THE NAIL

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THE NAIL


On the cover is a hand forged nail extracted in 2019 from the ruins of a 19th century mansion in Hydra, Greece.


Disclaimer This book is intended to view the development of human civilization through the eyes of the nail. Nail images in the book are not to size, many are enlarged in order so that one can see the life and history in the nail as though it were a sculpture. The Nail was assembled from a large assortment of sources. Please let us know if you find something misattributed, miscommunicated, or flat out wrong. If you would like to contribute to The Nail, it is intended to be an ongoing, open-source, not for profit endeavor. This book is made with a curious obsession and as a homage to one of the most invisible tools of human civilization as it pertains to our ongoing sculpting of what is our world. Thank you, Fawn Rogers 2021 FawnRogers.com

©2021 Fawn Rogers all rights reserved


Fawn Rogers, 2017

Violent Garden, Fawn Rogers, plywood, miscellaneous nails, 2017


nail /nāl/ noun: nail; plural noun: nails a small metal spike with a broadened flat head, driven typically into wood with a hammer to join things together or to serve as a peg or hook. verb fasten to a surface or to something else with a nail or nails. Old English nægel (noun) “tapering metal pin”, næglan (verb), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch nagel and German Nagel, from an IndoEuropean root shared by Latin unguis and Greek onux.

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Violent Garden, Self-Portrait, Fawn Rogers, 2017


THE NAIL Human invention is defined by the intrinsic conflict and confluence of destruction and creation. Historically, perhaps no object better encapsulates this technological paradox than the nail. Since at least 3400 BCE, humanity has utilized the nail to build and to destroy, to repair and to wound. Designed to be both essential and imperceptible, the nail is the invisible, ubiquitous device by which bridges, couches, coffins, towers, homes, hospitals, ladders, libraries, electric chairs, violins, train tracks, weight racks, writing desks, horse shoes, mule shoes, war planes, children’s toys, and crucifixions are made possible. They are the devices by which paintings are hung, African power figurines, bear fighting armor, and used to hold bones together. They are an interstitial artifact designed for connection and for over 5,000 years they have been an evolutionary marker of human civilization. The earliest nails, hand-wrought from iron, were fraught with imperfection and individuation, indelible flaws of human craftsmanship. By the first century CE, their use was so extensive that, upon abandoning the fort of Inchtuthil, the Roman Empire discarded nearly 900,000, more than seven tons of nails. In the third and fourth centuries, ‘magical’ Roman nails were hand-forged from bronze and etched with sacred symbols and inscriptions, intended to protect shrines and households. Alternately disposable and divine, nails connected individuals through commerce in Medieval England, where they served as a stable currency; the word ‘penny’ derives from the standard price for a hundred nails. In subsequent centuries, spurred by the Industrial Revolution, the nail has been transformed by automation, mass production, and uniformity. To chart the history of the nail is to map the course of human civilization. However, this is not strictly an anthropocentric history. In their inception, nails are materially derived from the natural world. In their application, they are used to redefine it. This tension between nature and industry, with humanity at the center, is emblemized in every phase of a nail’s existence, from its sourcing and production to its usage and eventual deterioration. The nail is both an elemental extension of nature and a device by which it is subjugated and transformed. In this sense, the nail functions not merely as an indicator of human technologies, histories, and ideals, but as a broader icon of evolution and invention. Arguably, the nail is to human civilization what the atom is to the human: an integral element of both creative and destructive potential. Omnipresent and ignored. Invisible and invaluable. Fawn Rogers 7


A nail can be fundamentally characterised as a common fastener for use in material construction. Consisting of a long, narrow piece of solid metal with a pointed tip and flattened head, it is deployed to secure two or more objects together. One seldom thinks about such quotidian objects, let alone historicises them, until need arises for their use. But nails in one form or another have been an integral component of civilization for several thousand years. They can thus lay claim to a long and complex material cultural history, having evolved from a simple peg of wood, bone or ivory to the wrought and headed bronze point of the Assyrians and Egyptians, and the iron clavus of the Romans. Bronze, copper alloy and wrought iron have been the primary metals from which nails have been forged over millennia, the latter’s propensity for rusting and fragmentation being the main reason why few ancient examples are today held in museum collections. The nail has complemented the development of other familiar tools, such as the plane, saw, square, chisel and, of course, the hammer. Following technological advances in building construction and materials the nail has accrued new forms and practices, most recently in the form of a fastener fired from a gun propelled by gunpowder or compressed air that was invented by Morris Pynoos in 1944. Conversely, in the two thousand years following the Roman-era, archaeological evidence shows that the nail maker’s anvil, hand held heading tools and the wrought nails themselves had undergone comparatively little change prior to the advent of cut versions. While in the twenty-first century wrought iron nails can still be readily obtained, fasteners can also be made from other metals such as aluminium, steel, copper, brass and silver and occasionally even wood. Time has not necessarily made nails better or more effective, only cheaper. A nail has remained generally recognizable, visually and functionally, as a nail.

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The history of the nail’s development can be divided into three periods: • • •

The hand-wrought or forged nail, from pre-history to the turn of the nineteenth century; The cut nail, from roughly 1800 to 1914; The wire nail, from approximately 1860 to the present-day.

The word ‘nail’ entered regular usage around 1300 years ago to coincide with the introduction of hand-wrought spikes by blacksmiths to attach metal shoes to the horses’ hooves. Prior to this horses had worn a form of leather strap-on shoe with a short lifespan. A heated square iron rod would be forged and beaten to form a point. After reheating and trimming, the emerging nail would be forced into an opening and hammered in. This technique was steadily superseded from the late-eighteenth century by the introduction of guillotine machines to sheer nails before adjusting the bar sideways to produce a shank. Slitters would slice raw iron into an appropriate shape before passing it to a nailer for refinement. From 1810 iron bars would be flipped over after each stroke with the cutter set at an angle. Each nail would then shear off at a taper to allow for an automatic grip that formed their heads. Type A cut nails were produced in this fashion. This method was slightly altered in the 1820s when heads were pounded into place via a separate mechanical nail-heading machine. Type B nails were created this way. By 1886 ten percent of all nails manufactured in the United States were of the soft steel-wire variety. By 1892 these had overtaken iron cut nails as the preferred type for mass production to comprise ninety percent of all nails produced by 1913. Nails today are commercially manufactured on a mass scale by industrial machines that manipulate coils of wire with the capacity to produce up to seven hundred units per minute. These are typically made of steel - ordinary nails for wood are usually of a soft low-carbon or ‘mild’ steel - and often dipped, coated or galvanized to prevent corrosion in harsh conditions and to improve adhesion. Three processes are used during production: electro-galvanization, hot-dip galvanization and mechanical galvanization, all of which are designed to create a protective layer upon a nail’s surface.

reference

http://www.pasttools.org/nails.htm https://monroeengineering.com/blog/6-fun-facts-about-nails/ (Source: Barry Hillman-Crouch)

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Types of Nails Aluminum nail – Made of aluminum in many shapes and sizes for use with aluminum architectural metals. Box nail – like a common nail but with a thinner shank and head. Brads - are small, thin, tapered, nails with a lip or projection to one side rather than a full head or a small finish nail. Clavus - (Roman) a nail. Floor brad (‘stigs’) – flat, tapered and angular, for use in fixing floor boards. Oval brad – Ovals utilize the principles of fracture mechanics to allow nailing without splitting. Highly anisotropic materials like regular wood (as opposed to wood composites) can easily be wedged apart. Use of an oval perpendicular to the wood’s grain cuts the wood fibers rather than wedges them apart, and thus allows fastening without splitting, even close to edges Panel pin - are fine gauge nails for undertaking delicate woodworking jobs as they are not likely to split the material being used. They are commonly used in cabinet making, joinery and attaching mouldings and veneer. Tacks or Tintacks - are short sharp pointed nails often used with carpet, fabric and paper. Nornally cut from sheet steel (as opposed to wire); the tack is used in upholstery, shoe making and saddle manufacture. The triangular shape of the nail’s cross section gives greater grip and less tearing of materials such as cloth and leather compared to a wire nail. Brass tack – brass tacks are commonly used where corrosion may be an issue, such as furniture where contact with human skin salts will cause corrosion on steel nails. Canoe tack – A clinching (or clenching) nail. The nail point is tapered so that it can be turned back on itself using a clinching iron. It then bites back into the wood from the side opposite the nail’s head, forming a rivet-like fastening. Shoe tack – A clinching nail (see above) for clinching leather and sometimes wood, formerly used for handmade shoes. Carpet tack - used to nail down carpets, a short nail with a sharp point and a large head. Upholstery tack – used to attach coverings to furniture. Thumbtack (or “push-pin” or “drawing-pin”) are lightweight pins used to secure paper or cardboard. Casing nail – have a head that is smoothly tapered, in comparison to the “stepped” head of a finish nail. When used to install casing around windows or doors, they allow the wood to be pried off later with minimal damage when repairs are needed, and without the need to dent the face of the casing in order to grab and extract the nail. Once the casing has been removed, the nails


can be extracted from the inner frame with any of the usual nail pullers. Clout nail – is a relatively short, thick nail with a large, flat head used for attaching sheet material to wooden frames or sheet. is a relatively short, thick nail with a large, flat head used for roofing and attaching sheet material to wooden frames or sheet. A typical use is fixing roofing felt to the top of a shed. Clouts are also used in timber fence palings. Clouts are also used in timber fence palings. Coffin nail – general name for a nail used in a Coffin, slang for a cigarette and/ or the final nail. Used less due to metal coffin manufacturing. Coil nail – nails designed for use in a pneumatic nail gun assembled in coils. Common nail – smooth shank, wire nail with a heavy, flat head. The typical nail for framing. Convex head (nipple head, springhead) roofing nail – an umbrella shaped head with a rubber gasket for fastening metal roofing, usually with a ring shank. Copper nail – nails made of copper for use with copper flashing or slate shingles etc. Corrugated fastener (wiggle nail) – a corrugated shaped piece of metal driven into miter joints in some furniture. D-head (clipped head) nail – a common or box nail with part of the head removed such as when assembled into a “stick” for some pneumatic nail guns. Double-ended nail – a rare type of nail with points on both ends and the “head” in the middle for joining boards together. Similar to a dowel nail but with a head on the shank. Double-headed (duplex, formwork, shutter, scaffold) nail – used for temporary nailing; nails can easily pulled for later disassembly. Dowel nail – a double pointed nail without a “head” on the shank, a piece of round steel sharpened on both ends.V Drywall (plasterboard) nail – short, hardened, ring-shank nail with a very thin head. Fiber cement nail – a nail for installing fiber cement siding. Finish nail (bullet head nail, lost-head nail) – A wire nail with a small head intended to be minimally visible or driven below the wood surface and the hole filled to be invisible. Gang nail – a nail plate. Hardboard pin – a small nail for fixing hardboard or thin plywood, often with a square shank. Horseshoe nail – nails used to hold horseshoes on hoofs.

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Joist hanger nail – special nails rated for use with joist hangers and similar brackets. Sometimes called “Teco nails” (1 1⁄2 × .148 shank nails used in metal connectors such as hurricane ties). Lost-head nail – see finish nail. Masonry (concrete) – lengthwise fluted, hardened nail for use in concrete Oval wire nail – nails with an oval shank. Panel pin - are fine gauge nails for undertaking delicate woodworking jobs as they are not likely to split the material being used. They are commonly used in cabinet making, joinery and attaching mouldings and veneer. Gutter spike – Large long nail intended to hold wooden gutters and some metal gutters in place at the bottom edge of a roof. Ring (annular, improved, jagged) shank nail – nails that have ridges circling the shank to provide extra resistance to pulling out. Roofing (clout) nail – generally a short nail with a broad head used with asphalt shingles, felt paper or the like. Screw (helical) nail – a nail with a spiral shank. Shake (shingle) nail – small headed nails to use for nailing shakes and shingles. Sprig – a small nail with either a headless, tapered shank or a square shank with a head on one side. Commonly used by glaziers to fix a glass plane into a wooden frame. Square nail – a square shape cut nail. T-head nail – shaped like the letter T. Veneer pin - are designed, slim with flush heads, this is to help them to be discreet and also to reduce the veneer splitting or cracking when you are working with it. Wire (French) nail – a general term for a nail with a round shank. These are sometimes called French nails from their country of invention. Wire-weld collated nail – nails held together with slender wires for use in nail guns.

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Sizes Nails have their own classification system, with a complete nail set ranging from 2d (one inch long) to 60d (six inches). The “d” stands for denarius, a Roman penny—a reference to how much they once cost—while the number assigned to a nail today indicates not only its length, but also the diameters of its shank and head. A 16d or 16-penny nail, for example, is 3.5 inches long, has a shank with a diameter of 0.165 inches, and a head with a diameter of 11/32 inches. Specialized nails are often graded using the 2d to 60d scale, though they may also be sold indicating their length in inches or some other dimension. Most countries, except the United States, use a metric system for describing nail sizes. A 50 × 3.0 indicates a nail 50 mm long (not including the head) and 3 mm in diameter. Lengths(measurements) are rounded to the nearest millimetre. In the United States, the length of a nail is designated by its penny size. Nails are usually sold b ased on their penny size. Back in the day, the penny size referred to the cost for 100 nails, and the system has stuck ever since, even though stores now sell them by the pound. Nails that are under 1 inch long are referred to as brads while anything more than 6 inches long is a spike. When determining the length of a nail to use, if the board you are fastening to another is not going to bear weight, the nail should be 1/2” longer than the board is thick. If it is going to bear weight, it should be 2-1/2 times the thickness of the material to be fastened. The length of nails produced and sold in the United States is measured in “pennies.” A 2d nail, for example, has a length of two pennies, whereas a 60d nail has a length of 60 pennies. With that said, you should interpret this measurement literally. A 2D nail is 1 inch longer, meaning it’s longer than two actual pennies (the currency). Penny sizes for nails originated in England where merchants would price their nails according to their length. The most commonly available nails range from 1 to 7 millimetres in diameter (0.04 to 0.28 inches) and 2 to 21 centimetres (0.8 to 8.3 inches) in length, and there are a wide variety of different types which are used for various and specific purposes. reference

https://www.doityourself.com/stry/nails-and-screws-101


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Violent Garden, Fawn Rogers, plywood, miscellaneous nails, 2017

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Materials Aluminum This is another good option for outdoor use and is used to install aluminum siding and often with cedar and redwood. (The zinc in galvanized nails will react with those woods, making aluminum a good alternative.) Brass This alloy of copper and zinc does not rust and so it has long been used on ships. Given their cost, they are generally only used in houses when they will be exposed and they provide a decorative accent. There are some rare situations where brass nails may be preferable over galvanized ones as the zinc in galvanized coatings may react with certain materials, for example, the copper in copper pipes. Carbon steel The high carbon content of this steel makes it harder and is used for masonry nails. Cement Also used on drywalls and gypsum board, the thin layer of cement on these coated nails heats up from the friction when they are nailed in place, increasing their staying power. Coatings Just as the materials used to make nails can improve their performance under certain conditions, the same is true of some coatings that are commonly used. Note that if a nail is described as “bright,” that means it has no coating and is typically intended for indoor use. Copper These nails are most often used on roofs as they are especially durable and resist the corrosive effects of pollution more than galvanized steel nails. They are more expensive than other options, but given that they can last for decades, they may be a better value over the long run. Galvanized steel Galvanized steel is dipped in zinc, which provides a protective layer against corrosion. If steel nails are going to be used outdoors, you’ll want either stainless or galvanized ones. Galvanized or hot-dipped galvanized nails are dipped in molten zinc. The resulting layer is six times as thick as the layer on zinc-plated nails making galvanized steel nails appropriate for outdoor use. The layer of zinc is sometimes called a “sacrificial coating” since, even if the underlying steel is exposed, the corrosion will attack the zinc before the nail itself.


Iron Blacksmiths created wrought nails individually from a square iron stock rod. To make a nail, the blacksmith would heat the rod until it was red hot and malleable, then the process of shaping the nail could begin. The resulting product tapered on all four sides, one of the defining characteristics of a wrought nail. Phosphate Drywall nails are often coated with phosphate, which increases the gripping power of the nails. (Note: phosphate coated nails should not be used on treated lumber.) Stainless steel The addition of chromium to steel helps it resist corrosion, though it can also reduce the gripping effect of the nail. Steel Most nails are made of steel, with several different options besides untreated steel. Vinyl A vinyl layer operates similarly to cement, although it has the added plus of acting as a lubricant for the nail during installation. Zinc A layer of zinc over steel will slow corrosion. While eventually the zinc will wear through, the rusting is delayed. There are two different ways in which zinc is typically applied: Zinc plating or electro-galvanization. When steel nails are dipped in a zinc acidic bath, a thin layer of zinc is left behind. This provides some protection against rust, though these nails are still usually intended for indoor use. Other Metals Some specialty nails are made of other metals, though they are not common in home construction. For example bronze nails are often used in the construction of boats while iron nails are still produced, but they are mostly used for the restoration of historic buildings.

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Golden Fields, Fawn Rogers, plywood, miscellaneous nails, 2015 20


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©2021 Fawn Rogers


BEFORE COMMON ERA: NEOLITHIC STONE AGE BRONZE AGE IRON AGE


Time may seem like a certain and easily definable thing, but different cultures across the world have different ways by which they articulate delineated separations between periods, and within those cultures further disputes arise. For the purposes of common understanding this book will refer to things based on Gregorian calendar notations as it is the worlds most widely adopted system. Before common era is a time defined as anything occurring prior to the year one. Its hard to conceptualize just how long the nail has been around making an impact by way of the human hand, both creatively and destructively. It extends thousands of years into the BCE period. Though history gets murky when your’e looking this far back, it is widely accepted that native cultures had developed many inventions coinciding with the nail which were not to be rediscovered until thousands of years later by what we think of as western civilizations. Often, these discoveries were a byproduct of the interactions between western and Native Peoples. Hand-wrought or forged nail (pre-history until the19th century) The First days of The Bronze Age began in the Near East roughly between 3000 BCE and 2500 BCE. The time and place of the nail’s invention is inconclusive, but archaeological evidence shows that bronze varieties were deployed in Ancient Egypt around 3400 BCE. Little has changed fundamentally since then with regard to their design. Hand-forged nails were among the first metal objects to made by humankind. Forged from iron by hand, the earliest nails were usually square in their sections. The head of the nail was formed either by simply turning it over to form an L-shape or by striking a hand-held mould or ‘bore’ over the end of the shank to produce a shaped-end. The hand-forged quality meant that the variety of shapes and forms could be unlimited. In each instance nails were expensive to produce and were thus used sparingly. Nails have been found within Greek grave paraphernalia dating from 1000 BCE and, of course, the Romans infamously used them for crucifixion rituals. The deployment of nails in boat construction at around the same time led to the later development of the rivet in shipbuilding.

