Tanning (leather)

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.

Historically, vegetable based tanning used tannin, an acidic chemical compound derived from the bark of certain trees, in the production of leather. An alternative method, developed in the 1800s, is chrome tanning, where chromium salts are used instead of natural tannins.

Tanning hide into leather involves a process which permanently alters the protein structure of skin, making it more durable and less susceptible to decomposition and coloring. The place where hides are processed is known as a tannery.

The English word for tanning is from the medieval Latin verb tannāre, from the noun tannum (oak bark). This term may be derived from a Celtic word related to the 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 working tools from this period being found at Hoxne, England dating to about 400,000 years ago. Extant vegetable oil tanned leather footwear, from the neolithic (c. 5,500-year-old), has been found in Areni-1 cave, of Vayots Dzor province of Armenia and on the remains of the Ötzi corpse, found on the Austria-Italy border.

Ancient civilizations used leather for waterskins, bags, harnesses and tack, boats, armour, quivers, scabbards, boots, and sandals.

Tanning was being carried out by the inhabitants of Mehrgarh in Pakistan between 7000 and 3300 BCE.

Around 2500 BCE, the Sumerians began using leather, affixed by copper studs, on chariot wheels.^{[citation needed]}