History
The earliest known combination lock was excavated in a Roman period tomb on the Kerameikos, Athens. Attached to a small box, it featured several dials instead of keyholes. In 1206, the Muslim engineer Al-Jazari documented a combination lock in his book al-Ilm Wal-Amal al-Nafi Fi Sina'at al-Hiyal (The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices). Muhammad al-Astrulabi (ca. 1200) also made combination locks, two of which are kept in Copenhagen and Boston Museums.
Gerolamo Cardano later described a combination lock in the 16th century.
In 1878 a German man by the name of Joseph Loch was said to have invented the modern combination Lock for Tiffany's Jewelers in New York City, and from the 1870s to the early 1900s made many more improvements in the designs and functions of permutation locks.
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