An Old Design

Above and below, square wooden well at a 2,000-year-old ironworks in Poland. At bottom, square wooden well at a house site in Delaware, ca.1800 CE. The structure of the ancient Polish well is not really clear in these pictures, but it is the same as the nineteenth-century well, with corner posts and hand-hewn planks slotted in behind them. I am fascinated by traditions like this one that endured for millennia, passed down from builders to their sons or apprentices, without any notice being taken of them in the written tradition. Think of all the other knowledge that has been passed on this way for 50,000 years.