Ancient Egyptian carpenters invented veneer long before they adopted glue
Egyptian furniture makers were fitting mortise and tenon joints in the Predynastic period, lashing them with pegs, dowels, leather or cord. They pioneered veneering and finished pieces with varnishes whose recipe is still unknown. Yet animal glue only came into use during the New Kingdom, many centuries later.
Tombs have preserved a remarkable haul of Egyptian stools, chairs, beds and chests, along with wooden inner coffins, and wall paintings show carpenters at work with axes, adzes, chisels, pull saws and bow drills. Their tools began as copper and moved to bronze after 2000 BC, each metal harder and better at holding an edge. Local acacia, sycamore and tamarisk were not enough: from the Second Dynasty onward, deforestation along the Nile forced imports of cedar, Aleppo pine, boxwood and oak.
Shaping wood goes back far beyond Egypt. Notched sticks from Kalambo Falls in southern Africa date to about 476,000 years ago. Wooden hunting weapons followed, including the Clacton spear tip from England, around 400,000 years old, and the spears of Schöningen in Germany, about 300,000 years old; probable wooden awls turned up at Schöningen too. Wear marks on Neanderthal stone tools show that many were used on wood. Bronze Age people in northern Germany and Denmark hollowed tree trunks into coffins and made folding chairs.
Romans leaned on wood for buildings, vehicles, pipes and heat. Few of their pieces survive, but Vitruvius devoted a chapter to timber and Pliny spent six books of his Natural History on trees. Chinese tradition honours Lu Ban and his wife Lady Yun, of the Spring and Autumn period, as founders of the craft, crediting him with the plane and the chalk line. The manual bearing his name was likely written some 1,500 years after his death and says almost nothing about the glueless, nailless joinery that made Chinese furniture famous.
Woodworkers sort their material into hardwoods from broadleaf trees, softwoods from conifers, and manufactured boards such as plywood. The labels mislead, since some softwoods are harder than some hardwoods. Computer-controlled routers now carve intricate designs with less waste, while handmade furniture survives as a pricier craft.
Source: Woodworking