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INVENTIONS Precontact Precontact 13000 BCE 10000 BCE 10000 BCE 10000 BCE 8500 BCE 8000 BCE 8000 BCE 5000 BCE 5000 BCE 4000 BCE 3500 BCE 3100 BCE 3114 BCE 3400 BCE 3400 BCE 3000 BCE 2630 BCE 2300 BCE 2000 BCE 2000 BCE 2000 BCE

Hammock Mouthwash Dommesticated animals Slash And Burn Farming Cultivation of corn Reference to Ladder cave painting Oldest known house Asphalt First known tower (Tower Of Jericho) Annealing Evidence of first Coffin Asbestos fibers found in clay pots Invention of the wheel Couch/Sofa MesoAmerican Long Count Calender Bronze Nail Earliest writing system: Cuneiform Concrete First pyramids built Earliest known library Ebla First Buttons Kayaks Last woolly mammoth goes extinct


Pre-Colonial America Pre-Colonial America Pre-Colonial America Pre-Colonial America United Kingdom Pre-Colonial America Jericho, West Bank Pre-Colonial America China Finland Mesopotamia Egypt Pre-Colonial America Egypt Mesopotamia Egypt Egypt Syria Indus Valley Inuit, Yupik, and Aleut tribes Arctic Island 27


1900 BCE 1000 BCE 1069 BCE 1600 BCE 1350 BCE 1200 BCE 700 BCE 600 BCE 590 BCE 400 BCE 300 BCE 100 BCE 45 BCE

Evidence of first coal mine Anesthetics Egyptians use nails in coffins Evidence of rubber production Ten Commandments The Iron Age Begins Nails proliferate Roman Construction Cast iron First Use of Chemical Warfare Horse Shoe With Nail Papyrus paper Paper Julian Calendar


China Mesoamerica Egypt Mesoamerica Egypt Greece and Turkey Persia, Modern Day Iran China Greece Etruscan Civilization Egypt China Ancient Rome

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GHOMANIDAD

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Definition: A reframing of humanity from being, and viewing itself as, a force that is extractive to one that is regenerative and energizing. This can be thought of as a new concept, or as a return to and older view of ourselves that existed before we intellectually separated humans from other species. A ghoma elevates beyond the contemporary environmental shift that ask us to stop viewing the earth as “a thing to be extracted from” and to view it as “a thing to be protected”— recognizing that both views are innately objectifying. Ghomas and Ghomanidad exists as part of the earth and can contribute positively and integrally to it. Origin: Theo Gibbs, Field Study #010 California, 2016 31


Detail Casket, Fawn Rogers, California top soil, nails, binders, plywood, oil paint 2018



Bronze nail headed pin date 3,000 BCE - 1200 BCE type Hand-wrought material Iron, bronze, copper alloy dimensions Length 3.8” name

description

Archaeologists have found hand made bronze nails from as far back as 3000 BC. The Romans made many of their nails from iron, which was harder, but nearly all ancient iron nails have rusted away since. The hand-forged nail had little change until the late 1700’s. The ancient Egyptians and Romans used organic glue for wood furniture, especially with decorative veneer techniques. However, like much advanced technology, glue for wood became a lost art after the collapse of Rome in 476 until the Renaissance around 1400 when glue and veneer techniques reappeared. reference

Photo from Collection of The Salisbury Dimensions: Height 10mm, length 98mm, width 10mm. Museum Number SBYWM:2J.12 Great Cheverell Down, Great Cheverell Down, Wiltshire, England. https://collections.salisburymuseum.org.uk https://www.harpgallery.com/library/nails.htm


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Inscribed clay nail of King Enmetena date c. 2400 BCE locale or culture Sumerian, Ancient & Byzantine World, Asia, Sumer (Mesopotamia) type Hand-wrought material Terracotta photo Harvard Art Museum name

description

Terracotta cone-shaped foundation nail with a cuneiform inscription, written in Sumerian, in the upper half of the object, just below the nail head. The inscription is written in two columns around the shaft of the nail; the first column is the one adjacent to the head of the nail. The nail was broken into two pieces just below the inscription and has been repaired. The inscription commemorates the building of the Emush (“Temple: Foundation [of the land]”) for the goddess Inanna (“Lady of Heaven”) and the god Lugalemush (“Lord of the Emush-temple”). The latter is probably another title of the god Dumuzi, whose temple, the Emush, was in Bad-Tibira (modern: Tell alMada’in). The final seven lines also record a pact between Enmetena and Lugalkineš-dudu, and may be among the first written evidence for this kind of political accord. reference

For Inanna and Lugalemush, Enmetena, ruler of Lagash, built the Emush, their beloved temple, and ordered (these) clay nails for them. Enmetena, who built the Emush--his personal god is Shulutul. At the time Enmetena, ruler of Lagash, and Lugalkiginehdudu, ruler of Uruk, established brotherhood (between themselves). Photo pictured Ancient Egyptian wooden nail c. 2,000 - 1,000 BCE.


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Sumerian cuneiform is one of the earliest known forms of written expression. First appearing in the 4th millennium BC in what is now Iraq, it was dubbed cuneiform (‘wedge-shaped’) because of the distinctive wedge form of the letters, created by pressing a reed stylus into wet clay. Early Sumerian writings were essentially pictograms, which became simplified in the early and mid 3rd millennium BC to a series of strokes, along with a commensurate reduction in the number of discrete signs used (from c.1500 to 600). Cuneiform was used on monuments dedicated to heroic – and usually royal – individuals, but perhaps it’s most important function was that of record keeping. It was also used for votive purposes, as in the present case, to bless or commemorate a building, a deity and the ruler who had commissioned the structure in the first instance. These “nails”, more properly called votive cone inscriptions, are sometimes found in the foundations of important buildings, and in the fabric or repairs to the structure’s original matrix. The Barakat Gallery has secured the services of Professor Lambert (University of Birmingham), a renowned expert in decipherment and translation of cuneiform, to examine and process the information on these tablets. His translation is provided below. This particular example is slender and unusually well-marked. The inscription is from the reign of Gudea, ruler of the small state of Lagash in the far south of Sumer, c.2100 BC. The state had a patron god named Ningirsu, and it was the duty of the ruler to ensure that the temple of this god – called E-ninnu – was kept in good repair. This inscription records the fact for posterity: For Ningursu / mighty warrior of / (the god) Enlil / Gudea / ruler of Lagash / produced everything appropriate / built for him / E-ninnu / his shining Imdugud bird / and restored it. The Imdugud-bird was a mythical creature: a lion with an eagle’s head, and Sumerian scholars often used to use strange metaphors in referring to temples. The nail would have been placed in a hole in the temple wall with the head showing on the surface so that when repairs were necessary, as was often the case since sun-dried bricks were used, the fired nail would be taken out and read, thus perpetuating the memory of the ruler who had it put there”. The impressed cuneiform characters, which are well-spaced in the horizontal registers on the shaft of this votive nail, record in Sumerian the building of a temple to Gatumdu, a mother goddess local to Lagash, by Gudea, ensi of Lagash. The text indicates that the temple was built in an area here translated as the “Holy City,” but this was probably a precinct of or another name for the city of Lagash itself. Gudea, who ordered the building of the temple, ruled over the city-state of Lagash (in southern Iraq) in the second half of the 22nd century BCE (ca. 2144-2124 BCE). Fewer than one hundred examples of this text are known, appearing on nails and bricks, and the Walters Art Museum has two of those examples (this nail and 48.1461). Clay cones and nails were inscribed in the name of a ruler of a Mesopotamian city-state to commemorate an act of building or rebuilding, often of a temple for a specific deity. Deposited in the walls or under the foundations of these structures, the words of the texts were directed at the gods but would be found by later restorers. Edgar J. Banks, Alpine, New Jersey, [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1929 [mode of acquisition unknown]; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest. [Translation from composite text of Cuneiform Digital Library RIME 3/1.01.07.011] For Gatumdu, / the mother of Lagash, / his mistress, / Gudea, / ruler / of Lagash, / the ‘dog’ of Gatumdu, / her house of the Holy City / he built for her. [https://cdli.ucla.edu/P272896] Acquired by Henry Walters, 1929. Sumerian (Artist) ca. 2144-2124 BCE (Lagash II; Ur III) Baked clay, impressed (Ceramics) Not On View


date

Clay nail, foundation peg 2300 – 2159 BCE locale or culture Mesopotamia (Syria) type Hand-made material Clay name

description

Used by Sumerians and other Mesopotamian cultures beginning in the third or fourth millennium BCE, clay nails, also referred to as dedication or foundation pegs, cones, or nails, were cone-shaped nails made of clay, inscribed with Cuneiform, one of the oldest systems of writing. The nails were stuck into mudbrick walls to serve as evidence that the temple or building was the divine property of the god to whom it was dedicated. Versions were also made of other materials including bronze castings with figurative designs. Additionally, uninscribed clay cones painted in different colors were used by Sumerians to create decorative mosaic patterns on walls and pillars of buildings, which also offered some protection against weathering. Similar funerary cones of ancient Egypt used the cone base as the major writing surface. 39


date

Egyptian Toy 2040 BCE locale or culture Ancient Egypt material Wood name

description

Many toys were attached to pieces of rope or string. There were toy horses and chariots with riders in the New Kingdom (c. 1570-1069 BCE) after actual horses and chariots had been introduced to Egypt by the Hyksos during the Second Intermediate Period of Egypt (c. 1782-1570 BCE). Children also had toy cats, dogs, mice, frogs, and birds. One of these is known as the Saqqara Bird, dated to c. 200 BCE, which certain fringe theorists point to as evidence that the ancient Egyptians understood aerodynamics. Tests on models of the Saqqara Bird have proven that it is not aerodynamically sound, however, and never flew. Aviation expert Martin Gregorie, after exhaustive tests on a model, concluded that it was either a children’s toy or a weather vane. The toy is held together by wooden nails. reference

Mark, J. (2017, April). Games, Sports & Recreation in Ancient Egypt. World History Encyclopedia.


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Wood nail, dowel, peg, treenail, trunnel date 2,000 - 1,000 BCE locale or culture Ancient Egypt type Hand-wrought material Wood name

description

Wooden nails are also called “tree nail” or “trunnel”is a wooden peg, pin or dowel that swells when moist, used for fastening together timbers, as those of ships. Ancient shipbuilding used treenails to bind the boat together, minimizing decay usually accelerated and concentrated around metal fasteners. However, when the treenail was a different species than the planking, it usually caused rot. Treenails and iron nails were the most common until the 1780s when cooper nails over copper sheathing became more popular. As late as the 1870s the merchant navy ships used treenails and iron bolts, while the higher-class ships used the copper and yellow metal bolts and dumps. In the 1870s tradition, treenails were typically used in a ratio of four treenails to one bolt with the exception that sometimes the number of bolts was increased. In later corvettes the ratio was changed to two treenails to one bolt. Uses: Fasten pieces of wood together, especially timber frames, covered bridges, wooden shipbuilding and boat building.


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Copper nail date 1800 BCE - contemporary locale or culture Roman type Hand-wrought material Copper photo The Portable Antiquities Scheme name

description

Four copper alloy nails of post medieval c. 1500 CE. Nails have been forged from copper since pre-history. Copper is still used today with copper flashing or slate shingles.


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Nubian Classic Kerma date 1700–1550 B.C. locale or culture Nubia (Sudan), Kerma, tum. X, tomb K 1035 material Gold dimensions 14.5 x 5.1 x 9.7 cm (5 11/16 x 2 x 3 13/16 in.) photo Harvard University, Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition. Ancient Egypt, Nubia and the Near East Collections. ACCESSION NUMBER 13.3987 name

description

Hammered and chased gold sheet sheathing in the form of a bovine hoof, from the foot of a wooden funerary bed with tooled nails. reference

From Kerma, tum. X, tomb K 1035. 1913: excavated by the Harvard University– Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition; assigned to the MFA in the division of finds by the government of Sudan.


47



Nails for the decoration of walls 1500-1350 BCE locale or culture Hurrian, Byzantine World, Asia, Nuzi (Mesopotamia) type Hand-made material Glazed terracotta dimensions 6-1/2 x 3-3/8 in. photo Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard-Baghdad School Expedition (1929-1930) name date

description

This wall nail of buff terracotta consists of a square, tapered shaft and a wheel-made and glazed double-headed knob. The unglazed shaft would have been driven into a mudbrick wall, leaving the elaborate glazed knob exposed. The glaze has faded to a light greenish yellowish color. A section has broken off part of the head, and the lower part is chipped, revealing that the clay used for the nail was coarsely tempered. Excavated from Yorghan Tepe, Iraq in 1930.

49


date locale or culture photo name

Upper Part of a Door Panel ca. 1479–1425 B.C. New Kingdom Metropolitan Museum of Art

description

This upper portion of a shrine door bears the cartouches of Thutmose I (viewer left) and Thutmose II (right), parts of an inscription that has been incised and then filled with white paint. Certain anomalies in the inscription indicate that this panel was probabaly carved under Thutmose III to replace an original door in the funerary temple of Thutmose I. The original likely featured the cartouches of the latter king and his daughter Hatshepsut. The background of the door is painted red, with a black border around the top and sides. Fragments of linen cloth are still stuck to the paint. A line of holes for bronze nails is visible framing the front panel; on the back are five rows of pegs to hold cleats. Traces of gilt remain on one of the kheper (beetle) signs, and blue pigment is still visible in several other places.


51


Nail 1100 - 700 BCE locale or culture Greek, Laconian type Hand-wrought material Bronze photo Gift of A. J. B. Wace, 1924, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York name date

description

Geometric period Greek nail dimension: 4-7/8 in.


53


Wall Nail date c. 9th century BCE locale or culture Nippor, Iraq type Hand-made material Terracotta photo Penn Museum name

description

Terracotta clay wall nails, convex and button-shaped base. Uncovered in Babylonian Expedition to Nippur III, 1896.


55


Wall nail date c. 9th century BCE locale or culture Iran, Hasanlu type Hand-made material Ceramic, glaze photo The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York name

description

1964, excavated by Robert H. Dyson Jr. on behalf of the Hasanlu Project sponsored by the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, the Archaeological Service of Iran, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.


57


Nail date 900 BCE locale or culture Iran type Hand-wrought material Copper, bronze photo Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York name

description

Iron age nail found in Hasanlu, Iran. 1960, excavated by Robert H. Dyson Jr. on behalf of the Hasanlu Project sponsored by the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, the Archaeological Service of Iran, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art; acquired by the Museum in 1961, as a result of its financial contribution to the excavations. reference

Muscarella, Oscar W. 1988. Bronze and Iron: Ancient Near Eastern Artifacts in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 79, no. 139.


59


Nail date 623–593 BCE locale or culture Nubian, Napatan Period type Hand-wrought material Silver photo Harvard University, Boston Museum of Fine Arts name

description

Two nails from a wooden box, silver with square with round heads. From Nuri, pyramid 6 (tomb of Anlamani). Excavated in 1917 by the Harvard University– Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition at Sudan, Nubia, Nuri, Tomb of Anlamani, Pyramid VI, reign of Anlamani, 623–593 BCE.


61


Nail date BCE locale or culture Mesopotamia, Nippur type Hand-made material Ivory or bone photo The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York name

description

Excavated, 1957-58, on behalf of the Joint Expedition to Nippur (Baghdad School of the American Schools of Oriental Research and The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago); acquired by the Museum in 1958. Dimensions: 1.46 in.


63


Nail date 623–593 BCE locale or culture Nubian, Napatan Period, reign of Aspelta type Hand-wrought material Silver photo Harvard University, Boston Museum of Fine Arts name

description

Silver nail from Nuri, pyramid XXVII, room B. 1918: excavated by the Harvard University-Museum of Fine Arts Expedition; assigned to the MFA by the government of Sudan. Length x diameter (head): 4.6 x .9 cm (1 13/16 x 3/8 in.)


65


date locale or culture material name

Etruscan Horse Shoe 4th century BCE Italy More research needed

description

Horseshoes found in an Etruscan tomb dating approxiamately from the fourth century B.C., and may be the only ancient horseshoes in existence. Each shoe has three holes for attaching it to the foot. In three of the shoes the round hole is stopped up with oxidized iron from the nail or rivet used to fasten on the shoe. reference

American Journal of Archaeology Vol. 6, No. 4 (Oct.‑Dec. 1902). Public Domain.


67


Etruscan nail date 500 - 480 BC locale or culture Etruria (Italian Peninsula) type Hand wrought material Bronze and iron photo Fletcher Fund, 1929. Metropolitan Museum of Art New York name

description

Archaic period, Etruscan nail once belonging to a chariot. Found with hook and fragments of the cart or chariot.


69


Forged nails date 4th century BCE locale or culture Northern Sinai Peninsula type Hand-wrought material Bronze or wrought iron photo Luxor Times, 2019 name

description

These forged nails were discovered in an ancient shipyard. A team of Egyptian archaeologists working at the site of Tell Abu Saifi, 3km to the east of Suez Canal, uncovered the remains of a limestone building between two dry docks, an acient workshop for boats and ships, dated to the Ptolemaic and Roman times, 4th century BCE. Wooden beams, shipwrecks, fish bones, and pottery were also found.


71


Nail date 468-435 BC locale or culture Nubian type Hand-wrought material Bronze photo Harvard University, Boston Museum of Fine Arts name

description

One complete bronze nail and a fragment of another bronze nail. From Nuri, pyramid XXXI (Saka’aye), Napatan Period, reign of Nasakhma or Malowiebaman. Excavated in 1918 by the Harvard University-Museum of Fine Arts Expedition.


73


Nail date 3rd century BCE locale or culture Italic, Etruscan, Hellenistic Period type Hand-wrought material Iron photo Boston Museum of Fine Arts name

description

About 1879, discovered on property belonging to the Count Lucioli, Chiusi, Italy (one of a group of objects said to have been found together in a tomb near Chiusi, probably in the Colle Lucioli just east of Chiusi, MFA 13.2860-13.2901). By 1913: with Raoul Tolentino, 57 Via Sistina, Rome; purchased by MFA from Raoul Tolentino, November 6, 1913.


75


Nail date 380–332 BCE locale or culture Egypt, San el-Hagar, Late Period, Dynasty 30 type Hand-wrought material Bronze photo Harvard University, Boston Museum of Fine Arts name

description

Bronze nail with flat, circular head, end bent into a hook. From Tanis (San el-Hagar). Excavated in 1884, by William Flinders Petrie for the Egypt Exploration Fund; assigned to the Egypt Exploration Fund in the division of finds by the government of Egypt; October 28, 1885. Dimensions - length: 2 15/16 in.


77


Nail date 300 BCE locale or culture From Egypt, Upper Egypt, Thebes, Asasif type Hand-wrought material Iron photo Rogers Fund, 1932 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York name

description

Ptolemaic Period nail. Excavated by the Metropolitan Museum of Art Egyptian Expedition at the lower end of the Hatshepsut Causeway, Deir el Bahri Cache, 1915-16. Allotted to the Museum by the Egyptian Government in the division of finds. Shipped to the Museum and accessioned 1932.


79


BED OF NAILS THE STORY OF BHISHMA The history of the bed of nails, or kantaka-sayya (“bed of thorns”) can be traced to one of the two epic Sanskrit poems of ancient India, the Mahabharata, written between 400 and 200 BCE. To put the Mahabharata in perspective, it is about seven times longer than the Iliad and Odyssey combined, and an influential work for Hindus. Bhishma had been given the power to control the moment of his death as a result of his devotion to his father, and so he lay on this bed of arrows, and he continued a life and practice of the Dharma (the way of morality) until the auspicious time he chose to leave this earth. For Hindus, Bhishma is a symbol of refined wisdom and a devout follower of Dharma. Nail beds also used as spiritual practices that involved self-deprivation and immolation.

REFERENCE Nailed It: A Look At The Indian Bed of Nails https://www.dreaming.global/2017/01/16/nailed-it-a-look-at-the-indian-bed-of-nails/


81


KAVADI ATTAM Kavadi Attam originated in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, in a small town called Palani. The ritual dance is rooted in the tale of a giant Idumban who is believed to have carried the Palani hills across his shoulders in the form of a Kavadi. Following a scuffle with a child in which he was defeated, Idumban realised the child was none other than Muruga, the ruling deity of the region. In seeking pardon, he sought the boon that anyone who visited the hills henceforth to worship Muruga with an object similar to the two hillocks suspended by a load bearing pole, may be granted their heart’s desire. While granting Idumban’s wish, Murugan is also believed to have said that he would bless those who carry in the kavadi, items such as sandalwood, milk and flowers, in a kavadi. During Thaipusam, devotees would carry kavadis in a procession that starts at Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple on Serangoon Road and ends at Sri Thendayuthapani Temple on Tank Road. Often, the kavadi-bearers would carry sharp skewers pierced through their tongues, cheeks and bodies, signifying their wish for forgiveness, to keep a vow, or to offer to Lord Muruga.

REFERENCE https://artsequator.com/10-things-kavadi-attam/


83


Disc with projecting nail date 100 BCE - 100 CE locale or culture Roman type Hand-wrought material Bronze photo David Swingler donated The Getty Museum, 1980 name

description

Ptolemaic Period nail. Excavated by the Metropolitan Museum of Art Egyptian Expedition at the lower end of the Hatshepsut Causeway, Deir el Bahri Cache, 1915-16. Allotted to the Museum by the Egyptian Government in the division of finds. Shipped to the Museum and accessioned 1932.


