The History and Development of the Anvil

The most ancient tool's development since the beginning of time.

anvil: A heavy object of durable material that resists the inertia of an object, hammer or mechanical ram while supporting material struck by the moving part. The earliest anvil was a heavy stone used to resist the movement of an object struck against it or struck while supported on it. This is such a basic tool that both birds and monkeys have been observed using a stone as an anvil and probably predated man's use of tools. This would make the anvil the FIRST tool.

In the Beginning . . .

The first tool is so basic it predates man by millions of years. Prior to "man the toolmaker" early man probably pounded grains, nuts or bones on a rock anvil to get at the contents much as other animals had done for millions of years before. But unlike those animals man picked up another stone and struck things between hammer and anvil. Over time the mortar and pestle developed for grinding grain and during the stone age an "anvil stone" was used as part of the stone tool making process.

The first metal work was using native metals such as gold, silver, copper and perhaps some small amounts of iron. These were worked with bone and stone tools, stone anvils, stone hammers. So the first metal work was done on stone anvils. These were often natural but may have been worked stone.

[ zulu image ]

Stone anvils were used well into the 20th century by primitive peoples in various parts of the world such as by the Zulu in Africa. The 185x engraving above Zulu blackemiths are forging an asegi (spear point) using a stone hammer and anvil. More. . . This exact scene was filmed in 1928.

At the beginning of the metal smelting age stone anvils would have continued to be used until the metal was affordable. During the Bronze Age forging was largely drawing of edges and decoration of cast items. Small bronze anvils were used.

[ Bronze Swage - Anvil ]

The small bronze anvil above dates from about 3200 BC. These and the later "L" stake anvils were the first and most common type of early metal [ Bronze Swage - Anvil ] These early anvils where bronze castings so they were easy to make any shape that the maker wanted. The "L" shape developed as a traditional shape in Europe. These were a stake type anvil but the used like a modern stake. These used the horn as stake and stake as horn so that there was more work surface for that amount of metal used. It was common to have half round swage type grooves in one horn. [ photo grooving stake - MAKE photograph ] Like the stone anvil used by the Zulu well into the 20th Century the ancient bronze age "L" anvil with grooves has its modern design counter parts in modern grooving stakes and swage blocks.

At the beginning of the iron age in the West the anvil had to develope all over again. The wrought iron cultures could no longer make anvils the same way they had in the Bronze Age by casting. The new anvils made of the the rare new material and had to be forged. Stone anvils may have been used for a short time as the new metal could not be worked on the lower melting temperature bronze anvils. The metal working process was also different. Iron is forged to shape hot where bronze was cast to shape and only finished or decorated on the Bronze Age bronze anvils where most work was done cold. So early iron age anvils were simple in shape and slightly heavier than the bronze anvils. Over time the iron anvil would grow in size and complexity.