They were made of Pyrenean silver fir and the staves were one and a half inches thick and featured grooves where the heads fitted. Such casks were found in 1897 during archaeological excavation of Roman Silchester in Britain. Empty barrels were sometimes used to make pontoon bridges to cross rivers.Д®mpty casks were used to line the walls of shallow wells from at least Roman times. Julius Caesar used catapults to hurl barrels of burning tar into towns under siege to start fires. Barrels were sometimes used for military purposes.

The Greek geographer Strabo records wooden pithoi (casks) were lined with pitch to stop leakage and preserve the wine. Roman coopers tended to be independent tradesmen, passing their skills on to their sons. Large casks contained more and longer staves and were correspondingly more difficult to assemble. Pliny identified three types of coopers: ordinary coopers, wine coopers and coopers who made large casks. The Roman historian Pliny the Elder reports that cooperage in Europe originated with the Gauls in Alpine villages where they stored their beverages in wooden casks bound with hoops. A lake village near Glastonbury dating to the late Iron Age has yielded one complete tub and a number of wooden staves. In Europe, buckets and casks dating to 200 BC have been found preserved in the mud of lake villages. Palm-wood casks were reported in use in ancient Babylon. Another Egyptian tomb painting dating to 1900 BC shows a cooper and tubs made of staves in use at the grape harvest. With time, many coopers took on the role of the hooper themselves.Д¬ooper's workshop, Roscheider Hof Open Air Museum.ДЄn Egyptian wall-painting in the tomb of Hesy-Ra, dating to 2600 BC, shows a wooden tub made of staves, bound together with wooden hoops, and used to measure. The English name Hooper is derived from that profession. Traditionally, a hooper was the man who fitted the wooden or metal hoops around the barrels or buckets that the cooper had made, essentially an assistant to the cooper. Examples of a cooper's work include casks, barrels, buckets, tubs, butter churns, vats, hogsheads, firkins, tierces, rundlets, puncheons, pipes, tuns, butts, troughs, pins and breakers. Traditionally, a cooper is someone who makes wooden, staved vessels, held together with wooden or metal hoops and possessing flat ends or heads. It is also the origin of the French Tonnelier and Tonnellier Greek Varelas ( О’О±ПЃОµО»О¬П‚) Danish BГёdker German Binder, Fassbender or Fassbinder ( FaГџbinder, literally 'cask-binder'), BГ¶ttcher ('tub-maker'), Scheffler, and KГјbler Dutch Kuiper and Cuypers Lithuanian Kubilius Latvian Mucenieks Hungarian KГЎdГЎr, BognГЎr and BodnГЎr Polish Bednarz, Bednarski, and Bednarczyk Czech BednГЎЕ™ Romanian Dogaru and Butnaru Ukrainian Bondar, Bodnaruk, and Bodnarchuk, and Bondarenko ( Р‘РѕРЅРґР°СЂРµРЅРєРѕ) Russian and Ukrainian Bondarev ( Р‘РѕРЅРґР°СЂРµРІ) and Bocharov ( Р‘РѕС‡Р°СЂРѕРІ) Yiddish Bodner Portuguese Tanoeiro and Toneleiro Spanish Cubero, Tonelero, and (via Greek) Varela Bulgarian Bachvarov ( Р‘СЉС‡РІР°СЂРѕРІ) Macedonian Bacvarovski ( Р‘Р°С‡РІР°СЂРѕРІСЃРєРё) Croatian BaДЌvar Slovene Pintar (from German Binder) Italian Bottai (from botte) and Armenian ХїХЎХЇХЎХјХЎХЈХёЦЂХ® (from ХїХЎХЇХЎХј). In much the same way as the trade or vocation of smithing produced the common English surname Smith and the German name Schmidt (see occupational surname), the cooper trade is also the origin of the English name Cooper. The facility in which casks are made is also referred to as a cooperage. A barrel is a type of cask, so the terms 'barrel-maker' and 'barrel-making' refer to just one aspect of a cooper's work.

A cask is any piece of cooperage containing a bouge, bilge, or bulge in the middle of the container. Everything a cooper produces is referred to collectively as cooperage. The word 'cooper' is derived from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German kЕ«per 'cooper' from kЕ«pe 'cask', in turn from Latin cupa 'tun, barrel'.

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