Tanning (leather)
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Tanning, or hide tanning, is the process of treating skins and hides of animals to produce leather. A tannery is the place where the skins are processed.
Tanned leather
Tanning, 1880
Tanner, Nuremberg, 1609
Peeling hemlock bark for the tannery in Prattsville, New York, during the 1840s, when it was the largest in the world
History of hide materials
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Humanity has used animal hides since the Paleolithic for clothing, mobile shelters such as tipis and wigwams, and household items. Since ancient times, hides have also been used as a writing medium in
Tanning (leather)
…Proto-Indo-European *dʰonu meaning 'fir tree'. (The same root is the source for Old High German tanna meaning 'fir', related to modern German Tannenbaum). Hide clothing, footwear, and shelters have been used since the Paleolithic, with evidence of leather working dated to approximately 400,000 years ago; leather…
A leather shoe, discovered at Areni-1 cave in Armenia and dating to approximately 3,500 BCE
Medieval leather-working techniques persist; saddlery and upholstery are examples.
Industrial leather dyeing during World War I, showing mechanized production methods
Traditional tanning methods continue in some regions, as evidenced by this tanner in Marrakesh.