A History of The Shovel

From ancient times, shovels or some form of them have been utilized for grubbing for food to burying people. Interestingly, just about the only really noteworthy breakthrough in the history of the shovel itself was the move towards using metal in their construction. Actually, this was a major change and allowed for far deeper digging as opposed to using the older versions which were composed mainly of hardwood business ends.

An ancient mining discovery found by anthropologists in Turkey revealed an ancient, one piece, carved wooden shovel dating from approximately 2,000 B.C. It was about 12 inches wide at it's scooping end, 27" long and the handle was about 2.5 inches in diameter. Well-preserved owing, in part at least to the hardness of the wood, this shovel was obviously used manually in a mining operation.

Here's an interesting take on the Religious role of the shovel from Wikipedia. Beware the Shovel!:

"The shovel is worshiped in many religions today although it may not seem noticeable at first. The Buddhism god, Gishnu, an 8 armed elephant, wielded 8 shovels when the Buddhists fought the terrorists at the battle of El Alamein in ancient times. The elephant slaughtered thousands of foes and it was decided amongst the other gods that this elephant should not hold the 8 shovels of power. These shovels were spread all over the world in each of the 7 ancient wonders. One shovel is said to be amongst us, keeping guard of the long forgotten world of the shovels. These shovels all over the world remain dormant, hidden away in safe locations."

In the Northernmost areas of the world, Eskimo's utilized the bones of whales and and walruses to make themselves shovels they used for carving ice and building igloos, cutting through ice to fish and the numerous cold weather uses they would need. "Walrus Scapulae" were deemed perfect for this work.

In Great Britain, early man heated his place by burning peat, cut and sectioned out by shovel from the many resources of this interesting fuel.

Imagine making just about anything in the garden world without a shovel. It might be a crime!

There is little need to question the need for shovels. Particularly, when considering our ancient agricultural past, the shovel would have to be assumed to be a most common and among the very earliest essential tools. No doubt it is preceded - as always - by weaponry, yet it remains one of the quintessential tools raising us from the caves and bushes of our past into the most modern times.