Key with Ring Handle

Embellished with a curving, scrolled handle, this Roman key displays a very complex bit. L-shaped, it has six slots in the main plate and three more in the angled plate. Although its complexity gives the impression that the key belonged to a rather formidable lock, in fact it is too complicated to have worked very well. The shape would have allowed only the quarter turn necessary to open a simple lift lock. Locks were invented in the Near East about four thousand years ago. They evolved from simple mechanisms to the complex locks devised by the Romans.