Technical Museum of Slovenia Collections

Plying their trade in these lands since Roman times, coopers – or barrel makers – operated as a strong and independent profession in Slovenia’s wine-growing regions. Over time this craft became established as a cottage industry throughout the entire country. Coopers manufactured wooden containers of all sizes, shapes and types – from barrels, butts and kegs, to buckets, pails, tubs, dossers and panniers. Such vessels were used for the storage and transport of just about everything – liquids, chemicals, foods, crops, construction materials and even blacksmith’s products. In the manufacture of the staves and base plates for their products, coopers used a great miscellany of woods including oak, chestnut, ash, beech, spruce, fir, pine and larch.