85


Fawn Rogers, Violent Garden, plywood, mixed nails, California top soil, binders, mirror, oil paint, ash from burnt poppey field in California, 2017


87


SURBRACE


Definition: A powerful sense of conviction to do the right thing that arises after one has already let go of the outcome, because they see the situation as larger than themselves— almost as though they are already dead looking back at history. This is not at all to be confused with a feeling of fatalism, or with giving up, but something very far from that. It is a well of inspiration, that one’s every action has consequence and power, and that to be on the right side of history— regardless of the outcome— is greater than the pain of facing the sometimes difficult realities of the challenges we face. Origin: Jane Kim, California, 2016

89


COMMON ERA 1CEPRESENT


The Common Era, extending from year one based on the gregorian calendar until the present, is when humans begin building their way towards the Anthropocene, the current geological era in which human influence has been a dominant and altering force upon the climate and environment. Things start off slow here, but technological development begins to accelerate exponentially, for better or for worse. Accompanying, enabling, and evolving with this crusade of human ingenuity, all along the way, is The Nail. It takes new shapes and sizes, becomes of different materials as metallurgy advances, and it fortifies the foundations of progress along the way. Early large-scale nail manufacturing is evident in the UK from the Romanera. Any sizeable fortress would have its fabrica or workshop where blacksmiths would fashion metal items for martial application by the army. Seven tons of nails were left abandoned at the legionary fortress of Inchtuthil overlooking the River Tay in Perthshire. Iron ore would be heated with carbon to form a dense, spongy mass, which was then fashioned into the shape of square rods before being left to cool. This produced wrought iron. After re-heating the rod in a forge the blacksmith would cut off a nail length and hammer all four sides of the softened end to form a point. The hot nail would then be inserted into a hole in a nail-header or anvil and four glancing blows of the hammer would form the shallow pyramid shape of a rose-head. This had the benefit of four sharp edges on the shank, which could cut deeply into timber, while the tapered shank provided the necessary friction throughout its full length. The wood fibres would often swell when damp and bind around the nail to yield an extremely strong fixing. The fundamental form of the nail would remain unchanged through to the Tudor era, as evidenced by examples found preserved in a barrel of tar on-board the Mary Rose, the flagship of Henry VIII’s fleet built in 1509 and recovered from the Solent mud in 1982.

91


INVENTIONS 0-100 50 10-70 23- 70 70 Appx. 100 Appx. 100 100 108 128 Appx. 200 Appx. 200 280 322 347 Appx. 300 400 400 500

CE CE CE CE CE CE CE CE CE CE CE CE CE CE CE CE CE CE CE

589

CE

Vending Machine Flame Thrower Steam Turbine Mariners Compass Double Entry Bookkeeping Crank Snow Goggles Crucifixion w/ nails common Big Game Sport Hunting Apartment Block Woodblock printing Water Turbine Chess Stirrups featured in art Oil wells & borehole drilling Fishing reel Numerical Zero Horse Collar Nails gain common use in furniture Toilet Paper


Alexandria India Alexandria Roman Empire Roman Empire China Pre-Colonial America Europe Roman Emppire Roman Emppire China Roman Empire India China China China India India Europe China 93


KINCARA


Definition: A person of any gender who plays an active maternal role in helping to raise children they have not physically birthed yet whom they thoughtfully and lovingly help to raise. They are non-biological chosen family who actively contribute to a constellation of care. This nurturing involves everything from helping with the everyday tasks of raising a child, to teaching, to unconditional love. Origin: Natasha Cucek, Canada & Heidi Quante, Zara Zimbardo, United States, March 2017. Kin (Germanic origin meaning one’s relatives shared by Greek genos and Latin genus ‘race’) + Cara (Italian) meaning dear (Latin) meaning beloved.

95


Shrines, Fawn Rogers, mixed nails, foam, and acryllic paint, 2020


97


Hob nail date 1st century CE locale or culture Roman type Hand-wrought material Iron photo The Portable Antiquities Scheme name

A hobnail is a short nail with a thick head, used to increase the durability of boot soles. description

Pictured here is an iron hob nail with an irregular hemi-sperical head, 11.7mm wide, and a square sectioned shank, 3.1mm in thickness which is bent into a ‘J’ shape and tapers to a blunt point. Possibly Roman.


99


Forged nails date 1st century CE locale or culture Roman - Inchtuthil, Caputh, Perthshire, Scotland type Hand-wrought material Iron photo Getty Museum Credit Line: Gift of Norman J. Cowan name

Square tapered nail with a large head. description

In the UK, early evidence of large scale nail making comes from Roman times 2000 years ago. Any sizeable Roman fortress would have its ‘fabrica’ or workshop where the blacksmiths would fashion the metal items needed by the army. They left behind 7 tons of nails at the fortress of Inchtuthil in Perthshire. Iron nails of all sizes were made by the Roman legion’s blacksmiths in their workshop by smelting the iron ore and forming the nails by hand, producing a square tapered nail with a large head. The larger nails were used to hold the wooden stockade around the fort in place. They were also used to bind the timber roofing of the fort buildings. At the Roman fort of Inchtuthil in Perthshire, a hoard of over 875,000 iron nails weighing 7 tonnes was found. (see image on following page) General Julius Agricola, governor of Britain, set out to defeat the Caledonians in the name of the Roman Empire during the first century CE. During this campaign, the 20th Legion of the Roman Army built the Legionary Fortress of Inchtuthil. This formidable fortress, one of the northern most forts of the Empire, would last as Agricola’s base of operations from around 83 - 87 CE. When the Romans abandoned the fort many of the nails from that site were unused, and in part at least the hoard must represent the contents of the legion’s “stores”. As they were too bulky to move south with the legion, they were hidden in a deep pit to ensure that the Caledonians would not find them. They were scared the Caledonians would melt the iron nails down and hammer them into weapons. The ploy worked as, although the fortress had been known about since the 18th century, the nails were not actually found until 1961. references

https://www.ancienthistorylists.com/rome-history/top-10-ancient-roman-inventions/ https://interestingengineering.com/19-greatest-inventions-of-the-roman-empire-thathelped-shape-the-modern-world https://www.fastenerdata.co.uk/nail


101


Inchtuthil,nails left behind at abandoned Roman Legionaire fortress in Scottland 100 CE


103


Nail date 1st century CE locale or culture Roman type Hand-wrought material Copper photo The Portable Antiquities Scheme name

A copper alloy Roman nail or stud, probably dating to v43-410 CE. It has a half rounded head with a plano convex cross-section. The shaft has a polygonal cross-section and tapers towards a chisel point. Probably from furniture upholstery. description

Length: 24.93mm Diameter of the head: 7.76mm Height of the head: 6.16mm Thickness of the shaft: 3.25mm Weight: 2.72g


105


Twisted nail date 1st century CE locale or culture Roman, Pompeii, Italy type Hand-wrought material Bronze photo J. Paul Getty Museum name

Bronze nail twisted to secure the nail in place, 1-15/16 in. description


107


name

date

First physical evidence of crucifixion 1st century CE

description

The Romans practiced crucifixion - literally, “fixed to a cross” - for nearly a millennium. It was a public, painful, and slow form of execution, and used as a way to deter future crimes and humiliate the dying person. Since it was done to thousands of people and involved nails, you’d probably assume we have skeletal evidence of crucifixion. But there’s only one, single bony example of Roman crucifixion, and even that is still heavily debated by experts. The surprising lack of similar physical evidence for crucifixion elsewhere may be due to beliefs that crucifixion nails had magic properties. People in the ancient world might have collected the nails as amulets. In 1968, archaeologist Vassilios Tzaferis excavated some tombs in the northeastern section of Jerusalem, at a site called Giv’at ha-Mivtar. Within this rather wealthy 1st century AD Jewish tomb, Tzaferis came across the remains of a man who seemed to have been crucified. His name, according to the inscription on the ossuary, was Yehohanan ben Hagkol. Analysis of the bones by osteologist Nicu Haas showed that Yehohanan was about 24 to 28 years old at the time of his death. He stood roughly 167cm tall, the average for men of this period. reference

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2015/12/08/this-bone-provides-the-onlyskeletal-evidence-for-crucifixion-in-the-ancient-world/?sh=13fbe3a2476d


109


Glass Nail date 1st century CE locale or culture Roman, Early Imperial type Drawn and tooled glass material Glass dimensions 3 3/4 × 3/16 in. photo The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York name

Translucent amber brown and clear glass nail with circular cross section; upper end tooled into a large flat disk; lower end tapering sharply to a fine rounded point. Striations and a few bubbles; pitting and iridescent weathering. description


111


Roman magical nails date 3rd - 4th century CE locale or culture Roman Empire type Hand-wrought material Bronze photo British Museum, London name

description

Roman Magical nails were ‘fixed’ permanently the power of magic. Some were used in shrines, others were probably driven into doors of houses to protect the household. The largest nail here has an incantation to the goddess Aremis, the others have words and signs borrowed from Paganism, Judaism and Christianity.


113


Votive nail or punch date 3rd - 4th century CE locale or culture Roman Empire type Hand-wrought material Copper alloy photo Harvard Art Museum name

description

The patina is a thin dark-green layer with areas of underlying brown and red visible. Microscopic spots of black sulfide are present. The surface is in good condition, and the nail is structurally sound There is no evidence of casting, but this solid nail could have been either cast or cold worked to its present shape. Most areas of the surface show file abrasions, perhaps marks from the original finishing. Decorative grooves up to 1 mm deep have been filed into two adjacent sides, and 1-mm circular punch marks decorate the other two adjacent sides. (2 7/8 x 1/4 x 1/4 in.) This nail or punch is decorated on two sides with incised zigzag lines; on the other two sides, it is decorated by wavy lines of small circular punches. The head shows lines radiating out from the center. The nail is square in section and tapers to a point.


115


Coptic nail date 4th century CE locale or culture Made in Kharga Oasis, Byzantine Egypt type Hand-wrought material Copper alloy with gilded head dimensions 1 x 3/4 in. photo Rogers Fund, 1931 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York name

description

Coptic nail found in coffin 3, Tomb LXVI, al-Bagawat, Kharga Oasis.


117


Dead nail locale or culture Cyprus type Hand-wrought material Bronze dimensions 2 - 3/4 in. photo The Cesnola Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York name

description

“Dead as a Doornail” is a phrase that comes from the “dead nail”. A dead nail was one whose tip was clenched back into the wood. This was a common way to fasten door and gate hinges to prevent the nails from working loose.


119


ATMORELATIONAL

120


At·mo·re·la·tion·al noun Definition: A relationship with, or interpretation of the world that is relational, and not object based. The Atmorelational Looks at the space or relationship between things as the primary point of focus. This idea offers that it is impossible to determine the exact beginning of a thing or its precise end and that there is a fluid porousness between where the body/self ends and another begins. The term The Atmorelational can be used in place of the term Nature. IE “let the atmorelational take its course”. The Atmorelational was influenced by the ideas conceptualized by the work of Caribbean poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant. Usage: Faiza could feel the atmorelational at work all around her. Origin: Léopold Lambert and Field Study 010 participants, during Paris COP21 Field Studies, 2015 portmanteau of Relation and Atmosphere subtracting sphere Relation: “connection, correspondence” Atmosphere: atmos Greek “vapor, steam”

121


MEDIEVAL 6001500CE


The term medieval refers to the period of the middle ages and is often spoken of in a derogatory way, likely because it is a period of mass migrations, counter urbanisation, and declines in population. Though it seems like a time when development was in retreat, it is precisely the point when western civilization begins making its strongest foothold in its path toward hegemonic rule. It is also a time when the use of the nail begins to proliferate with usage in carpentry and ship building. Like the mimetic instrument of human utility that it is, the nail hadn’t quite evolved its form and function into what it is today, but in this period we see it begin to forge its roots. In medieval England nails were made into a great variety of shapes and forms and sold by the hundred. From this practice developed the classification of nail sizes according to their price, a system which seems to have been established by the fifteenth century. An article in The Ironmonger from 1915 provides a history of the ‘penny’ nail with details culled from the account books of church wardens and builders. The researcher examined records dating from 1477 and maintained by the Church of St Mary-at-Hill in the City of London. In 1471 he reports that “fippenynayl” were 4d per 100; in 1477 “xpenynayll” were 8d per 100; and by 1494 “sixpenynayle” were 5d per 100. Thereafter nails gradually became standardized by size rather than price.

123


INVENTIONS 600 600 678 723 800 850 900 950 600 1000 1023 1044 1050 1150 1200 1202

CE CE CE CE CE CE CE CE CE CE CE CE CE CE CE CE

1250 CE 1268 CE 1285 CE 1295 CE 1328 CE 1366 CE

Almanac Earthquake proof building Grenades Mechanical clock invented Hour Glass Gunpowder Heavy Plow Windmills Porcelain Suspension Bridge First paper money printed Compass Crossbow First paper industry Clothing buttons Hindu-Arabic numbering introduced to Europe First gun Eyeglasses Modern glassmaking Canons Sawmill Scales for weighing


Pre-Colonial America Byzantium Byzantium China Europe China Northern Europe Persia Northern China Pre-Colonial America China China France Spain India China Italy Italy China Europe Italy

125


1400 CE 1400 CE 1400 CE 1400 CE 1410 CE 1411 CE 1420 CE 1421 CE 1455 CE 1455 CE 1494 CE

Writing Desks First appear Rocket bombs, aerodynamic wings Early piano (spinet) Carpenter’s brace Coil spring Trigger Oil painting Hoisting gear Printing Press Guttenberg Bible - first printed book Whiskey


Spain China Europe Flemish Belgium Europe Flemish Italy Germany Germany Ireland

127


NEOPANGEA


neo-pan-jee–uh noun Definition: A hypothetical way of thinking of the world as no longer geographically separated. Neopangea, borrows from the concept that there was a “supercontinent” that existed approximately 200 to 300 million years ago, named Pangea. Neopangea, is the concept that because of global trade routes and the regular use of cargo ships, planes, cars, trucks ex cetera, once insurmountable geographic barriers (like the separation of continents) no longer exist in the way they have in the past, and we have returned to what can be thought of as a supercontinent like state. This affects how we think of species that are endemic to certain locations. Usage: The Cutbow Trout is a species that can be thought of as endemic to neopangea, it is a hybrid between two separate trout species the Rainbow and the Cutthroat Trout’s that had, in the past, been geographically separated. The human induced introduction of the rainbow into the Colorado Cutthroats habitat poses a “serious threat to native cutthroat population” as the two mate and produce the hybrid Neopangean Cutbow. Synonym: Repangea, Globalism. Origin: Jason Groves, Alicia Escott, Anthony Shore, California, 2015.

129


Iron Chair, 500-1500 CE


Medieval Rotating Torture Chair. This torture device was use by the Spanish Inquisition to extract confessions and is a variation on the nailed torture chair. When rotated the rear crank handle turned the contrarotating nailed wheels at the front. The victim would be locked to the seat with his or her hands tied above with chains. When rotated the nailed wheels would dig into the victims flesh causing deep lacerations.

Medieval rotating torture chair


Nail date 5th - 8th century locale or culture Palestine, Sbaita type Hand-wrought material Bronze photo The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York name

description

Eastern Mediterranean, metal nail.


133


Horseshoe nail date 7th century locale or culture Roman type Hand-wrought, cut nail, wire nail material Iron name

description

Around 1300 years ago the word ‘nail’ came into regular use at the same time Smiths started to use metal nails to attached metal horseshoes to the horses own keratin nails; before then horses wore sandals or leather strap on shoes that had a short wear life. (Conflicting Information according to source American Journal of Archaeology Vol. 6, No. 4 (Oct.‑Dec. 1902), pp398‑403.) reference

https://www.fastenerdata.co.uk/nail


135


Nail date 7th century locale or culture Egypt type Hand-wrought material Bronze and iron photo The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York name

description

Various 7th century hand-wrought nails found in Egypt.


137


Door nail or batten brad date 14th century locale or culture German type Hand-wrought material Iron photo The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York name

description

A large-headed nail used for studding batten doors for strength or ornament,” late 14th c. Overall dimension as if installed is 1-5/16 x 13/16 in.


139


Pevensey Castle nail date 14th century locale or culture England type Hand-wrought material Iron or bronze name

description

In Tudor times, we have evidence that the nail shape had not changed at all as can be seen by the nails found preserved in a barrel of tar on board the Mary Rose, the Tudor flag ship of Henry VIII built in 1509 and recovered from the mud of the Solent in 1982.


141


EPOQUETUDE

142


noun Definition: An antidote to crushing anxieties over the deteriorating state of the world, epoquetude is the reassuring awareness that while humanity may succeed in destroying itself, the Earth will certainly survive us, as it has survived many other cataclysms; and that, in the endless chambers of time, the lives of individual species, vast civilizations, and even entire worlds are merely brief notes in an inconceivable symphony, each sounding its distinct voice and then fading out, so that the music may continue. Usage: As she gazed at the waves crashing to the shore, contemplating the ocean’s four billion years of existence, some of the pain and horror of the unfolding global catastrophe receded, and a sense of epoquetude settled over her. Origin: Anthony Discenza, California, 2015 143


RENAISSANCE 1500-1800


MEDIEVAL

Renaissance, French for rebirth, is a time period which begins toward the end of the middle ages and is seen as a crucial point in which western civilizations make their way into modernity. Looked upon with much nostalgia as an era of great leaps in technological and societal advancement, the nails helped bind the coalescening world. While the renaissance progresses we see nails transforming from decorative fasteners adorned with ellaborate designs to once again a mass produced utilitarian catalyst for change. As the newly developed dry docks sent the ships out to sea, nails spread east across the atlantic and south around Cape Agulhas as an integral part of establishing colonial developments.

145


INVENTIONS 1500 CE 1100 CE 1510 CE 1550 CE 1560 CE 1568 CE 1569 CE 1577 CE 1582 CE 1589 CE 1589 CE 1590 CE 1590 CE 1593 CE 1594 CE 1597 CE 1608 CE 1630 CE 1642 CE 1643 CE 1650 CE 1656 CE

Flushing toilets Raised Bed Farming Pocket watch Violin in modern form appears in Europe Dry dock Bottled beer Mercator projection map Newspaper Gregorian calender Knitting machine Stocking frame (for knitting) First slitting machine (nail making) Compound microscope Water thermometer Backstaff (navigational & celestial altitude instrument) Revolver Telescope Slide ruler Mechanical calculator (the Pascaline) Barometer Vacuum pump Pendulum clock


Pre-Colonial America Peru Germany Italy Italy England Flemish Italy England England England Dutch Italy England Germany Dutch England France Italy Germany Netherlands


1670 CE 1700 CE 1701 CE 1709 CE 1709 CE 1712 CE 1714 CE 1717 CE 1722 CE 1733 CE 1738 CE 1746 CE 1746 CE 1749 CE 1752 CE 1755 CE 1759 CE

Champagne Oral Contraception Seed drill Piano Coke fueled blast furnace for steel Steam engine for pumping water out of mines Thermometer Diving bell Fire extinguisher Flying shuttle Mechanized cotton spinning machine Lead champer process Industrialization of sulfuric acid production First vaccine for smallpox Lightning rod Artificial refrigeration machine Scientist discover solid state mercury


France Pre-Colonial America England Italy England England Germany England England England England England England England United States Scotland Russia


PALEO ENERGETIC

150


Paleo-Energetic Adjective Definition: A way of describing an innovation or technology that has been forgotten by history but whose purpose is still much needed. The paleo-energetics (n) represent a discipline for energetic transition. Specifically looking back into history, the paleoenergetics, hope to fight a collective amnesia around technology in the field of energy highlighting inventions that offered alternative modes for energy production or conservation that have been forgotten or deliberately set aside by history. Resurfacing these paleo-energetic ideas and inventions into the public domain and our commons is a way of highlighting that the alternatives exist in front of us, just waiting for our collective minds to change and see them Usage: In 2014, reading 1882 archives , Eric Boros discovered press prints that chronicle a newspaper printed with solar energy. A full solar promise at a time when coal is still expensive and oil is nonexistent on the market. This paleo-energetic invention remained in the shadows for many decades. Nowadays, a research team is even looking for these newspapers, obvious evidence of energetic transition prehistory era. Origin: Cedric Paleo and the team at Paléo-énergétique Paleo from Greek palaios ‘ancient.’ and Enegetic from the Greek ergon ‘work’ 151


T-head nail date 15th century locale or culture England type Hand-wrought material Iron name

description

Group of typical old nails with flat T-heads and flat shanks used in finish work. These were at first made entirely by hand. Later, a machine cut the flat shanks and the heads were formed by hand.


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Decorative nail head date 15th - 16th century locale or culture European type Hand-wrought material Iron photo The Metroplitan Museum of Art, New York name

description

Nail head with floral design.


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Nail date 15th - 16th century locale or culture European type Hand-wrought material Iron photo The Metroplitan Museum of Art, New York name

description

Iron nail with decorative head.


