Candle_History

Candle History CANDLE HISTORY Early Candles Candlepower Modern Candles EARLY CANDLES Necessity is the mother of invention and early candles sometimes took rather bizarre forms to utilize available resources. The use of, and improvements to candles has parallelled mans ascent from the stone age. There is no historical record of the first candles used by man, however clay candle holders dating from the fourth century B.C. have been found in Egypt. Early Chinese and Japanese candles were made with wax derived from insects and seeds molded in paper tubes. Wax skimmed from boiling cinnamon was the basis of tapers for temple use in India. The first known candle in America dates to the first century A.D. Native Americans burned oily fish (candlefish) wedged into a forked stick. Early missionaries in the southwestern United States boiled the bark of the Cerio tree and skimmed the wax. Settlers in New England used the same technique to obtain wax from Bayberries. To this day Bayberry candles are made the same way, although cost is prohibitive since it takes one and a half quarts of Bayberries to make an 8 inch taper candle. Tallow, made by rendering animal fat was another common candle making material. Because of its candles, candle, made, century, wax, paraffin, first, tallow, making, early, beeswax, although, wick, top, tapers, stearin, spermaceti, skimmed, same, return, page, one, new, mordanting, modern, make, introduced, half, found, door, development, day, clients, candlepower, burned, began