Ancient doors

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.