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Nail date 15th - 16th century locale or culture European type Hand-wrought material Iron photo The Metroplitan Museum of Art, New York name

description

Ornate nail head, overall dimension: 6-3/8 in.


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Nail head date 15th - 16th century locale or culture European type Hand-wrought material Iron photo The Metroplitan Museum of Art, New York name

description

Ornate shell nail head, overall dimension: 2 3/4 x 2 7/8 in


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Decorative nail with door knowcker and plate date 15 - 16th century locale or culture European type Hand-wrought material Iron photo The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York name

description

Early Renaissance decorative residential door knocker. Dimensions: Knocker, L: 8 1/2in.; H: 2 1/2in.; Plate, L: 10 1/2in.; W: 4 1/4in.; Nail, L: 3 3/4in.


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Nail date 16th century locale or culture England type Hand-wrought material Iron and bronze name

description

This nail is from the ship ‘Mary Rose’ built in 1509. Olde English Collyweston iijpenynaile.


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Intramedullary Nail date 16th century name

description

Bernardino de Sahagun, a 16th century anthropologist who traveled to Mexico with Hernando Cortes, recorded the first account of the use of an intramedullary device. De Sahagun witnessed Aztec physicians placing wooden sticks into the medullary canals of patients with long bone nonunions.


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Nails from the Santa Elena Spanish colony site on the Atlantic coast (15661587). Note the large nails and spikes on the left side of the photo (likely ship spikes)


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Coffin nail or coffin tack date 17th century locale or culture England type Hand-wrought, cut nail, wire nail material Iron name

description

Back in the mid 1700s, England made its coffin nails out of crude iron. These nails were used to hammer accessories, such as handles, onto the casket. In the United States, regular construction nails were used. However, it was believed that any nail removed from a coffin had magical powers and was automatically referred to as a coffin nail. It is not clear whether the coffins nails and tacks were distinct, but it seems probable since both were sometimes mentioned together as in [Patents (1769)] for ‘casting and tinning coffin nails and tacks’. However both seem to have been used to tack on either the lining or an outer covering of LEATHER or fabric, which was sometimes affixed to disguise a roughly made COFFIN. A magnificent example of the use of decorative tacks to hold and to pattern a VELVET covered outer case, is the coffin of the third Earl of Warre, ob. 1777. Nails were also used decoratively, as shown for example in the will of Elizabeth Hare of Stow Bardolph, who died in 1743 after requesting in her will that her COFFIN was ‘not to have a nail or any ornament that is not absolutely necessary. Coffin nails were also used, particularly in the earlier part of the period, to spell out on the coffin lid the name of the deceased and the date of burial. Nails were also used decoratively, as shown for example in the will of Elizabeth Hare of Stow Bardolph, who died in 1743 after requesting in her will that her COFFIN was ‘not to have a nail or any ornament that is not absolutely necessary. Coffin nails were also used, particularly in the earlier part of the period, to spell out on the coffin lid the name of the deceased and the date of burial.


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Nail date 17th century locale or culture East Midlands (European Region) type Hand-wrought material Lead and Iron photo North Lincolnshire Museum, England name

description

Nail head made of wrought iron, sheathed in lead, to retard corrosion; the stub of a square-section nail shank protrudes. Dimensions - diameter: 16mm, Height/ Length: 9.5mm, Weight: 6.27gms.


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Leather Great Chair date 1665–80 locale or culture Place Boston, Massachusetts material Brass Nails photo 17th-Century New England: Brown-Pearl Hall Gallery name

description

In seventeenth-century New England, the upholsterer’s craft was a luxury trade that, like silversmithing, was principally confined to Boston and, to a lesser extent, Salem. Miraculously, this “great chair” (a period term for armchair) retains both its original Russia leather upholstery secured with brass nails and its original upholstery foundation of linen webbing, linen sackcloth, and stuffing of spike grass (Distichlis spicata) harvested from the tidal salt marshes along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. (Early photographs show the chair upholstered with a nineteenth-century black oilcloth, which probably inadvertently enabled the preservation of the original materials.) The design of the chair calls for a large down-filled squab, or cushion. In keeping with its status as a luxury product, the chair was owned originally by Dr. Zerubbabel Endicott of Salem, Massachusetts, a well-known surgeon and son of John Endicott, who served as deputy governor and governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony at various times in the 1640s, 1650s, and 1660s.

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Copper nail date 18th century locale or culture North East Lincolnshire type Hand-wrought material Copper photo Portable Antiques Scheme (PAS) name

description

Copper alloy nails with cast rectangular section shank with a lightly bevelled rounded flat head, kinked at its midpoint and either terminating or broken at a slight expansion at the other end of the object. These are smaller than nails thought to have been used to attach copper plates to the keels of ships, examples of which have been reported from the vicinity; copper bottomed ships became common from the 1760s. The use of copper alloy nails to resist corrosion may have been common in nautical contexts.


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Title: Rose Head Nail Subject: It is the mid-18th century, and hammers ring across the West Midlands, striking hot sparks from rods of black iron. 50,000 men fan flames that burn white-hot, bringing lumps of ore to temperatures high enough scorch skin from bone and turn wood to ash. These smiths don’t forge swords and spears, the shoes for horses, or the wrought iron engines of war. They are nailers—specialized makers of pointed metal rods that hold the world together. Artisans of peace and construction of new homes. If each smith makes 2,000 nails per day, total production approaches 100,000,000 daily (Shwartz)—scores of them destined for the colonies, where they will tack shingles to new houses, shoes to draft animals, and a myriad of other chunks of New England hardwood in place for years to come. Some nails even made it to Harvard, where they held together the hallowed halls of the, now gone, Old College. Nails were—and are—an integral part of human construction, allowing colonists to erect buildings more swiftly and with less carpentry-related skill than homes built with earlier mortise-and-tenon construction. Nevertheless, the collective time and work required to sustain the colonies’ demand for nails is staggering—particularly when we imagine smiths pounding each nail into its four-sided tapered-rod shape individually, by hand, then separately “heading” each with another disk of forged metal (Nelson). Some nails we call “rose heads” for their four-faceted heads, reminiscent of the blooming petals of a rose—a traditionally feminine motif that is surprisingly fitting, when we consider accounts of master smiths in the Midlands region: “I observed one, or more females…. wielding the hammer with all the grace of their sex. The beauties of their face were rather eclipsed by the smut of the anvil; …. Struck with the novelty, I inquired, “Whether the ladies in this country shod horses?” but was answered, with a smile, “They are nailers” (Shwartz). Creator: Jack Smith Source: Works Cited Markewitz, Darrell. “Hammered Out Bits.” ‘Proof’ (??) of Female Blacksmiths. N.p., 12 Jan. 2011. Web. 03 May 2017. <http://warehamforgeblog.blogspot. com/2011/01/proof-of-female-blacksmiths.html>. Nelson, Lee H. “Nail Chronology.” (n.d.): n. pag. Umwblogs.org. Web. 3 May 2017. <http:// files.umwblogs.org/blogs.dir/7608/files/nail_chronology.pdf>. Schwarz, Kenneth. “The Nail Market During the Colonial Period.” Making History. N.p., 28 June 2011. Web. 03 May 2017. <http://makinghistorynow.com/2011/06/the-nail-marketduring-the-colonial-period/>.


date

Rose head nail 18th century locale or culture Essex type Hand-wrought material Copper alloy photo Portable Antiques Scheme (PAS) name

description

A complete copper alloy nail dating to the Post-Medieval period. The nail has a square crosssection and has a with a sub-square or ‘rose’ head, consisting of a central square facet with four triangular facets extending from each side. The nail has a square-sectioned shaft, which is approximately the same width the entire length, tapering slightly towards the point. The point widens slightly at the bottom of the object to form a flattened ‘chisel’ or ‘spatulate’ shaped end. This type of nail was commonly used to fix planking or decking on wooden ships and was used over a fairly long time span from the medieval to post-medieval. The nail measures 71.0 mm in length, 13.7 mm wide, 9.1 mm thick (shaft) and weighs 8.6 g. 179


Copper alloy nail date 18th century locale or culture Essex type Hand-wrought material Copper alloy photo North Lincolnshire Museum, Portable Antiques Scheme name

description

Copper alloy, with the same square section as would be found on a hand made iron nail, with sub-rectangular head. Shank bent. Post-Medieval, 1700-1800. Length (as found): 55mm, Width/Thickness (shank): 4mm, Width (head): 9.4mm, Weight: 8.41gms.


181


The Nail Violin The German violinist Johann Wilde invented the nail violin around 1740. The instrument consists of a wooden soundbox (circular or semicircular) and metal nails. Sound is produced by drawing a violin bow across the nails, creating belllike tones. While it has limited capabilities, the instrument was popular in the eighteenth century and other makers built similar instruments in various forms. The body of this example is a half circle, with a blackened wooden frame and a varnished wooden soundboard. Technical description: A C-shaped open arc of blackened, varnished wood with a varnished spruce “soundboard” attached over one side with 14 brass nails; between the edge of the soundboard and the outer circumference of the arc, 30 pins are driven to graduated heights, their flattened tops protected by a semicircular brass wire; a printed paper label glued around the side of the arc identifies each pin with a pitch letter and solfège syllable; natural pitches have straight vertical steel pins, accidental pins are brass, driven at a slight outward angle and bent inward just below the flattened tops. Played with a bow (missing). Range (not confirmed) C-F. (Linda Moot, 1978) Refernce: The Gallery in Forgotten Instruments: Exhibition Catalogue of the Katonah Gallery. Exhibition catalogue., Katonah, New York, 1981, pg. 54, ill. Catalogue of the Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments: Europe. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1904, vol. I, pg. 223. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Catalogue of the Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments of All Nations: I. Europe, Galleries 25 and 26, Central Cases of Galleries 27 and 28. Catalogue., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1902, vol. 13, pg. 223.


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Copper alloy nail date 18th century locale or culture Essex type Hand-wrought material Copper alloy photo North Lincolnshire Museum Portable Antiques Scheme (PAS) name

description

Copper alloy nail. Cast nail with a shank of square section and a slightly expanded square head with four low facets. Bent. Copper alloy nails might be used in locations where either corrosion was to be avoided or where the accidental striking of sparks might be dangerous, as in a flour mill. Suggested date: Post-Medieval, 1800-1900. Length (as found): 50.3mm, Width/Thickness (shank): 3mm, Weight: 3.95gms


185


date type material name

Wooden peg or treenail or trunnel or trennel 18th century (c. 1700) Hand and machine made Hardwood

description

A cylindrical pin of hardwood used in fastening timbers together especially where materals are exposed to water action. Post and beam construction (1700 - est. in North America): (timber framing) uses horizontal and vertical timbers that are connected (joined) using mortise and tenon joints pinned with wood pegs (treenails). Timber frame construction initially used hand hewn beams, later manually or mechanically sawn beams cut by a pit saw. Later timber frame beams were sawn in mills using circular saws. Timber framing using post and beam construction with mortise and tenon joint connections was used in Europe for at least 500 years before it was first employed in North America.


In this photo you can see the round sawn-off peg nail that secured the tenon of the lower vertical post into the mortise that had been cut into the horizontal beam. A cylindrical nail of hardwood used in fastening timbers together especially where materals are exposed to water action. references

(Barry Hillman-Crouch) https://inspectapedia.com/interiors/Nails_Hardware_Age.php

187


Galvanized nail date 1750 locale or culture Italian type Hand-wrought, cut nails treated for resistance to corrosion material Iron, copper name

description

treated for resistance to corrosion and/or weather exposure. Galvanized nails resist rust, and you should use them whenever you are building a project that will be exposed to the elements. Aluminum nails are rustproof but must be thicker to prevent them from bending As nails made of iron or steel are prone to corrosion, there was a need for some sort of coating to prevent rust. There are various grades of steel that can get corroded, when exposed to natural elements. The method of galvanization was invented by an Italian called Luigi Galvani (1737-98). This method involves coating the surface of iron or steel with zinc. Earlier, the nails were dipped in molten zinc or were coated with a galvanic paint. There are three types of galvanization: electro-galvanization, mechanical galvanization, and hot-dip galvanization. Nowadays, hot-dip galvanization is mostly used, so as to ensure protection to iron and steel surfaces from corrosion.


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ENNUIPOCALYPSE

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En·nui·poc·a·lypse noun Slang: Slowpocalypse Definition: While media often depicts the apocalypse as a sudden and dramatic event, the Ennuipocalypse, or Slowpocalypse (slang) offers the concept of a doomsday that occurs at an excruciatingly slow day to day time scale. Slow Ennuipocalypse, may occur in a geologic blink of an eye, but for the Homo Sapiens in urban/suburban settings who are often disconnected from the natural cycles— it is painfully boring. As a result of the perceived slow pace of the apocalypse or Slow Ennuipocalypse those who live through it feel a compulsion to distract themselves with ever faster technology, media and economic systems— all of which feed back into a disconnect from the pace of the natural systems we need to survive. Usage: Edgar escaped into his instagram account to distract himself from the news reports about the epic California drought that he had been listening to for four years straight. Origin: Mike Arcega and Field Study #007 Participants, August 2015. Derived from: Slow: Old English had slawian “intransitive” Ennui: To bore, Old French enui “annoyance, bore” 191


INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 1760PRESENT


The industrial revolution caps off the renaissance and carries us forward to a closer and more recognizable time. During this period mechanistic devices and chemical processes make their way into society’s everyday function, and in relation to the life of the nail it, is no different. Machine cut nails become common place and with stark advances in metallurgy they are more varying and abundant than ever. They hold the tracks and bare the weight of locomotion as it carries trains of raw materials across vast swaths of land previously untraversable, and the clean cut nails we know today emerge bringing uniform fine finishes to carpentry, masonry, general construction in a way not seen before. The cut-nail process which makes all of this possible was patented in 1795 in America by Jacob Perkins and in England by Joseph Dyer, whose factory was in Birmingham. The process was designed to cut nails from sheets of iron, while making sure that the fibers of the iron travelled consistently down the nails. The Birmingham industry expanded in the following decades and reached its apogee in the 1860s, after which it steadily declined until the outbreak of World War I, as a consequence of competition from wire nails.

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INVENTIONS 1765 CE Improved steam engine w/ separate condenser 1767 CE Carbonated water 1770 CE Weighing scale design 1775 CE First battle submarine 1776 CE Submarine 1761 CE Marine chronometer 1765 CE Steam engine 1767 CE Carbonated water 1774 CE Chlorine 1775 CE Waterframe invented 1776 CE Submarine 1783 CE First steamboat 1783 CE First manned hot air baloon 1784 CE Safety lock 1785 CE Electrolysis technique invented (for chemicals, not hair) 1785 CE Power loom 1786 CE Threshing machine 1789 CE Guillotine 1790 CE Sewing machine 1791 CE Semaphore telegraphe 1794 CE Ball bearings


England

England

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1794 CE 1796 CE 1797 CE 1797 CE 1799 CE 1800 CE 1800 CE 1803 CE 1803 CE 1804 CE 1804 CE 1804 CE 1810 CE 1804 CE 1804 CE 1805 CE 1806 CE 1807 CE 1807 CE 1810 1812 1814 1814 1815 1816 1816

CE CE CE CE CE CE CE

Cotton gin Lithography printing Interchangeable parts (for muskets) Plywood First paper machine Jacquard loom Early battery - voltaic pile Steam-powered pumping station Spray gun Morphine discovered Steam locomotive First modern general anesthetic Tin can Gas lighting Railways Amphibious vehicle Coffee pot with sieve Steamboat First automobile powered by internal combustion Canning process for food Safety lamp Plough Spectroscope Miner’s lamp Stethoscope First working electic telegraph


United States

France Italy United States Germany

United States

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1816 CE 1817 CE 1817 CE 1818 CE 1818 CE 1819 CE 1820 CE 1822 CE 1822 CE 1823 CE 1823 CE 1825 CE 1825 CE 1826 CE 1826 CE 1827 CE 1828 CE 1828 CE 1829 CE 1829 CE 1830 CE 1830 CE 1831 CE 1833 CE 1834 CE

Stirling heat engine Erie Canal Velocipede (proto-bicycle) Profile lathe (for woodworking) Tunneling shield Soda fountain Magnetic needle deflected with an electrified wire Pattern-tracing lathe Heliography - first photographic process Mackintosh raincoat Lighter First rail line Electromagnet Friction matches Photography Microphone Hot blast process Reaping machine Braille printing Compound air compressor Lawn mower Electromagnetic motor Reaper Sewing machine Threshing machine


United States Germany

United States Scotland England France

England

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1834 CE Refrigerator (really an ether ice machine) 1834 CE Corn planter 1834 CE First practical electric motor eye-pointed needle sewing machine (not patinated) 1835 CE Wrench 1835 CE Morse code 1836 CE Revolver gun 1835 CE Self-adhesive postage stamp 1837 CE Charging paid-postage by weight 1837 CE Power tools 1837 CE Morse telegraph 1837 CE Five-needle telegraph 1839 CE Vulcanized rubber (patent 1844) 1839 CE Steam shovel 1839 CE Steam hammer 1839 CE Platform scales 1839 CE Daguerreotype photography 1840 CE Collapsible metal squeeze tube 1841 CE Stapler 1841 CE Reaping machine 1842 CE Ether anesthesia 1842 CE First fuel cell 1842 CE Superphosphate (first man-made CE fertilizer) 1843 CE Facsimile machine


) Russia United States United States England England United States England United States

France

United States England

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1844 CE First US telegraph line installed message sent 1845 CE Mercerized cotton 1846 CE Modern Portland cement 1847 CE Cylinder printing press 1847 CE Antiseptic 1849 CE Nitroglycerin 1849 CE Safety pin 1850 CE Repeating rifle 1851 CE Stinkpot (exposive device) 1852 CE First machine guns 1852 CE Airship 1853 CE Reinforced concrete 1854 CE Glider 1855 CE Rayon 1855 CE Bunsen burner 1855 CE First practical method for color photography 1855 CE Bessemer process for making steel 1856 CE Pasteurization 1856 CE Ice-making machine 1856 CE Mauveine, first synthetic dye 1857 CE Pullman sleeping car (for train travel) 1857 CE Passenger elevator & safety breaking system 1858 CE Washing machine 1858 CE Burglar alarm


United States

England United States United States France

Germany France Australia

United States

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1859 CE Lead acid battery (first rechargeable battery) 1859 CE Oil well 1860 CE Repeating rifle (the Winchester) 1860 CE Carbon fibers 1860 CE Bicycles (with pedals) 1861 CE Yale lock / cylinder lock 1862 CE Gatling gun 1862 CE Celluloid: the first man-made plastic, (known as parkesine) 1862 CE TNT developed 1863 CE Rollerskates 1863 CE Oil pipeline 1864 CE Web offset printing 1865 CE Siemens-Martin process for steel 1865 CE “Experiments on Plant Hybridization” Published 1865 CE Tin can with key opener 1866 CE Barbed wire 1867 CE Dynamite invented 1867 CE Typewriter 1867 CE Air brakes 1868 CE Tungsten steel 1868 CE Traffic light 1868 CE Pneumatic subway 1870 CE Mail-order catalogue 1872 CE Stainless steel invented


United States France

Sweden

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1873 CE 1873 CE 1874 CE 1874 CE 1874 CE 1874 CE 1874 CE 1875 CE 1875 CE 1875 CE 1876 CE 1877 CE 1877 CE 1878 CE 1879 CE 1880 CE 1880 CE 1880 CE

DDT Synthesized First commercial electric generator Shoe welt stitcher First metal detector Taming of the West, end of cowboys Typewriter Structural steel bridge Electric dental drill Mimeograph (makes duplicate copies of documents) Telephone Internal combustion engine Moving pictures Cylindrical phonograph & first sound recording First practical rebreather Incandescent lightbulb Toilet paper Hearing aid Seismograph


Austria

207


IHLAPNAPAN

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Definition: An understanding that two seemingly disparate groups are perhaps intimately tied to each other in a way that is mutually binding for both parties’ survival. A state of awareness in a time of great cultural rift that, whether we like it or not, we are wedded to the other side, as they are to us, and the feeling of not not knowing how to move forward with that understanding. Usage: Our states currently feel very separated but we are ihlapnapan. Origin: 100 Days Action, 2017 Derived from: Apnapan: Hindi: kin, family or kinship but is a much more jovial and inclusive sense that we have in English)

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Type A nail date c. 1790 - 1820 locale or culture America type Machine-cut material Iron name

description

1790-1810. A period characterised by machine-cut Type A nails, the nail plate being reversed under the cutter. Some heads are stamped but mostly hand hammered. Angle or L-headed nails appear and are used in floors and clapboards. Between the 1790s and the early 1800s, various machines were invented in the United States for making nails from bars of iron. The earliest machines sheared nails off the iron bar like a guillotine. The taper of the shank was produced by wiggling the bar from side to side with every stroke. These are known as type A cut nails. At first, the heads were typically made by hand as before, but soon separate mechanical nail heading machines were developed that pounded a head on the end of each nail. This type of nail was made until the 1820s. reference

http://www.dowsingarchaeology.org.uk/Ironwork/Chapter%207/7.Nails3.htm#f710 http://www.uvm.edu/histpres/203/nails.html


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Railroad spike date 18th century material Cast Iron name

description

A spike is a large nail; usually over 4 in long. The spike is one of the most widely recognized pieces of railroad equipment. The earliest spikes were simply crude nails and within today’s modern industry the most common type has been in regular use since the early 1830s (when used in conjunction with wooden ties). During the industry’s early years, however, developing today’s railroad spike took some time since there was no established practices in regards to either rail fastening systems or much of anything else related to the operation of trains. The earliest companies such as the Baltimore & Ohio, Camden & Amboy, Mohawk & Hudson, and Delaware & Hudson Canal Company paved the way in setting these future precedents.


