Throughout prehistoric Europe
flint and iron
pyrites (commonly known as fool's gold) were struck against one another in order to create a spark for firelighting. As an example,
Ötzi (the natural mummy of a man who lived some time between 3350 and 3105 BC, discovered in September 1991) was found with
tinder fungus along with flint and pyrite for creating sparks. With the development of iron ore smelting in the
Iron Age, the firesteel eventually replaced pyrites. This was simply a piece of
carbon steel (it is difficult to obtain sparks with ordinary
iron), which was usually wrought into a 'D' shape, or an oval ring, so that it could be conveniently looped around two or three fingers for striking. The flint was sometimes chipped to provide a suitably sharp edge to obtain a spark and if necessary other hard stones, such as
quartzite,
chert or
chalcedony could be substituted.
Charcloth was fabric made from vegetable fibre, such as
cotton,
linen, or
jute, which had been charred via
pyrolysis to give it the low ignition temperature and slow burning characteristics suitable for use as
tinder. Rotten wood, known as
touchwood, was also used, as well as
amadou, which was a tinder prepared from fungus steeped in potassium nitrate (
saltpetre) and dried. When away from home small pocket tinderboxes were often carried, sometimes set with a
burning glass (a magnifying lens) in the lid to light the tinder directly from the sun's rays. The tinder pistol, based on the
flintlock mechanism, was a more expensive alternative to the tinderbox and was in use in middle and upper-class homes in the 18th century. In the early 19th century a more efficient tinderbox was invented with a rotating metal wheel to create the sparks In the 18th and early 19th century tinderboxes were in common use, but with the advent of John Walker's 'friction lights' in 1827, where a match could be struck by withdrawing it from a piece of folded
glass paper, tinderboxes increasingly became obsolete. A book from 1881 notes that in 1834 a magazine editor had predicted that despite the advent of 'lucifers' (friction
matches), the tinderbox would continue to be in general use in the household, but that in fact, by the time of writing, the tinderbox had become rare, expensive and was commonly seen only in museums of antiquities. Another book from 1889 describes such a tinderbox, observing that the wear patterns on the flint were the same as those on ancient prehistoric flints in the collection. ==Use==