History[edit]

The earliest recorded doors appear in the paintings of Egyptian tombs, which show them as single or
double doors, each of a single piece of wood. People may have believed these were doors to the
afterlife, and some include designs of the afterlife. In Egypt, where the climate is intensely dry, doors
weren't framed against warping, but in other countries required framed doors—which, according
to Vitruvius (iv. 6.) was done with stiles (sea/si) and rails (see: Frame and panel), the enclosed
panels filled with tympana set in grooves in the stiles and rails. The stiles were the vertical boards,
one of which, tenoned or hinged, is known as the hanging stile, the other as the middle or meeting
stile. The horizontal cross pieces are the top rail, bottom rail, and middle or intermediate rails.
The most ancient doors were made of timber, such as those referred to in the Biblical depiction
of King Solomon's temple being in olive wood (I Kings vi. 31-35), which were carved and overlaid
with gold. The doors that Homer mentions appear to have been cased in silver or brass. Besides
olive wood, elm, cedar, oak and cypress were used. A 5,000-year-old door has been found by
archaeologists in Switzerland.[2]

A massive door socket from Persepolis (modern-day Iran)

Ancient doors were hung by pivots at the top and bottom of the hanging stile, which worked in
sockets in the lintel and sill, the latter in some hard stone such as basalt or granite. Those Hilprecht
found at Nippur, dating from 2000 BC, were in dolerite. The tenons of the gates at Balawat were
sheathed with bronze (now in the British Museum). These doors or gates were hung in two leaves,
each about 2.54 m (100 in) wide and 8.2 m (27 ft) high; they were encased with bronze bands or
strips, 25.4 cm (10.0 in) high, covered with repoussé decoration of figures. The wood doors would
seem to have been about 7.62 cm (3.00 in) thick, but the hanging stile was over 360 millimetres
(14 in) diameter. Other sheathings of various sizes in bronze show this was a universal method
adopted to protect the wood pivots. In the Hauran in Syria where timber is scarce, the doors were
made of stone, and one measuring 1.63 m (5.3 ft) by 0.79 m (31 in) is in the British Museum; the
band on the meeting stile shows that it was one of the leaves of a double door. At Kuffeir near
Bostra in Syria, Burckhardt found stone doors, 2.74 to 3.048 m (8.99 to 10.00 ft) high, being the
entrance doors of the town. In Etruria many stone doors are referred to by Dennis.