Example of modern steel spike

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Railroad spikes Old Jezreel Valley Railway (part of the Hejzas railway, Found near Kfar Baruch, Israel


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date material photo name

Cut nail 18th century, late 1700s Iron and bronze Image is antique reproduction

description

a common construction wire nail with a disk-shaped head that is typically 3 to 4 times the diameter of the shank: common nails have larger shanks than box nails of the same size as machine-made square nails. Now used for masonry and historical reproduction or restoration. These nails were known as cut nails or square nails because of their roughly rectangular cross section. Machine-Cut Nails: The first machined nails were flat and headless. From 1811 these were produced from rolled sections of plate iron, cut into strips of the same width as the length of the nail. The strip was then placed under a powerful guillotine which cut off a single nail on an angle. Then the sheet was turned over and the next was cut. As a result these nails taper to a point on two sides only, producing a square point and are easily distinguished from earlier cut nails. Prior to the American Revolution, England was the main and largest manufacturer of the nail in the world. Thomas Jefferson was among the first to purchase the newly invented nail-cutting machine in 1796 and produced nails for sale.


217


French nail, wire nail date c. 1830 locale or culture France type Wire name

description

Wire nails are formed from wire. Usually coils of wire are drawn through a series of dies to reach a specific diameter, then cut into short rods that are then formed into nails. The nail tip is usually cut by a blade; the head is formed by reshaping the other end of the rod under high pressure. Other dies are used to cut grooves and ridges. Wire nails were also known as “French nails” for their country of origin. The first wire-nail machine was patented in 1811 in France by James White, but it was never carried into effect. There were many more subsequent inventions in North American and Europe. A wire nail, is cut off from a spool of steel wire, then stamped into the shape of the nail. Wire nails all have round shafts. Before wire nails became the standard, nails came in a rectangular wedge shape. They were uncommon outside France until c.1855 when machines were invented to make a complete ‘French nail’ automatically. However it is not until about 1890 that wire nails outnumbered cut nails in production volume and variety. By 1886, 10 percent of the nails produced in the United States were made of soft steel wire. Within six years, more steel-wire nails were being produced than iron-cut nails. By 1913, 90 percent were wire nails. Cut nails are still made today, however, with the type B method. The wire nails, which dominate the market today date from the late 19th century, although cut nails remained the principal form used until the 1930s, and are still common. In the 1850’s several manufactures were established in New York which made wire nails. These machines were most likely imported from France. The earliest wire nails were not made for construction but for the manufacture of pocket book frames and cigar boxes. It was not until after the American War Between the States that wire nails began to gain acceptance in construction. Even through the 1890’s many builders preferred using cut nails because of their holding power. It was well into the twentieth century before wire nails became the dominate type and only then because they were so much cheaper.


Image of contemporary (21st Century) wire nails

219


Masonry nail date 1853 type Cut name

description

Masonry nails are specially hardened to drive into mason or concrete. They have a square cross-section and are tapered from the head to the tip. The shank comes round, flat, fluted or square. In order to drive a nail into cement or stone, masonry nails also have a thicker shank. Some have fluted or grooved shanks to help them penetrate the hardest of surfaces. To install masonry nails you’ll need a heavier hammer if not a power driver.


221


Type B nail date 19th century type Cut nail material Iron, steel name

description

Type B nails have both burrs on the same side because the metal was flipped for each stroke. This kind of evidence can be used to establish the approximate period of construction or alteration of a building. Type B cut nails were the most common through most of the greater part of the Nineteenth Century.


223


L-shaped date 19th century type Cut material Iron and bronze name

description

Very tiny nails, used especially for trim and moldings, were made with a single cut, resulting in an “L-shaped” nail. Here are examples of small cut nails from the early 1800s.


225


Stamped square nail date 19th century - contemporary type Hand-wrought, cut nail and wire nail material Iron name

description

During the 1800s, cut nails have tapered rectangular shafts and rectangular heads. At the end of the 18th century hand-forged wrought iron nails began to be superseded by machine-stamped nails pressed out of sheets of wrought iron. Known as ‘square cut nails’, these are easy to identify as they have smooth shanks and a pronounced burr along two edges from the die. references

http://www.dowsingarchaeology.org.uk/Ironwork/Chapter%207/7.Nails2.htm


227


Pair of sabot date Around 19th Century locale or culture France (Basque) type Wire material Wood covered in leather with brass nails, and steel nails dimensions 13.7 x 13.1 x 30 cm (5 3/8 x 5 3/16 x 11 13/16 in.) photo The Elizabeth Day McCormick Collection Accension Number 43.1759a-b Not On View Europe, Textiles, and Fashion Arts Collections Classification: Costumes name

description

Wood shoe with brass nail at end; dark brown leather vamp and quarters, and steel nails in band and clusters along border; latchets cross over vamp throat and nailed at border. Row of steel pieces on bottom.


229


Wire brads, floor brads, or oval brad date Mid 19th century (1850s - present) type Wire name

description

In Europe in the 1850s, steel wire was made into tiny nails known as “brads,” with only a very small widened head. These continue to be used to attach small moldings and trim. Used for household jobs requiring small fasteners where heads will be concealed. With thin shanks and small nail heads, these nails are used for trim and other small wood details. Brads are the thinnest of the three and best for situations where not splitting a piece of wood when you are driving a nail into it is your primary concern. They are used on picture frames, paneling, and narrow trim. A casing nail, the largest of the three, is used when trim requires extra support as with window frames and casings around door frames.


231


Casing nails date 1860 type Cut and wire name

description

A casing nail is similar to a finishing nail, but larger with a slightly thicker shaft and a cone-shaped head. The nail head of a casing nail is tapered and may be set flush or countersunk beneath the wood surface so the hole can be filled and finished. It is often used in exterior applications, such as for installing exterior trim boards, window frames, and for nailing door frames and trim, case molding or wherever trim requires additional strength.


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date locale or culture photo name

Ceremonial Armors for Man (Dingjia) and Horse 18th century Chinese The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

desciption

The man’s armor, known as dingjia (armor with nails), is a very elaborate example of the military costume worn at the imperial court by high-ranking officials in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It consists of a jacket with sleeves and an ankle-length skirt constructed of narrow overlapping plates riveted inside the fabric layers with the securing nail or rivet heads visible on the outside. Some of these plates, of brightly polished steel, are exposed on the arms and skirt. Although not intended for use in battle, the jacket is reinforced further with large shoulder pieces, panels under the arms, and a small panel of similar construction that covers the lower abdomen. This fashion thus combines the warrior’s practical but usually plain armor and the ceremonial robes often worn over it. This example is embroidered with gold and colored silk thread, in traditional designs of dragons and waves. The delicately engraved and gilt steel plates at the shoulders repeat these motifs. The helmet is surmounted by a crest of sable tails, coral, and kingfisher feathers mounted with cloisonné enamels. The horse armor has no internal plates but only the rivet heads to give the outward appearance of armor.


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name

Woman in the Rain at Midnight Driving a Nail into a Tree to Invoke Evil on Her Unfaithful Lover artist Totoya Hokkei (Japanese, 1780–1850) date 19th Century Edo period (1615–1868) locale or culture Japan type Prints dimensions 8 3/16 x 5 3/8 in. (20.8 x 13.7 cm) description

Part of an album of woodblock prints (surimono); ink on paper.


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BLITHENCILE

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Definition: 1. a designation of ones mental position in remaining optimistic for the resiliency of Mother Earth 2. a psychological state of cheerful acceptance Usage:: 1.Having knowledge of mother natures resiliency to endure man kinds presents provides me solace in blithencile. 3. I can live in blithencile by understanding how anthropocentric behaviors, past and present, impact the environment during my existence in time. Origin: David B. Oddo, Texas, 2015. Portmanteau derived from blitheful – to be cheerful and reconcile – to bring to submission or acceptance. 239


The Machine Age 1880-1945


A machine capable of incorporating a simple head was introduced in the 1840s and by the late 1860s nails had begun to be stamped with several being produced simultaneously. The slitting mill had been introduced to England in 1590, which simplified the production of nail rods. But the first successful efforts to mechanise nail-making from bars of wrought iron occurred between 1790 and 1820, initially in the United States and England, where machines were invented to automate and accelerate the process. In Sweden Christopher Polhem produced a nail cutting machine in the early 1700s. These nails were known as ‘cut’ or ‘square’ nails because of their roughly rectangular cross-section. Cut nails were a major factor in the increase in balloon framing that began in the 1830s, which marked the decline of timber shells with wooden joints. Though still used for historical renovations and for heavy-duty applications, such as attaching boards to masonry walls, cut nails are today far less common than wire nails. During the late 1800’s nails of new materials such as alluminium and more refined steel allowed for larger production of nails with more defined use cases in everything from finishings to general construction.

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INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Toward the end of the 19th century machines become ubiquitous as a means of production. Electricity begins to make its way into every facet of life as well as death. Reinforced by ever stronger steal structures, buildings grow toward the sky, and world population is about to embark on a parallel path of exponential growth. This critical time in human history come just after we consciously closed the door of extinction on the Great Auk in 1844, fully acknowledging and moving forward with our ongoing contribution to irreversible change of the environment and climate. Along with us, in our fortuitous endeavor, the nail multiplies at likened pace.


INVENTIONS 1881 CE 1881 CE 1882 CE 1884 CE 1884 CE 1884 CE 1884 CE 1884 CE 1884 CE 1885 CE 1885 CE 1885 CE 1885 CE 1885 CE 1886 CE 1886 CE 1887 CE 1887 CE 1887 CE 1887 CE 1888 CE 1888 CE

Carbon arc welding Roll film Electric fan First fully automatic machine fan Poudre B - smokeless gunpowder for firearms Thrill ride / rollercoaster Modern steam turbine Closed-core high-efficiency transformer Parallel power distribution Motorcycle Modern bicycle First gasoline-powered automobile Skyscraper (10 story) / Steel girder Oil palm introduced to Malaysia Coca-Cola Zinc-carbon battery Radar Platter record Contact lenses Drinking straw Kodak camera Ballpoint pen


France United States

Germany United States Malaysia United States

Germany United States

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1888 CE 1889 CE 1890 CE 1890 CE 1891 CE 1892 CE 1892 CE 1892 CE 1893 CE 1893 CE 1895 CE 1895 CE 1897 CE 1898 CE 1898 CE

Pneumatic tire (practical) Dishwasher Electric Chair First aircraft (Ader Éole) Escalator Vacuum flask Gasoline-powered car Cinematograph Zipper First non-metal bullet-proof vest (made of woven silk) Diesel engine Radiograph (X-rays) Player piano Submarine (safer, less failures) Polyethylene synthesized - most common plastic


Scotland United States France

France

245


BLISSONANCE

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Blis-so-nance Noun Definition: 1. When an otherwise Blissful experience in nature is wedded to or disrupted by the recognition that: One is having an adverse impact on that place they are enjoying by being there. The understanding of how the place will be negatively affected in the near future by: urbanization, climate change or other disrupting factors. 2. The blissful short term experience of sunny, dry, pleasant weather that can accompany severe drought or other longterm climate changes— for which, the experiencer, has long term concerns and which portends doom for all living creatures that depend on water in that area. In this context Blissonace can be used synonymously with Psychic Corpus Dissonance or Schadenfebruary. Sometimes termed Blissodissonance (bliss.o.diss. onace) Origin: Stiv Wilson, and all participants in Field Study #004: Oceans, California, 2015, Portmanteau of bliss and dissonance 247


Common nail, common wire nail or construction nail date 19th Century type Machine-cut material Iron, bronze, copper, zinc name

description

A common construction wire nail with a smooth round shank, a flat disk-shaped head that is typically 3 to 4 times the diameter of the straight shank. Common nails have larger shank diameters than other nails, making them the strongest and stiffest type of nail. Common nails are general purpose nails that can be used where shear strength is needed, such as in framing and general construction. With a thick nail head, the nails drive easily into tough materials. Some examples include thin sheet metal, wood and thin aluminum. Use common nails on projects such as fences, roofs and decks. They are typically installed with a nail gun. They are available in a variety of finishes and sizes, ranging from 4 to 14 inches in length and 2d to 60d in size. The holding power of common nails drops by half within two days after being driven. After about a month the holding power will increase slightly as the wood fibers straighten out and grip the nail.

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With the rapid development of the Bessemer process for producing inexpensive soft steel during the 1880s, however, the popularity of using iron for nail making quickly waned. By 1886, 10 percent of the nails produced in the United States were made of soft steel wire. Within six years, more steel-wire nails were being produced than iron-cut nails. By 1913, 90 percent were wire nails. Cut nails are still made today, however, with the type B method. These are commonly used for fastening hardwood flooring and for various other specialty uses. 250


251


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Tack, thumb tack, tintack or drawing pin date 1850-1900 locale or culture England type Hand-cut and machine cut material Copper alloy, steel, brass or other metal name

description

Photo: A copper alloy tack, lightly convex head with think pointed square shank likely from upholstery. The tack was invented as early as the mid 1800s, although the British term ‘drawing pin’ was in use sometime in the 1850s or 1860s, and patents exist for the item as early as the 1890s. Tacks are short, sharp pointed nails often used with carpet, fabric, paper, upholstery, shoe making and saddle manufacture. Typically cut from sheet steel. The triangular shape of the nail’s cross section gives greater grip and less tearing of materials such as cloth and leather compared to a wire nail. Brass is commonly used where corrosion is a concern, such as furniture where contact with human skin salts will cause corrosion on steel nails. Canoe tack for clinching or clenching nail. The nail point is tapered so that it can be turned back on itself using a clinching iron. It then bites back into the wood from the side opposite the nail’s head, forming a rivet-like fastening. Shoe tack are for clinching nail for clinching leather and sometimes wood, formerly used for handmade shoes. Carpet tack for carpet. Upholstery tacks, used to attach coverings to furniture, and the thumbtack are lightweight pins used to secure paper or cardboard. 253


Box nail date 1880s type Wire name

description

A box nail is similar to a common nail but has a slimmer shank and is used on lighter pieces of wood and on boxes. The smooth thin shank means they are less likely to cause splits in the wood; as they displace less wood, they also have less holding power, so are not generally used where structural strength is critical. One common use in houses is when installing clapboard siding, as their thin shanks will not cause cracks. Box nails are generally available in lengths from one inch to three and a half inches.


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Date nails date 1880s - 1950s locale or culture North America type Wire name

description

Date nails with oval head and raised numbers, shank is 2-1/2 inches long changing from oval to rectangle. Date nails were tagging devices utilized by railroads to visually identify the age of a railroad tie. Octave Chanute, railroad and aviation pioneer, is credited with the idea for using date nails as a way of tracking the life of railroad ties. Different railroads used different sized nails with either alpha or numerical markings. An example would be a Southern Pacific Railroad nail with the marking “01” stamped on the head of the nail. The “01” would identify the nail as being hammered into a railroad tie in the year 1901. Date nail use has dropped dramatically since the mid-20th century and the advent of more modern maintenance of way equipment. Date nails on American railroads were phased out in the 1970s. Ties are no longer marked in this manner in North American practice, and the nails themselves are now sought after by railroadiana collectors. The Southern Railway never made use of date nails. Date nails are also found on utility poles, sometimes in conjunction with a nail showing the height of the pole in feet. The types of nails may have distinguishing characteristics, such as the date nail having raised digits and the “height nail” having incised digits. Common place in the late-19th century through the mid-20th century, Date Nails were driven into railroad ties, utility poles, bridge timbers, and other wooden structures for record keeping purposes. Today, Date Nails are highly sought after artifacts by Railroadiana collectors. The oldest known Date Nail used in the U.S. is a “97” (1897) and was used on the Mississippi River & Bonne Terre Railroad. It wasn’t until 1899 that major railroads, such as The Great Northern Railway, began using nails to date crossties.


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Electric Chair date 1890 name

description

The electric chair was invented by employees at Thomas Alva Edison’s works at West Orange, New Jersey in the late 1880s. The inventor’s involvement has embarrassed many of his biographers and an entry for ‘electric chair’ in their indexes is a rarity. Edison wanted to see capital punishment abolished altogether in the US, but meantime he thought electrocution would be quicker and less painful than hanging. A commission organised by the governor of New York State agreed with him and it was the Edison chair that was used in 1890 to end the life of a street pedlar called William Kemmler, a German-American who had killed the woman he lived with in a drunken rage. reference

Cavendish, R. (2015, October). The First Execution By Electric Chair. History Today. https:// www.historytoday.com/archive/first-execution-electric-chair


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Aluminum nail date 1890 locale or culture Europe type Wire cut material Aluminum name

description

Aluminum nails resist rust even better than rust-resistant finishes. They are used most frequently on aluminum siding or screening. A pure form of aluminum metal was first extracted from ore in 1825 by Danish chemist Hans-Christian. Techniques to produce aluminum in ways modestly cost-effective emerged in 1889. This lightweight, 100 percent-recyclable metal has since become a foundational to engineering and construction. In World Wars I and II, aluminium was a crucial strategic resource for aviation. World production of the metal grew from 6,800 metric tons in 1900 to 2,810,000 metric tons in 1954, when aluminium became the most produced non-ferrous metal, surpassing copper.


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Pair of knob sandals date 19th century locale or culture Zanzibar, possibly, East Africa type Wire cut material Wood with brass nails dimensions 8.3 x 9.2 x 27.9 cm photo The Elizabeth Day McCormick Collection Accession Number 43.1762a-b Africa and Oceania Collections Textiles and Fashion Arts name


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Siberian bear hunting suit, 19th century


Lord High Executioner Of The State Of Rewah, 19th century


Hackle (Hetchel) Flax comb, iron and oak Copp Family Connecticut, Stonington c. 1850 - 1890 National Museum of American History, Gift of John Brenton Copp


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“The tooling is quite simple, the flat square work surface is used to draw a point and taper a shank on the nail, the upright rectangular tool in the left foreground is a form of “hardie” or cutting tool- the smith cuts most of the way through the nail, the dome-shaped section of the cross bar supports the nail upright so that the head can be fashioned, and finally the piece in the right foreground is a “rocker” which, when struck with the hammer, ejects the nail from the heading tool. While this is an ancient technology, it survived in some cultures well into the twentieth century. Colonial Williamsburg Nailmaking Station, use courtesy Kenneth Schwartz, Blacksmith, Master of the Shop.


