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Posted on 05/20/2025 2:11:11 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Almost 2,000 years ago, a stonemason working in a limestone quarry near the hill of Mǎgura Cǎlanului in current-day Romania left behind his tools. A local resident happened upon the corroded bits of metal in 2022 and brought them to the attention of the Corvin Castle Museum in Hunedoara, according to a La Brújula Verde report. The artifacts turned out to be a complete stonemasonry toolkit, the first of its kind ever found in pre-Roman Dacia and one of the most complete kits from anywhere in Europe. The set consists of 15 different objects weighing a total of 25 pounds, including double-headed picks, chisels, pointers, and wedges that were used at various times to cut, shape, and refine stone blocks. It also includes a special hammer and a small anvil that the stonesmith could have used to sharpen his tools onsite. Although certain pieces show clear Roman influences, historian Aurora Pețan of West University of Timişoara believes that the tool set belonged to a pre-Roman Dacian stonemason. Her report stated that the discovery at Măgura Călanului deepens scholarly understanding of stonemasonry in Dacia and calls into question previous hypotheses about quarry construction and exploitation in the region. The worker may have hidden his tools to keep them safe during a time of crisis, Pețan posited, perhaps due to the Roman conquest of Dacia in a.d. 102. Alternatively, he may have also simply stored his gear at the quarry to avoid lugging the tools back and forth daily and for some reason wasn't able to return and retrieve them. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Prachistorische Zeitschrift.
(Excerpt) Read more at archaeology.org ...
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Stonemason's toolsPhoto by Marian Coman, courtesy of the Corvin Castle Museum, Hunedoara
To read about Roman fortifications in eastern Romania that researchers spotted in World War II–era surveillance satellite images, go to "Spying the Past from the Sky".
If the weather improves tomorrow, I'll be scarce around here. That's a break for you. :^)
That they lasted for 2,000 years means they didn’t come from Harbor Freight.
They would have been invaluable back then.
They made Steve Guttenberg a Star...
Cool. Why aren’t there any hammers?
> That they lasted for 2,000 years means they didn’t come from Harbor Freight. <
Ha! A serious do-it-yourself friend of mine said it’s okay to buy from Harbor Freight, but only if you plan to use the tool twice. Because it’s gonna break on the third use.
Bit of an exaggeration there, I’m sure.
If I were a 2000-year-old stone mason, I might forget where I left my tools too.
I have to shape granite in my work as an inscriber and very often as I do it with my powered modern tools I think of these guys who did it 2000 years ago and I wonder : HOW? Takes me long enough as it is. That aside, looking at the tools I’d guess that the user did only very specific things with this set. They look like tools to cut lines close fine edges and soft urges and shapes. They could also be used to cut guide lines in larger pieces for the heavy guys to rough out.
Thanks.
A GREAT find....
Not all that corroded.
Limestone is weak...
Until now, I hadn’t known what the 2000 Year Old Man did for a living.
Cow Tools
The Far Side cartoon that drove fans crazy.
Hammers, oddly enough, were among the last tools invented. And even more odd is the fact that *nails* were invented at least 1000 years earlier. No one could figure out what to do with them, so they were stuck in a drawer until the fortieth generation of young craftspeople asked one more time, "what are these for?"
Well, Harbor Freight probably does exaggerate about their bits, but if they snap after a few holes, the low cost makes the whole thing work out.
They don’t look like they could cut Granite blocks.
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