"Ancient Egyptians made glue by boiling animal hides and used [it] as a binder ...for woodworking."
Joe Hurst-Wajszczuk, writer
We may not make direct use of adhesives every day, but glue is an important component of many common manufactured items: Books, envelopes, supermarket packaging, and even cheap sneakers benefit from this invention. Although in recent decades chemists have provided us with super glues—substances so phenomenally strong that the user is warned to take extreme care—naturally occurring alternatives such as beeswax and tree sap have been in use for much longer.
In the burial sites of ancient tribes, archeologists have discovered pottery vessels whose cracks had been mended with plant saps. This tar-like glue was also applied to Babylonian statues that had eyeballs glued into their corresponding sockets. Egyptian carvings from more than 3,000 years ago portray the adhesion of veneer to sycamore, while in northern Europe 6,000-year-old clay pots have been discovered with repairs made with a glue deriving from birch bark tar.
The ancient Egyptians also developed adhesives made from animals, a technique the Romans and Greeks refined in the first five centuries B.C.E. The Romans subsequently made various types of glue using other natural ingredients—such as vegetables, milk, cheese, and blood—and were the first to use tar and beeswax to fill the seams of their ships.