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Provenience: Maritime Congo Date Made: 19th - Early 20th Century CE Early Date: 1800 Late Date: 1933 Section: African Materials: Wood, brass, and metal Iconography: Male Height: 83.3 cm Width: 41 cm Depth: 38.5 cm Credit Line: Received from various sources, pre-1929 Other Number: AF5361 - Other Number


271


REFUVESCENCE

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Definition: 1) The almost miraculous moment of transition when compost is infused with fresh oxygen and turns from smelling rank to smelling sweet and full of life. This involves a sort tuning where the frequency of the matter itself changes, it is the edge of transition, like the rim of a glass. A recognition within it that this moment, which seems like magic, is the communal, cooperative, alchemical work of millions of individuals: the communal work of bacteria, worms, fungi and other organisms that are not not typically associated with magic. An acknowledgement that death, rot and decay are the necessary fodder for life, growth and beauty. 2) A collective moment of transformation when what seems mired, foul and utterly messed up in a society turns, as if by magic, into a progressive and uniting force. Where rotting structures and ideologies are turned or composted into fertile ground for new growth. 3) The agents of transformation within a rotting culture. Those who do the vital work of decomposing what needs to transform so that habitable futures may be possible 4) Psycho—geographic location where what has been foul transforms into that which is divine Usage: We felt a great werring that year as the crumbling social structures around us began to bring new possibilities for a sustainable understanding of growth and progress. Origin: Georgia Carbone, Alicia Escott, Zara Zimbardo, 2017 Ring (English) meaning both a circular band and a high pitched sound + Wer (Indo European root) meaning to turn or to bend. Placing the vocal emphasis on íng to reference a tuning fork. 273


20TH CENTURY


275

MACHINE AGE

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

At the turn of the century technological advancements begin to occur almost more rapidly than can be kept track of. Sailing around continents becomes an intolerable impediment and so canals are dredged from ocean to ocean. Tired of our station on the ground and in the seas, humans take to the skies with great fervor. Even the individuals ability to travel becomes democratized by the mass manufacturing of the automobile. The fuel of our new found mobility is the synthesized petrol biproduct, though the nail holds everything together a the moment of take off. It is riveted in the wings and fuselage of war planes, it braces the walls of the canals, the oil wells, the trenches for our new found forms of warfare. It enables through rapid fire pneumatic guns tbe expedient construction of the single family suburban home. The nails evolution during this period is rapid and inextricably linked to the human desire to reshape the world and extract from it what we can along the way.


INVENTIONS 1901 CE Motorized cleaner using suction (aka "vacuum cleaner") 1901 CE monoculture farming introduced 1901 CE Radio Waves wireless communication 1901 CE Double-edged safety razor 1902 CE Air conditioning 1903 CE First manually-controlled, fixed-wing, motorized aircraft 1903 CE First successful gas turbine 1903 CE Laminated glass 1904 CE Tractor 1907 CE First free flight of a rotary-wing aircraft 1907 CE Bakelite - first plastic made from synthesized components 1907 CE Vacuum tube 1908 CE Model T automobile 1909 CE Haber process - industrial production of ammonia 1909 CE First television broadcast 1911 CE Self-start automobile (as opposed to hand crank) 1911 CE Cloud chamber - the first particle detector


United States

United States United States

277


1913 1914 1914 1916

CE CE CE CE

1917 CE 1917 CE 1917 CE 1919 CE 1920 CE 1921 CE 1921 CE 1924 CE 1924 CE 1926 CE 1926 CE 1926 CE 1927 CE 1927 CE 1928 CE 1928 CE 1929 CE 1929 CE 1930 CE

Kaplan water turbine invented Panama canal British army introduces tanks Czochralski process - production of single-crystal silicon WWI - first modern war Crystall oscillator invented Mobile radio telephone Hydrofoil boat First commercial radio station KDKA Wirephoto (electronically transmitted photograph) Tetraethyl lead added to gasoline Death by gas chamber execution Teletype introduced Iron Maiden gasoline pump developed by Shell First liquid-fueled rocket Yagi-Uda Antenna Electric television First quartz clock invented Penicillin first observed First practical electronic television demonstrated Rivot used XFH Naval Fighter Prototype Frozen food CFC Freon


Panama

Finland Canada United States United States United States United States United States Japan

United States United States 279


1930 CE 1931 CE 1931 CE 1932 CE 1932 CE 1933 CE 1935 CE 1936 CE 1937 CE 1937 CE 1937 CE 1938 CE 1938 CE 1938 CE 1938 CE 1939 CE 1939 CE 1942 CE

Turbo-jet engine patent submitted Radio astronomy Electron microscope Mechanical calculator Defibrillator FM Radio patented Tape recorder dmeonstrated Bendable straw patented Computer Nylon Fishing line Chair lift Nylon Teflon The Z1 - First freely programmable computer Nuclear Fission discovered Digital computer (can store data) Walkie-Talkie Nuclear power // atomic reaction (produce first controlled, selfsustaining nuclear chain reaction)


England Germany

Germany United States United States United States United States

Canada

281


SPECIAGUA

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Definition: Part of the narrative of humanity has been the search for the “fountain of youth”, or everlasting life. Speciagua is the subtle unconscious loss of this search which has, historically, been so deeply ingrained in us— or a collective feeling for the first time that we might outlive the world we know— that the spring eternal which has been our planet, and home, may be uninhabitable to our species in a time frame that is comprehensible to us, this feeling can manifest in a desire not to live forever but to, sometimes greedily, enjoy the present time. Usage: At 75 seeing another species decline in his lifetime, Juan found a certain comfort in speciagua and a relief in his own mortality. Origin: Jack Sullivan, Santa Barbara Field Studies, Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, 2016

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circa 1920: Dr Johra Bey, a Muslim fakir, lying on a bed of nails.



Playground Pile Up, Fawn Rogers, plywood, miscellaneous nails, 2018


287

Violent Garden, Fawn Rogers, plywood, miscellaneous nails, 2017


Works in studio, Fawn Rogers, plywood, miscellaneous nails, 2016


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works in studio (detail), Fawn Rogers, plywood, miscellaneous nails, 2016



Violent Garden, Fawn Rogers, plywood, miscellaneous nails, 2017


293


The Whole Universe in a Minute, Fawn Rogers, ply wood, miscellaneous nails, 2018



Hand held bulk nailer pneumatic nail gun date 1907 locale or culture American type Wire cut nails used name

description

The first commercialized, fully portable nail gun was a hand-held bulk-fed nailer developed in 1907 in Robbinsdale, Minnesota. The machine has a small nail “hopper” that the user filled with .086 x 1-1/4-inch round-head nails. In use, the hopper was shaken so that one nail would randomly feed down the driving shoot. Then you would engage the nailer’s plunger using a mallet - much like the flooring staplers in use today. The mallet that was used had two faces on it: a raw hide face to hit the nailer plunger, and a steel face for the user to finish driving the nail if it didn’t get driven all the way in with the first shot. The nailer never gained great success in its intended purpose to install wood shingles, since in essence it would require three hands to work: one to hold the shingle in place, one to hold the nailer, and one to hit the nailer with the mallet.


297



Fawn Rogers working in studio with pneumatic coil roofing nailer

299


coil nails were invented in the

1980’s.

in this image fawn rogers using coil nail gun

2015.

There are two general ways mechanical nail drivers were developed. As a start, in 1862, Doig Manufacturing Company developed the first stationary machine that fed and drove bulk nails. These multiple headed nailing machines were used exclusively in industrial plants; they continued to develop and fulfill the need for mass production of pallets, crating and other wood products. 300


301


20th century phone pole with miscellaneous nails


Clout Nail, Naish Collection, 1946


name

description

Disentanglement Puzzle

Made in 1917 this disentanglement puzzle consists of two entangled bent nails that are to be separated. A green cardboard card with the puzzle gives instructions for solving it.


305


Photograph of a door full of nails artist Eileen Agar (1899–1991) date 1939 meduim Negative dimension 83 × 68 mm photo Tate Archive Collection name

description

Taken at Port-Cros, France.


307


name

First War Plane

description

Almost from the outset of successful human flight following the Wright brothers’ breakthrough flights in 1903, the application of this new technology for military purposes was discussed and speculated upon. Just as most recognized the airplane would change the world in general, many foresaw, with a fair degree of accuracy, that the airplane would have profound implications for warfare and military defense. The National Air and Space Museum famously has in its collection the original 1903 Wright Flyer, but the Museum also possesses the 1909 Wright Military Flyer, the world’s first military airplane. After bringing their design to a level of practicality in 1905, the Wright brothers set about finding a customer for their invention. An obvious choice was the U.S. Army, who had already been developing an aeronautical program with lighter-than-air vehicles. reference

Citation: Jakab, Peter. “The World’s First Military Airplane.” National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institute, 23 July 2009. http://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/worlds-first-military-airplane


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Collated framing nails date 1910 locale or culture America type Straight nails photo Contemporary 21st Century name

description

All framing nailers in the 15-degree group are wire-coil collated. This means that their nails are held together by two thin wire strips and slanted at a 15-degree angle. The nails themselves have a fully round head and the collation is circular in shape.


311


Double-ended nail date 1916 name

description

A rare type of nail with points on both ends and the “head” in the middle for joining boards together. Similar to a dowel nail but with a head on the shank.


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This nail soldier is known as the Wehrmann in Eisen, or “Iron Soldier” and it does not date from the days of chivalrous men battling on horseback, but the the more recent days of men in trenches battling with machine guns. The wooded base for the statue was commissioned in 1914 as a patriotic fundraiser for the war effort, and erected in Schwarzenbergplatz in 1915. As a kind of interactive art piece/ fundraiser, for a small donation, members of the public could help sheath the knight in nail head armor, one nail at a time. The funds raised from the estimated half million nails went to underwrite the costs of supporting the widows and orphans of WWI.

315


Drywall nail date c. 1918 locale or culture United States type Machine material Steel name

description

Drywall nails are used to fasten drywall or gypsum wallboard to wooden framing and not to cut the paper face. Drywall nails feature a ringed or barbed shank that affords greater holding power. Flat, slightly countersunk head permits driving just below the surface, forming a depression that can be covered with drywall joint compound or spackling. They are coated with phosphate to prevent rust.


317


Double-headed nail or duplex nail date 1917 locale or culture American (Kansas City, Missouri) name

description

A duplex or double-headed nail appears to have two heads—or one elongated one. The lower head rests against the surface of the wood it is nailed into, while the second head is designed so that the nails can be easily removed with a hammer or nail puller. Duplex nails are used for temporary structures, like scaffolding or concrete forms. Double-headed (duplex, formwork, shutter, scaffold) nail – used for temporary nailing; nails can easily pulled for later disassembly a common nail with a second head, allowing for easy extraction; often used for temporary work, such as concrete forms or wood scaffolding; sometimes called a “scaffold nail” Double-headed nails were once known as scaffolding nails because they were the nail of choice for easy-to-disassemble, temporary wood scaffolding. When wood scaffolding was replaced by metal, the names double-headed nail and duplex nail became the common terms. According to federal specifications, a double-headed nail must be made of steel wire with a bright finish, round smooth shank, flat heads and a diamond point. Double-headed nails are the only nails that have two heads, which is their most distinctive feature. Double-headed nails are often used for temporary projects because they can be easily removed with a standard hammer. In concrete pouring projects, doubleheaded nails are used to fasten wood forms while the concrete is poured. Once the concrete has hardened, the wood forms can be easily taken apart with a hammer, yanking the nails out by the protruding second head of each nail. The double-headed nails are reclaimed in a similar manner when wooden scaffolding projects are completed.


319


Fiber cement nail date 1930 name

description

A nail for installing fiber cement siding. Made from a composite material of cement reinforced with cellulose fibers. Cement coated nails hold more securely than common nails but wet wood will loosen the cement coating in a matter of days. Threaded or ring shank nails loose their holding power when subjected to sudden pressure (e.g. staircases) which can cause a thread to pop with each shock. Therefore a twist or spiral shank nail will have the best holding power.


321


DOUBLE-HEADED NAIL Application filed July 1, 1916. To all whom it may concern: Be it known that I, WILLIAM A. CoLLINcs, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of Kansas City, in the county of Jackson and State of Missouri, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Double- Headed Nails; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, and to the numerals of reference marked thereon, which form a part of this specification. In concrete construction work molds or forms constructed of lumber are used to receive and hold the liquid mass of concrete until the concrete sets or hardens. These forms are only temporary structures and the boards of which the forms are constructed are usually nailed together with ordinary nails, which are driven into the wood work with the heads of the nails hammered down into the wood, to prevent the forms from breaking apart. After the concrete has set sufliciently the forms are removed, but due to the fact that the heads of the nails are driven into the wood it is very difficult to remove the nails without damage being done to the forms, which frequently have to be broken and even smashed to pieces in their removal thus causing a considerable waste of material and loss of time. Reinforcing bands are also often used with ordinary nails to prevent the heads of the nails from being driven into the woodwork, but this practice has not proved practical in the construction of concrete forms. This invention relates to an improved type of nail having a double head, the lower or secondary head adapted to prevent the nail from being driven its full length into the woodwork, and the upper head affording a means for the removal of the nail without injury to the structure, thus permitting the re-use of the nail, and resulting further in a saving in materialas well as time. It is an object of this invention to construct a double headed nail adapted for use in the construction of wooden forms for concrete work, or other construction work adapted to be readily detached therefrom to permit the form to be removed or dismembered without injury thereto. The invention (in a preferred form) is illustrated in the drawings and hereinafter more fully described. Specification of Letters Patent. Patented om. re, 11ers Serial No. 107,022.In the drawings: Figure 1 is a fragmentary perspective View of a portion of a conventional concrete form, the members of which are secured together by nails embodying the principles of ‘my invention. turned over on its side and comprising side -members 1 and 2, connected together by a bottom member 3, which is secured to said side members by nails, each having a long straight body or shank 4, the lower end of which is pointed as designated by the numeral 5. Integrally formed on the upper end of said shank is a circular upper or main head 6, and also integrally formed at the upper end of the shank a short distance below the main head 6, is a lower or secondary head consisting of a flattened neck 7, having integral opposltely disposed ears or projections 8, projectingbeyond the periphery of the shank of the nail. When the double headed nail is used in the construction of a form for concrete shown in Fig. 1, or in any other structure the shank 4, is driven into the bottom member 3, and the side member 1, or side member 2, as the case may be, until the ears 8, contact the outer surface of the bottom member 3, which prevents the nail from further penetrating the form, thus leaving the upper end or main head of the nail projecting from the surface of the material into which the nail is driven. When it is desired to withdraw the nail the claw of a hammer or bar may be engaged on each side of the I flattened neck 7, and by forcing the claw beneath the main head 6, the nail may be pulled out of the form without injury to the form or to the nail. I am aware that the various details of construction may be varied through a wide range without In testimony whereof I have hereunto subscribed my name in the presence of two subscribing Witnesses. WILLIAM ARTHUR COLLINGS. Witnesses V GEO. HEIDENREICH.


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Roofing nail, convex head nail, nipple head, or springhead date 1935 locale or culture Global type Machine material Steel, galvanized name

description

An umbrella shaped head with a rubber gasket for fastening metal roofing, usually with a ring shank to fix by hammering into timber. These nails have heads that are disproportionately large compared to their shanks, helping them hold shingles or other roofing materials in place. Some roofing nails have a small (often plastic) disk, not unlike a washer, underneath the head. This increases the surface area of the material that the nail keeps in place. These have larger heads and are often used for nailing shingles, attaching asphalt and other roofing purposes. The thin material is held in place and prevented from tearing loose by the large head. Smaller varieties can be used to attach roofing felt. They are typically galvanized to prevent rust.


325


This Nkisi also known as N’kondi nail fetish figure served as doctor, judge, and priest. They are carved to capture the power of spirits. These figures are also used in Africa for protection, healing, and resolving disputes. The figures are often filled with powerful magical substances (bilongo) by priests (naganga) who tended it in a shrine and made its spirit powers available to individuals. The large cowrie shell held strong medicines that gave the sculpture its power. When used to make agreements, both sides swear an oath before the nkisi n’kondi and drive iron blades or nails into it to seal the oath. In this way the figure’s supernatural powers can be called upon to punish those who brake their oaths.


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Nkisi nkondi Power figure date 20th Century locale or culture Congo Peoples The Democratic Republic Of Congo material Bags, Glass, Iron Nails, Pigment, Wood name

description

Nkisi nkondi Figure used for healing, taking oaths or sealing agreements. Nails or blades were hammered into it to seal a vow, or to awaken the spirit’s power within to solve a problem or dispute. This Janus face represent youth versus old-age, or male-female symbolizing the circle of life. Janus figures were considered especially effective for their ability to anticipate danger from any direction. The materials used in the Nkisi are minerals collected from various places associated with the dead ancestors such as earth from their graves or riverbeds. White clay was also very important for it symbolic relationship with the dead, as well as their moral rightness and spiritual positivity. White contrasted with black. Red is symbolic of the life force (nyama). Janus-faced figures related to ritual, magical and religious efficacy. They were invoked, as well in times of distress, such as death of a leader, sickness, danger, hunger or infertility.


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MORBIQUE

330


Mor·bi·que Adjective Definition: 1. The morbid desire to travel to places to experience them before they are radically altered by climate change or other manmade changes. The morbidity of this desire or action is often exacerbated by the fact that the mode of transport required to reach these places often burns fossil fuels, thereby accelerating the destruction of the very place one desires to visit. 2. The desire to eat animals or wear animal products of rare, threatened or near to extinct species, for either the novelty and aesthetics of the animal products as well as the fact that these animals are becoming even rarer due to overconsumption by homo sapiens. Sometimes this desire is experienced by those who express an admiration for the very animals they want to possess or consume. Morbique can also refer to the wearing of gems and metals that are also rare, over mined. Origin: Field Study #009 Participants, July 2015. 331


ATOMIC AGE 1945PRESENT

From thesynchronous, pragmatic stratigraphic perspective, no marker is as distinct, or more globally theTrinity radioactive of nuclear weapons that began with the USthan army’s test infallout 1945.from Sincethe theuse early 1950s, memento of humankind’s darkest self-destructive impulses has settled onthis the Earth’s surface like icing sugar on a sponge cake. Plotted on a graph, the radioactive leaps up like an explosion. Zalasiewicz has taken to calling it the “bomb spike”.fallout


333

20TH CENTURY

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds. These were the words oppenheimer spoke, quoting the Bhagavad-Gita, as he watched the first atomic explosion rise into the sky. There may not be a more appropriate way to ring in the atomic age as the invention staved off imminant danger of gruesome world wide warfare but simultaneously leaving many with a sense of impending doom. The post war rebuilds would be some of humanitys most extensive efforts to date. The bisected world split between east, west, and assorted political ideologies, was geared toward production on both sides, human production, as we see with the generation labeled baby boomers, and building production as enabled by the invention of the gang nail used in mass afforaable housing projects across the world. The gunpowder once fueling the ground wars finds a new friend in the nail with the emergence of the ramset nail system, fastening more permanent structures across the newly teraformed landscapes.


INVENTIONS 1945 CE 1943 CE 1944 CE 1947 CE 1947 CE 1948 CE 1948 CE 1951 CE 1952 CE 1952 CE 1953 CE 1953 CE 1954 CE 1954 CE 1955 CE 1956 CE 1956 CE

Atomic bomb Modern ballpoint pen Monsanto manfucatures DDT Transistor Polaroid camera Electric guitar "Ride King" lawnmower invented US Census Bureau uses first commercial computer UNIVAC 1 Barcode invented Passenger jets Heart-lung machine (blood artificially circulated) First video tape recorder - helical scan recorder Tantalum introduced to miniaturize electronics Solar cell invented Nuclear powered submarine Optical fiber invented Video cassette recorder


Argentina

United States England England 335


KOYAANISQATSI

336


Ko.yaa.nis.katsi noun Definition: 1. Life out of balance. 2. Life of moral corruption and turmoil. 3. Crazy life. 4. Life in turmoil. 5. A state of life that calls for another way of living. Usage: forthcoming Origin: Hopi. According to Hopi Dictionary: Hopìikwa Lavàytutuveni, the prefix koyaanis means “corrupted” or “chaotic”, and the word qatsi means “life” or “existence”, literally translating koyaanisqatsi as “chaotic life”.

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1955: A fakir performs the bed of nails trick. Photo byPeter Purdy



Corrugated fasterner, wiggle nail date 1940 name

description

A corrugated shaped piece of metal driven into miter joints in some furniture.



Ramset Nail date 1948 name

description

Pins for powder-actuated nail guns have a plastic sleeve that correctly positions the pin in the barrel of the gun and creates a seal to control the firing force of the pin. These heavy-duty fasteners have round heads and resemble nails. They are designed for fastening material to concrete and thick structural metal.


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D-head date 1950 name

description

A common or box nail with part of the head removed such as when assembled into a “stick” for some pneumatic nail guns.


