such as flower pots, tables, and altars. It also provided specific instructions concerning Feng Shui (wind and water).

Feng Shui is the ancient Chinese practice of geomancy, that is, the positioning of physical objects in strategic locations in the home and in work environments to stimulate optimal wellness, health, and happiness. Ironically, the book says almost nothing of the intricate glue-less and nail-less joinery for which Chinese furniture was so famous.

Throughout the history of mankind, great forests blanketed many parts of the world. They provided civilization with a valuable and plentiful resource: wood.

Wood was a material easy to work with and shape, so artisans used it in many diverse ways. They created weapons and siege devices from wood. They built houses, temples, boats, furniture, plows, and even coffins using local woods, or for special needs, imported fine, aromatic woods from distant lands. They also sculpted statues and other decorative pieces from wood. When stone structures were erected, woodworkers used wood scaffolding to aid in their construction.

As civilizations advanced, they invented new tools to cut and shape wood, or improved existing ones. Most of the hand tools woodworkers’ use today have changed little since ancient times.

The inability to monitor the moisture content of a piece of wood and allow it to acclimate to the surrounding environment before using it has led, regrettably, to the ruin of many finished objects. It is one reason why countless wooden objects from centuries past have vanished forever.