The first wooden key for a door lock was found in the tomb of Pharaoh Ramses II, but experts believe that the first wooden door locks appeared simultaneously in several different cultures. These locks were vertically fixed to the door frame and their operating principle was based on moving pins dropping into the holes of a cross or deadbolt by their own weight and thus locking the door.

The earliest examples are found in China, Egypt and Mesopotamia. Locks made of wood were used until the second half of the 19th century. There were also locks with a wooden body and iron parts. Those made of metal originated in Ancient Rome. Locks with cylindrical body and spring parts were used in Russia and the Golden Horde.

The Industrial Revolution saw the emergence of pump, detector, and pin padlocks, as well as those with a spring-loaded shackle. In the 18th and 19th centuries, they became a mass-produced item available to the widest range of customers.

Smaller locks were used to lock trunks and chests, larger locks were hung on the doors of barns and houses. The biggest locks were used for locking merchant’s shops, granaries, warehouses and churches. In Russia padlocks were always branded by craftsmen. Every ancient lock had its own key, and no spare key was made.

The exhibition features a forged padlock. This barrel-shaped lock has a solid, semi-circular, removable shackle. It is a so-called Swedish lock with an English locking mechanism. Such locks were opened and closed by turning the key 90 degrees, that is by a quarter turn.

It was only possible to insert and remove the key from the keyhole when the lock was closed. The cylindrical locking system consisted of four truncated metal discs that rotated independently of each other and were fixed on the same axis.

The large antique padlock lock was apparently intended for locking a barn, church or house. The front panel has the letters “CЛ” in a recess, the back one shows the date, 1886. The inscription on the shackle reads “Pyotr Denisov”.