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Finish nail, also bullet head nail, lost-head nail date 1950 name

description

A wire nail that has a head only slightly larger than the shank; can be easily concealed by countersinking the nail slightly below the finished surface. A finish nail is used for finish work around window and door frames, trim, paneling or anywhere nails cannot show. They may also be referred to as trim nails. Some trim nails are pre-painted to match standard colors. Finish nails have a small head so they can be countersunk beneath the wood surface sothe hole can be filled and finished.


349


Shake or shingle nail date Modern name

description

Small headed nails to use for nailing shakes and shingles.


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Gang nail date 1955 material Steel name

description

A steel plate with a collection of spikes or nails projecting from one face. J. Calvin Jureit invented this nail in 1955. He served in the Navy, where he saw no combat, but did a great deal of war-related construction. Mr. Jureit said he first imagined the Gang-Nail plate during a meditative moment in church, and named it during a quiet moment in the shower. “The whole notion about affordable housing and productivity increases came about because of his invention,” said John A. White, former dean of engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “Because of Henry Ford, cars evolved from being crafted one at a time to assembly-line construction, which made the automobile affordable. Jureit has been widely recognized for doing this for housing.”


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Shrine, Fawn Rogers, metal, miscellaneous nails, 2018 Song Of The World, Fawn Rogers, plywood miscellaneous nails, soil, binders, car paint, 2018



Song Of The World, plywood miscellaneous nails, soil, binders, oil paint, 2018



SPACE AGE 1957PRESENT


20TH CENTURY

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Frozen by the threat of mutually assured destruction, civilization turns its head to consumption and entertainment and lifts its gaze to the stars. As we make our way from the planet we are irreversibly altering, people begin to refine and synthesize everything from petroleum products to agricultural seeds. Electronics become miniaturized and “disposable” becomes the new standard for daily use products. In a society ever more geared towards efficiency the nail gets many a makeover. The spiral shafted nail comes about helping to avoid cracking any board, the sinker nail with its hashmark patterned head helps to ensure not one hammer strike slips away, while tube-loks and ring shanks ensure the ability to utilize cheaper materials with even more strength to hold.


INVENTIONS 1957 CE 1957 CE 1957 CE 1958 CE 1960 CE 1961 CE 1962 CE 1963 CE 1963 CE 1964 CE 1965 CE 1965 CE

High Fructose Corn Syrup Space Flight Polio vaccine First microchip Laser Agent Orange Compact audio cassette Valium created First computer mouse Operating system (first mass-produced) Plastic Bag Minicomputer (PDP-8) (uses integrated circuit tech) 1965 CE Kevlar invented 1968 CE First videogame console


Russia United States Netherlands United States Sweden United States


JESTOPE 362


noun Definition: A hopeful attitude that things will work out, which does not shy away from looking at difficult or even extremely difficult circumstances or realities. A belief that comedy is a way that we can examine the difficult realities of our world. Jestope is informed by the alternative history of the jester as someone whose real roll it was to speak truth to power under the protective guise of jest or humor. While jestope is a very useful, and often underused, tool or emotion, when taken too far it reaches into the utopian or dystopian side of its meaning. Usage: He held a jestopic belief that our species would make it off the planet, and an equally jestopian awareness that it would be only a handful of us that would. Origin: Jack Sullivan, Santa Barbara Field Studies, Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, 2016

363


Jackie Paul lying on a bed of nails in front of a crowd at Weymouth. 1968 Photo by C. Woods



Spiral date c. 1960 locale or culture Canada name

description

A twisted wire nail; spiral nails have smaller shanks to common nails of the same size. Origin — This nail was invented by the Steel Company of Canada (or Stelco) under Allan B. Dove. The nail’s spiral shaft reduces the risk of wood splitting and has greater holding power than regular round nails. A research team headed by Allan B. Dove, of The Steel Company of Canada, Hamilton, Ont., developed a nail made from spiralled steel wire, threaded from top to bottom, with slightly rounded edges. Called the “Ardox” nail, it is easier to drive, causes less splitting and has 50 to 200 per cent greater holding power than the smooth shanked, round nail. Also, you get about 40 per cent more Ardox nails to the pound than conventional, round nails. A wholly Canadian invention, the Ardox nail is now being produced under license in the U.S. and other countries.


367


Sinker nail or 16 penny sinker nail date 1960s locale or culture American type Machine material Steel, iron name

description

These are the most common nails used in framing today; same thin diameter as a box nail; cement coated; the bottom of the head is tapered like a wedge or funnel and the top of the head is grid embossed to keep the hammer strike from sliding off. Most framing is built using common nails and a pneumatic gun, but sinker nails are short, thin nails used in hard-to-reach areas. They are usually coated either in cement or vinyl. “The friction heats up the nail, melts the vinyl coating, and makes for a smooth, easy driving nail,” Smith explains. “Once it’s set, the rings at the top help hold it in while the vinyl cools and solidifies, creating an adhesive bond.” “Sinkers” are thinner than common nails, have a smaller, flat nail head and are often coated so they can be easily driven flush, or even counter-sunk.



Tube-lok Nail date 1962 name

description

Tube-Lok Nails have been used in Tectum, Zonolite, Fibroplank, Celcore, Elastizen, Wood Fiber and Gypsum decks. An effective fastener for shingles, base sheet and other roofing materials to low-density decks. They install with minimal effort. Patented anchor systems provide superior holding power. For added holding power in wind uplift situations they use the 3” plates (not included with standard Tube-Lok system). The Tube-Lok system comes as a two piece unit, the tube with cap and insert. Tube / cap is inserted into deck, then insert is tapped in tube to make “J”. NOTE: image is of a 1” Tube Lok.


371


Joist hanger nail date 1962 name

description

Special nails rated for use with joist hangers and similar brackets. Joist hanger nails are sometimes called “Teco nails”. They are also reffered to as shank nails used in metal connectors such as hurricane ties.


373


Untitled 1963 Lucas Samaras American, born Greece Following a stint at New York’s Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting, Samaras employed the promotional headshots he had made there for his art. The nails that impale this example have personal significance for the artist, whose cousin, a dressmaker, and father, a furrier, used pins and nails in their respective trades. Medium: Gelatin silver print and nails on Masonite Dimensions: 9 × 6 in. (22.9 × 15.2 cm) Rights and Reproduction: ©Lucas Samaras


375


Ring shank nail, annular ring nail, or drywall nail date 1964 name

description

Ring shank nail has small directional rings on the shank to prevent the nail from working back out once driven in; common in flooring, and pole barn nailing. Also known as ring shank nails or drywall nails, annular ring nails have a series of rings along their shanks. When they are used with softwoods, the rings push the wood fibers out of the way when they are nailed in, and then the wood returns to its place around the rings, holding the nail in place.


377


White Field is part of a series entitled Fields in Movement, which consists of twenty works. Other works in the series include White Field 1964 (Museum of Modern Art, New York) and White Field 1964 (Walker Art Center, Minneapolis). Uecker noted in 1965 that he had been working on the Fields in Movement series for a year and that the ‘White Field is an important and typical work from the series’ (quoted in Alley 1981, p.733). ‘The basic theme,’ Uecker explained, ‘is the organic development of a point in differently directed paths of movement to create fields of oscillation’ (quoted in Alley 1981, p.733). In 1969 Uecker compared the process of making the Fields in Movement series to a form of meditation, during which he could achieve a state of deep spiritual awareness through the repeated physical action of hammering the nails into the canvascovered boards: Holding bundled nails in the left hand, selecting a nail with the right, which holds a hammer, setting it and hammering it in. Tensing and relaxing the shoulder muscles in a left-to-right motion, tensing the neck muscles when striking a blow. Total relaxation of the facial muscles. Concentration on the heads of the nails, which are always the same distance from the base plate – a suggestive point, identical form of the point in constant repetition. The perception of repetitions – thoughts are eradicated – a state of emptiness. Uecker introduced the nail into his works in 1957. As artist and curator Willoughby Sharp observed: ‘he discovered that the nail was the ideal carrier of light’, with the ‘white zones’ of the Fields in Movement series providing ‘the purest clearest area of light articulation’ (quoted in Uecker, exhibition catalogue, Howard Wise Gallery, New York 1966, unpaginated). Uecker, Sharp explained, was concentrating on the perceptual possibilities of the nail, creating works that activated light and the optical sensation of a spatial shift (see Howard Wise Gallery 1966, unpaginated). The importance of movement and light to White Field is highlighted by Uecker’s artist’s statement for the 1964 Group Zero exhibition at the McRoberts and Tunnard Gallery, London, in which this work was shown. The statement, which takes the form of a poem, alludes to ‘the movement of the field / the vibration of light … the white of the beach / where the visible, crowned by light, is lost in the invisible’ (Group Zero, exhibition leaflet, McRoberts and Tunnard Gallery, London 1964, unpaginated). The series was first shown at the Galerie Ad Libitum in Antwerp in April 1964. Two of these works were subsequently shown at Documenta in Kassel. Judith Wilkinson


Günther Uecker, White Field, nails, oil paint, canvas, wood, 1982

379


Violent Garden, Fawn Rogers, 2017, plywood, mirror, 2 1/2 in sinker nail, face mounted photographs of light, 72x11x11 in



SOLASTALGIA


Sol.a.stal.gia (noun) Definition: Derived from nostalgia, Solastalgia is a form of homesickness one gets when one is still at home, but the environment has been altered and feels unfamiliar. The term is specifically referencing change caused by chronic change agents like climate change or mining. Used primarily to describe the negative psychological effect of chronic environmental destruction on an individuals homeland, or the place they call home. The condition is often “exacerbated by a sense of powerlessness or lack of control over the unfolding change process.*” Usage: Samuel noticed no one seemed to say “the fog is rolling in” any longer. Most people around him delighted in the sunny weather that was increasingly common as the drought progressed, but he experienced a mild form of solastalgia, longing for the often termed “marine layer.” The speed of the city itself seemed different now— faster without the fog. He couldn’t compare this feeling to the experience of those whose homes were forever affected by mining or deforestation, yet still a sort of melancholia and longing hung over him, and places that he knew so well seemed foreign and unfamiliar. Origin: Glen Albrecht, 2003, Australia. Derived from the Latin solacium (comfort) and Ancient Greek algia (pain) 383


INFORMATION AGE 1969PRESENT


385

20TH CENTURY

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

After making our way to the moon our ambitions as an industrial civilization begin to shift toward developing the technology that fuels the industry. There is course aversion as information technology standards begin to draw the lines of power. Humanity begins to entertain and control itself with the efficiency of industry through information. Society is simultaneously having a moment of reckoning and still pushing itself further towards its own demise. Environmental issues are becoming more widely understood, but dismissed as an expense in the pursuit of profit. So enters the Clean Water Act, which regulated the dispersal of known pollutants into waterways while simultaneously big agriculture begins dispersing dangerous chemicals onto crops so as to insure minimalized losses at the expense of poisoning both the land and the growing worlds population consuming them. Across the globe former colonial states are achieving independence.


INVENTIONS 1969 CE 1969 CE 1969 CE 1969 CE 1970 CE 1970 CE 1971 CE 1971 CE 1972 CE 1972 CE 1972 CE 1973 CE 1974 CE 1974 CE 1974 CE 1974 CE 1974 CE 1976 CE 1978 CE 1979 CE 1980 CE 1981 CE

Moon landing First ATM ARPANET - grandfather of the internet First artificial heart place in a human Optical fiber Pocket calculator Email invented First single-chip microprocessor Intel 4004 Clean Water Act First video game (Pong) First video game console First capacitive touchscreen Barcodes Personal computer (the Altair) Roundup Glyphosates Taser Internet // TCP/IP Supercomputer (Cray-1) Microbead plastic Patented Bovine Somatotropin Flash memory (both NOR and NAND) IBM launches personal computer


United States United States United States Japan

United States

United States United States United States Norway Japan United States

387


1981 CE Space shuttle (reusable spacecraft) 1981 CE Stealth plane test flight 1982 CE CD-ROM for data storage & music playback 1982 CE Longer-lasting Artificial heart: Jarvik-7 1983 CE GMO Plants 1983 CE Stereolithography 3D Printing 1984 CE First commercially-available cellphone DynaTAC 8000X 1984 CE DNA fingerprinting (USDA approves sale of first genetically-altered organism) 1985 CE Litium-Ion Battery 1985 CE Disposable camera 1986 CE CRISPR 1987 CE MP3 music format patented 1989 CE Nintendo Game Boy 1989 CE Invention of the World Wide Web 1990 CE Invention of Photoshop 1991 CE First web page 1991 CE Linux operating system 1991 CE Blockchain 1992 CE Smartphone (IBM) 1992 CE First text message sent 1994 CE Amazon 1995 CE Pesticide Producing GMO Agriculture 1995 CE Unilever officially switches to palm oil


United States United States

United States

Japan Japan Germany Japan United States Finland United States United States Netherlands 389


1996 CE Cloning performed successfully Dolly the sheep 1996 CE Six Degrees - First Social Media Site 1996 CE Standardization of Bluetooth 1996 CE DVD disks enter the market 1997 CE Hybrid cars introduced 1997 CE MP3 players invented 1997 CE Google Search introduced 1998 CE Credit default swaps (CDS) invented 1998 CE Paypal


United States United States United States

391


GELM 392


noun Definition: The presence of a premonition, and/or a sense of foreboding, threat and dread from every day, human initiated incidents which ultimately threaten the ecology of the environment, and are caused by environmental hazards, such as: traffic jams, the deformed feet of pigeons, the debris of litter from fast food outlets, the crush of urban life, the invisible smog of pollution, the demise of garden birds, the abundance of cleaning products which end up in waterways, images of drought riven lands, images of flooding… images of huge industrial complexes churning out smoke… A ‘Gelm’ is a powerful and continuous emotional response to the threat of environmental and ecological destruction from human intervention. Origin: Phyllida Barlow, London, England, 2016 393


Eight-year-old Mark Harman enjoying a game of Monopoly from his bed of nails. (Photo by Ian Tyas)



Salvador Dali works on the bronze cover for the book The Apocalypse of St. John. Seven painters and writers, including Jean Cocteau and Fujita.


Salvador Dali The Apocalypse of St. John 1961 A Dalí masterpiece that got the blessing of the Pope himself. Dalí splatters nails into etching plates using improvised nail bombs.

397


A nail bomb is an anti-personnel explosive device containing nails to increase its effectiveness at harming victims. The nails act as shrapnel, leading almost certainly to greater loss of life and injury in inhabited areas than the explosives alone would. A nail bomb is also a type of flechette weapon. Such weapons use bits of shrapnel to create a larger radius of destruction. Nail bombs are often used by terrorists, including suicide bombers since they cause larger numbers of casualties when detonated in crowded places. Nail bombs can be detected by electromagnetic sensors and standard metal detectors.



Juste un Clou bracelet date 1971 locale or culture France type Cartier name

description

The Cartier Juste un Clou bracelet, the iconic Love bracelet’s younger and easier-to-remove sister, was inspired by the humble nail. Released in 1971, the bracelet was steadily in line with Cipullo’s minimalist, androgynous style and the designer’s professed love for all things nails, nuts, bolts and screws.


401


1974: A work of art by Doreen Schechter on display at the San Francisco Art Institute. The work depicts a man lying on a bed of nails. Photo by Alan Band.


403


Black Poppy, Kazuko Miyamoto, 1978, black string and nail.


Male 1, Kazuko Miyamoto, 1974, black string and nail.


Round brass nail sculpture, 1970-1979, brass and nails



1981: Stuntman John Dean has a seat of nails installed in his car to help him train for his record attempt for lying on a bed of nails. Photo by Ian Tyas.


409


Frank Cota, 1980-89, nails, steel and wood base


Diamond Studded Nail Brooch, Pat Flynn, 1990, 18k gold, palladium, diamonds


Gutter spike date 1996 name

description

Rain gutters are often held in place by a spike and ferrule: A giant nail is driven into the front of the gutter where it passes through an aluminum sleeve (the ferrule), through the rear of the gutter, and 412 into the fascia and rafter end.


413


Howardena Pindell, Untitled #1, 1980-81 mixed media on paper collage with nails


Nail Shrine,Fawn Rogers, 2015, mixed media with nails


TRALFAMIDORIFICATION

416


Definition: Borrowing from Kurt Vonnegut’s fictional alien race of Tralfamadorians (who can look at an object and know its past and future,) Tralfamidorification, is the experience of being over informed about the production line of materials, or about the systems of waste management they will eventually be filtered through. Tralfamidorification, is a disorientating experience where a discrete object becomes a node on a network. Those who experience tralfamidorification may walk through the world seeing a “beach towel” at one moment and then experience briefly the “beach towel” opening up into a black hole of information regarding the production line for the materials, the factory they were assembled on, the human suffering in creating these objects, the resources extracted, the shipping containers they were carried to and fro in, etcetera, — moments later the experiencer of tralfamidorification may feel the “black hole” close and they return to the present moment and the object or “beach towel” before them. Usage: Just before reading your email I was idly staring at a package of Trader Joe’s dried coconut strips (product of Thailand) on my kitchen table, experiencing severe tralfamidorification. Origin: Jenny Odell and Field Study #007 Participants, 2015

417


THE 21ST CENTURY


ATOMIC // SPACE // INFORMATION AGE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

THE BIG DATA AGE 2000PRESENT


INVENTIONS 2004 CE Facebook introduced to general public 2007 CE Netflix introduces instant streaming of movies and TV 2008 CE Touchscreen iPhone 2009 CE Bitcoin introduced (see Blockchain ‘91) 2010 CE Venmo created 2012 CE Self-driving cars used by Google for GoogleMaps 2012 CE CRISPR gains efficacy 2017 CE Artificial intelligence


The 21st century doesn’t see much change in the nail nor in anything technological for that matter. With humans having effected change we can not reverse, the animal populations dwindling by 68% in a 50 year period, it might seem a time of great change, but the only major shift humans make is in the extreme refinement of priorly developed technologies, mostly for the sake of curiosity and economic gain. Many nails in this last chapter can be found at Home Depot which holds 29% of the market share for retail building materials in the USA. Construction internationally continues to grow exponentially and reshape our environment.

421


Inert Colleconnaissance Syndrome

422


Inert Colleconnaissance Syndrome Noun Definition: Inert colleconnaissance syndrome is a collective understanding marked by a fear of action and a desire not to upset the system or paradigm. The syndrome is applied to societies rather than the individual exclusively and is marked by a collective knowledge or understanding and concern over a problem or injustice paired with gross collective inaction. The syndrome is frequently applied in discussions of climate change. Origin: Leo Paulhan, France during Paris COP21 Field Studies, 2015 Inerte, French: lacking the ability or strength to move. Collectif, French: collective Connaissance, French: knowledge 423


TRAY, Fawn Rogers, 2015 miscellaneous nails, jail tray, military tray, public school tray, plywood, and spray paint



Nailed Bowl, Arno Declercq, 2010’s, waxed African walnut and black patinated copper nails



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429


Nail Head, Chris Riccardo, 21st century, steel iron


431


Street entertainer Edinburgh Scottland Fringe Festival. Photo Jeff Mitchell

432


433


Violent Garden, Violent Garden plywood, miscellaneous nails, oil paint, 2017


435


Violent Garden, Fawn Rogers, plywood, miscellaneous nails, oil paint, 2017



Nails used by the vigilantes to force lorries to stop, 2015


439


Nail Shrine, Fawn Rogers, 2015


441


Studio, Fawn Rogers, 2016



name

Double Hot Tipped Galvenized Nail date 2000+ manufacturer Maze description

The double hot tipped galvenized coating is useful in extended prevention of erosion.


445


name Hurriquake date 2004 manufacturer description

Nail

Bostitch

The features of the nail are designed primarily to provide more structural integrity for a building, especially against the forces of hurricanes and earthquakes.


447


name

Edge Tite Spike date 2013 description

Used to keep paver edging from shifting over time.


449


SCRAIL SUBLOC PRO date 2014 type SCRAIL name

description

SubLoc PRO Scrail subfloor fasteners have a thick upper-diameter thread design for withdrawal values higher than ordinary fasteners. They prevent squeaks due to micro movements of wood against the shank. The collated threaded fasteners are driven like nails with a pneumatic nailer, but can be removed like screws. SubLoc PRO Scrails are available in all three collation styles: 20- and 33-deg. strip and 15-deg. wire coil. The SubLoc PRO Scrails have head pull-through values more than 10 percent higher than ring-shank nails, and withdrawal values that are more than 40 percent higher than ring-shanks.


