Getty Museum

Key with Ring Handle

Date

A.D. 200–300

Medium

Bronze

Culture

Roman

Department

Implements

Institution

Getty Museum

Embellished with a curving, scrolled handle, this Roman key displays a very complex bit. L-shaped, it has six slots in the main plate and three more in the angled plate. Although its complexity gives the impression that the key belonged to a rather formidable lock, in fact it is too complicated to have worked very well. The shape would have allowed only the quarter turn necessary to open a simple lift lock. Locks were invented in the Near East about four thousand years ago. They evolved from simple mechanisms to the complex locks devised by the Romans.

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