451


LIGNOLOC WOODEN NAIL date 2020 type Wood nail material Compressed beachwood name

description

LIGNOLOC® wooden nails are up to 90 mm | 3 ½ inchesDiameter: 4,7 mm | 0.185 inches and are composed of compressed beachwood.


453


Contemporary Pneumatic nail gun date 2020 type Wire nail name

description

Originally invented in 1907 this is a contemporary version of the pneumatic nail gun designed for serious DIYers, the Metabo HPT roofing nailer is a powerful tool that simplifies shingle installation. The gun contains a convenient side loading magazine and a tool-less nail depth adjuster that reduces set-up time and allows you to maintain a steady workflow. Additionally, the roofing nailer’s 5.5-pound frame and rubber grip prioritize comfort and reduce fatigue.


455


Dowel nail date 2021 name

description

A double pointed nail without a “head” on the shank, a piece of round steel sharpened on both ends.


457


16GA Straight Finish Nail date 2021 name

description

16-Gauge Straight Finish Nails to complete fastening tasks in finishing applications. These steel nails feature a bright finish which is glued collated of round steel sharpened on both ends.


459


Hardboard pin date 2021 name

description

A small nail for fixing hardboard or thin plywood, often with a square shank. The diamond shaped head is hidden when used in materials like hardboard.


461


Oval wire nail date Modern name

description

Nails with an oval shank. Oval wire nail. Round or lost head nail. Tack. A short nail with a wide, flat head, the tack is used for fixing carpets to floorboards and for stretching fabric on to wood.


463


Pole barn nail date 2021 name

description

Long shank (​2 1⁄2 in to 8 in, 6 cm to 20 cm), ring shank, hardened nails; usually oil quenched or galvanized; commonly used in the construction of wood framed, metal buildings (pole barns).


465


name Roofing (clout) date 2021 description

nail

Generally a short nail with a broad head used with asphalt shingles, felt paper or the like.


467


Sprig, glazing spring, or glazing brad date c. 20th century type Machine material Metal name

description

A small nail with either a headless, tapered shank or a square shank with a head on one side. Commonly used by glaziers to fix a glass plane into a wooden frame.


469


Veneer Pin (moulding pins) date Modern name

description

Fine pins for fixing small mouldings or temporarily holding veneers while the glue dries.


471


Wire-weld collated nail date Modern type Wire nail name

description

Nails held together with slender wires for use in nail guns.


473


Box Nail Coated date 2021 name

For general construction, carpentry, and framing. Thin shank reduces wood splitting. Vinyl coating increases holding power. description


475


Copper Plated Weather Strip Nail date 2021 name

description

Used for nailing weather stripping into doorways. Suitable for outdoor use and is weather resistant

476


477


name date

Carpet Tack 2021

description

Carpet nail (carpet tacks): It is a small, sharp nail or pin. It is used to affix carpets to a floor


479


Biotrak Helical Nail date Modern name

description

Medical usage for mending broke bones. The Biotrak resorbable nail System is designed to provide fixation for indications in the upper and lower extremities including fractures, fusions, and osteotomies.


481


Casing Nail date 2021 name

description

A casing nail essentially is ​a large finishing nail. It is often used in exterior applications, such as for installing exterior trim boards and for nailing door frames and trim. They are commonly galvanized for corrosion-resistance.


483


Cupped Head Drywall Nail date 2021 name

description

Phosphate-Coated Drywall Nails feature cupped heads that are designed to countersink and smooth shanks.


485


Drywall Nail date 2021 name

description

Drywall nails feature a ringed or barbed shank that affords greater holding power.


487


Duplex Nail date 2021 name

description

A duplex nail is a nail with two heads. ... Duplex nails are normally used to build temporary structures, such as braces and scaffolding.


489


Finishing Nail date 2021 name

description

A wire nail used for finishing whose small cylindrical head is easily countersunk and the resulting hole concealed by a filler.


491


Fluted masonry nail date 2021 name

description

Steel Fluted Masonry Nails provide high holding power and are made of hardened steel. These nails can be used to attach furring strips and floor plates to uncured concrete.


493


Panel Board Nail date 2021 name

description

A panel board nail is used to attach panel board to wood furring or studs. The ring shank gives greater holding power in soft or medium woods.


495


Patio Deck Nail date 2021 name

description

A kind of nail with a snug head, commonly made in a diamond form; they are single or double deck-nails, and from 4 to 12 inches long.


497


Roofing Nail date 2021 name

description

A roofing nail is a short, usually with a large flat head and a barbed shank used for securing roofing paper or asphalt shingles to roof boards.


499


Sinker Nail date 2021 name

description

Sinker nails are a type of nail used in contemporary wood-frame construction; thinner than a common nail, coated with adhesive to enhance holding power, with a funnel-shaped head, and a grid stamped on the top of the head.


501


Underlayment Nail date 2021 name

description

Underlayment nail is used for laying plywood or composition underlayment over existing wood floors or floor joists. Ring shank for greater holding power. Thinner shank to minimize splitting.


503


Wood Hardboard Nail date 2021 name

description

Used for nailing into more dense woods, these nails have a diamond-shaped head which is virtually hidden when hammered into hardboard.


505


Universal spreading nail date 2021 material Glass fiber reinforced nylon name

description

The Split Drive anchor is a one piece anchor, with a split-type expansion mechanism on the working end. As the anchor is driven into the hole, the expansion mechanism compresses and exerts force against the walls of the hole. Can be installed in concrete, grout-filled block and stone. Available in mushroom, countersunk and duplex-head styles. The duplex head Split Drive is designed for temporary fastening applications and can be removed using a claw hammer.


507


Mushroom Head Crimp Anchor Nail date 2021 material Carbon Steel name

description

The Simpson Strong-Tie Crimp Drive anchor nail is an easy-to-install expansion anchor for use in concrete and grout-filled block. The pre-formed curvature along the shaft creates an expansion mechanism that secures the anchor in place and eliminates the need for a secondary tightening procedure. This speeds up nail installation and reduces the overall cost. The low profile mushroom head works excellent for attaching wood or light-gauge steel to concrete and grout-filled block.


509


name

Split Drive Anchor Nail date 2021 description

The Split Drive anchor nail is a one piece anchor, with a split-type expansion mechanism on the working end. As the nail is driven into the hole, the expansion mechanism compresses and exerts force against the walls of the hole. Can be installed in concrete, grout-filled block and stone. Available in mushroom, countersunk and duplex-head styles. The duplex head Split Drive is designed for temporary fastening applications and can be removed using a claw hammer.


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Bed of Nails, Skateboard, Derek Swope 2016


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Nail Shrines, Fawn Rogers, plywood, miscellaneous nails, top soil, binders, oil paint, 2017


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Nail Shrines, Fawn Rogers, plywood, miscellaneous nails, top soil, binders, oil paint, 2017

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SHADOW TIME 518


Shad-ow-time noun Definition: A parallel timescale that follows one around throughout day to day experience of regular time. Shadowtime manifests as a feeling of living in two distinctly different temporal scales simultaneously, or acute consciousness of the possibility that the near future will be drastically different than the present. One might experience shadowtime while focused on goal oriented conversations, tasks and planning for life as we have known it— (college, career or occupational ambitions). During such moments there is a creeping sense of concerns that would make all said planning obsolete or seem unimportant, i.e. the collapse of the Larson B Ice Shelf that will accelerate sea level rise. Shadowtime may also occur when one is preparing a meal for their child and suddenly realizes that an endemic flower that had evolved over 42.7 million years has gone extinct within their child’s lifetime. Shadowtime is not exclusively a negative experiences demonstrated with epoquietude. It can make one reflect quietly on the tricksterish desire and escapism lying behind apocalyptic vision, as well as catalyzing an embrace of the unknown and a counteraction to anthropocentric hubris. While one may feel that shadowtime follows them always, the sudden experience of the presence of shadowtime amid day to day activities is often extremely disorienting. Usage: Kane was intently working on his presentation which was due the next morning, but as he looked up and saw the moon it occurred to him that the moon had been rising and setting for 4.5 billion years, moving ever further away, he felt shadowtime for the rest of the evening. Origin: Ranu Mukherjee, Alicia Escott, Field Study #009 Participants, California 2015 519


Psychic Corpus Dissonance 520


Psy-ch-ic Cor-pus Dis-so-nance noun Definition: A term to express the conflict between mind and body that occurs when a person experiences unusually warm weather during a time that has historically been considered winter. In this state the body experiences ecstasy to be in unusually warm weather while, simultaneously, the mind experiences worry and concern that weather patterns are deeply amiss, often resulting in a sensation akin to guilt or guilty pleasure. Usage: Basking in the warm winter sun by the beach in San Francisco in January 2014, Heidi and Alicia both experienced psychic corpus dissonance as they sat comfortably in their sundresses looking warily at the dry dune scrub flowers blooming unusually too early, both sensing something was amiss with the seasons – an experience they did not have the language to express to one another. Origin: Heidi Quante & Alicia Escott, California, United States, January 2014. 521


TEUCHNIKSKREIS

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Teuchnikskreis noun Definition: Using new technologies to tackle environmental symptoms and byproducts caused by other (possibly older) technologies, which will in turn eventually produce their own unintended byproducts and problems— for which newer technologies will then need to be produced. Teuchnikskreis is characterized by a sense of being stuck in a vicious cycle or spiral, thinking technology will be the solution to the problems created by technology. Origin: Andre Baier, Germany, during Paris COP21 Field Studies, 2015. Portmanteau of Teufelskrieis: Common German term, a catch 22, literally Devil Circle Techuik: German, Technology 523


SOLTACTIPHORIA

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Definition: The euphoria a farmer experiences when s/he gathers soil from the ground with their naked hands, assesses the soil quality with the highly sensitive skin of their finger tips, breathes in the aromas of the soil and experiences a soil “high” when the commingling of all of these senses is accentuated by the ancient, learned, earned knowledge that this is indeed a rich, nourishing, life giving soil. Origin: Farmers, California, January 2017. Soil (Anglo-Norman) meaning a piece of ground (influenced in meaning by Latin solum, soil). The upper layer of earth in which plants grow. + Soul (Germanic origin; related to Dutch ziel and German Seele) meaning the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans. 2. The immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life. + Tact (Latin tactilis, from tangere ‘to touch’) meaning perceptible by touch: tangible ; of, relating to, or being the sense of touch. + Phoria (Derived from Greek word euphoría) meaning a feeling of extreme happines, a state of well-being. 525


CHUCOSOL

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Chuo-hul-sol Definition: The experience of seeing a brilliant red sunset blown up by manmade pollution and knowing you’re not suppose to enjoy it but you do anyway because the colors are a brilliant bright orange red fire — intoxicating to the eyes. Usage: “On a crazy hot sticky summer day when LA’s asphalt was on fire, Mario posted a Chuco헐sol sunset to his instagram and all the folks outside of LA asked him what filter he used.” Origin: Diana Chuong, Mario Rosado, Heidi Quante, Los Angeles Field Study, Art Center, March 2016. Chuco (El Salavadorian) slang for dirty + 헐 (Korean) an expression of surprise, similar to ‘Huh!’ or “What?!” in English + Sol (Spanish) meaning sun. 527


LITHERACY


Lith-er-a-cy noun adjective: Litherate Definition: Having or showing knowledge of the physical characteristics of rocks on planet Eaarth*. Litheracy is measured by the ability to identify and classify anthropogenic soils, geoarchitectures, and plastiglomerates, as well as a high degree of familiarity with the goings-on of the Anthropocene Working Group in the International Commission on Stratigraphy. * According to environmentalist Bill McKibben, the Eaarth is the new name for the third planet from the sun, a planet whose profound and far-reaching physical transformations encompass even its geophysical signifier. In addition to this planetary body, Eaarth signifies the withdrawal of the familiarity of the Earth as a home, habitat, and stable point of reference for environmental thought. Synonym: petroficiency Usage : 1. As a result of her psychogeophysical drifts through the city, in which she became receptive to the telluric forces of masonry buildings, she achieved a high degree of litheracy. 2. As long as we are illitherate we will not be aware of the magnitude of destruction wrought by human activity, nor will we be able to appreciate the petric duets we are currently composing with other geophysical forces. Origin: Jason Groves, California, 2015 lith (Ancient Greek: Stone) + literatus (Latin: learned) 529


QUIESEED

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Definition: A seed that due to social trauma stays consciously dormant not out of oppression, but rather due to a deep intuition which senses not to seed until it finds itself in a fertile, fecund environment. Usage: Swati was hesitant to invite her college friends to her parents’ home for dinner, as it was custom for Swati’s grandmother to tell deeply personal family stories and histories. Grandmother’s wisdom was like a quieseed, and Swati knew she would be cautious to reveal pieces of the story with strangers in the room. Origin: Ash Arder, Detroit, Michigan + Heidi Quante, California, November 2017

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TERMINOLOGY Alloy: A molecular combination of two or more metals: iron + carbon = steel. Wrought iron is a mixture, not an alloy. Box a wire nail with a head; box nails have a smaller shank than common nails of the same size Brad A forged or cut nail that is “7” shaped. Cut brads do not go through an additional head- ing step because the head is sheared with the shaft. This type of nail has been made from antiquity, but may be dated on technological fea- tures. One of the few traditionally named types included here because it is clearly defined. Bright: no surface coating; not recommended for weather exposure or acidic or treated lumber Burr Burrs may be found on cut nails and nails made from slitted rods. The cutting tool leaves a sharp, rough flange of metal on the lower side of the shaft as it cuts through the metal stock. The edge above the burr may be slightly beveled or rounded. Burrs may also be found on hand- made nails. Such burrs are found on nails made from slit nail rods. In some cases, burrs can be left on hand-made nails if they were seated in a poorly fitted header. CC or Coated “cement coated”; nail coated with adhesive (cement) for greater holding power; also resin- or vinyl-coated; coating melts from friction when driven to help lubricate then adheres when cool; color varies by manufacturer (tan, pink, are common) Clinch To bend and hammer the nail’s exposed point end flat against the wood; done to prevent its loosening. Cold shut An unconsolidated fold caused by hammering the burr against the shaft at a too low heat to weld it to the body of the nail. Cross-grained nails: Cut nails sheared from the end of a narrow nail plate that has the grain running length-wise. The earliest cut nails are cross grained. See “grain.” Cut face : The two opposite surfaces of a cut nail that show the dragging of the shear. Theupper edge may be slightly rounded where the shear entered the nail plate; lower edge will have the burr. Cut: machine-made square nails. Now used for masonry and historical reproduction or restoration. Cut nail: A machine-made nail. Cut nails are made by cutting the blank off the end of a long strip of iron or steel. The blank


is wider at one end than the other. The wide end is mechanically held and is then headed by hand or by machine. The point is left flat. Drag marks Striations below the head of handmade nails caused when being seated in the header . Drag marks are also seen on the cut face of cut nails. These are caused by the shear as it slices through the metal, pulling the metal in the direction of the burr. The burr is also the result of dragging. Drawn, Draw-out Blacksmith term for lengthening and narrowing the metal. A point is drawn on a nail shaft by hammering the rod on two sides 90° apart. The opposite of “upset.” Duplex a common nail with a second head, allowing for easy extraction; often used for temporary work, such as concrete forms or wood scaffolding; sometimes called a “scaffold nail” Drywall a specialty blued-steel nail with a thin broad head used to fasten gypsum wallboard to wooden framing members. Face The surface of the shaft that is 90° from the cut face, and is the wider of the two pairs offaces. No distinction is made between front and back faces. See “cut face.” Finish a wire nail that has a head only slightly larger than the shank; can be easily concealed by countersinking the nail slightly below the finished surface with a nail-set and filling the resulting void with a filler (putty, spackle, caulk, etc.) Forged: handmade nails (usually square), hot-forged by a blacksmith or nailor, often used in historical reproduction or restoration, commonly sold as collectors items Forged nail: A hand-made nail. The shaft is formed from an iron rod using a hand hammer and an anvil. One end is pointed and then inserted into a header. The head is formed by hammering down on the end of the shaft that projects out of the header. Galvanized treated for resistance to corrosion and/or weather exposure Grain Striations in the metal that are characteristic of wrought iron. Iron is strongest when the load is applied across the grain because the slag that forms the grain prevents the metal from having a uniform bond over its whole surface. This is why grain-in-line nails can be clinched reliably and cross grained nails cannot. Steel has no grain because it has a crystalline structure. Electrogalvanized: provides a smooth finish with some corrosion resistance


Hot-dip galvanized provides a rough finish that deposits more zinc than other methods, resulting in very high corrosion resistance that is suitable for some acidic and treated lumber; Mechanically galvanized deposits more zinc than electrogalvanizing for increased corrosion resistance Head round flat metal piece formed at the top of the nail; for increased holding power. HeadThat part of a nail that is driven by the carpenter’s hammer. Sprigs have no apparent head. Hand-formed heads are usually faceted by the numerous blows made during the heading process. Machine-headed nails will have a flat, smooth surface except for some modem cut nails that have a hemispherical knob centered on the head. Header I. A tool used to form the head of hand forged nails. The most common form of header is a flat bar pierced with a hole the size of the nail shaft. The shaft is inserted into the hole and the header is rested over a hole (the pritchel hole) in the anvil, with the shaft point down. A part of the shaft projects above the header and is hammered down to form the head. Helix the nail has a square shank that has been twisted, making it very difficult to pull out; often used in decking so they are usually galvanized; sometimes called decking nails Length distance from the bottom of the head to the point of a nail. Nail bar: A wrought iron strip from which nail rods were slit. Nail plate The stock from which cut nails are cut. These were originally produced in the early rolling mills with the grain running their length. Nails cut off these early nail plates are cross grained. Nail plates were later cut from sheet iron in such a way that the grain of the iron of nails cut from them ran the length of the nails. Nail rod Square or rectangular rods from which some hand-made nails were made. Some nail rods were produced by rolling and slitting mills. Nails made from such rods may exhibit burrs on the same face, between the head and part of the shaft that is drawn out for the point. Penny, penny weight English system of nail sizing. It has several meanings: number of nails per pound, price in pence for a hundred nails, number of nails one could get for a “dinar” or penny (hence the abbreviation “d” as in 16d). Today it is standardized to describe the size of a wire nail. Pinch On cut nails: the area under the head that is grasped for heading. When the unheaded


Phosphate-coated a dark grey to black finish providing a surface that binds well with paint and joint compound and minimal corrosion resistance Point sharpened end opposite the “head” for greater ease in driving. Ring shank small directional rings on the shank to prevent the nail from working back out once driven in; common in drywall, flooring, and pole barn nails. Rolling and Slitting Two stages in the process of making nail rods . The early rollers were about 8-10 in. wide and 10-12 in. thick. By the 1830s rollers were 3 ft. or more wide and over 2 ft. in diameter. To make a flat nail bar the iron ingot was fed into the rollers at a high heat. Slitting follows rolling; it is the longitudinal cutting of the flat nail bar into several long nail rods. Rose head English term for a faceted discoid head on a hand-made nail. This term is not used here because it is too vague to be useful for describing the enormous variation in head styles. Shaft Body of a nail extending from under the head to the point. Shank The body the length of the nail between the head and the point; may be smooth, or may have rings or spirals for greater holding power. Shear A cutting tool, usually with one moving edge and a lower stationary edge. Shearing is cutting across the width. Slit To cut a bar down its length. A slitter is a machine tool used in the manufacturing of nail rods consisting of an upper and a lower set of interlocking, disk-shaped cutters. The slitter cuts the nail plate longitudinally into nail rods. Though nails made from these rods often exhibit cut faces, they may be distinguished from early machine-made nails by the slitted nail’s hand forged heads and grain running the length of the shaft. Spike a large nail; usually over 4 in (100 mm) long. Sprig A headless nail. This term can be defined clearly enough to be useful for describing hand-made and cut nails. Spiral A twisted wire nail; spiral nails have smaller shanks than common nails of the same size.


Steel An iron-carbon alloy, usually having less than 2% carbon. The steel used in nails usually has less than 0.1% carbon. Steel began to supplant wrought iron in nail manufacturing in the 1880s. All modem wire nails are steel. Etched steel shows a very fine crystalline structure. Upset Blacksmith term for making the iron shorter and thicker. The head of a hand-headed nail is formed by upsetting the end of the shaft working a lump (bloom) of iron using a silicious flux as a part of the manufacturing process.




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