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A hide or skin is an animal skin treated for human use. The word "hide" is related to the German word Haut, which means skin.The industry defines hides as "skins" of large animals e.g. cow, buffalo; while skins refer to "skins" of smaller animals: goat, sheep, deer, pig, fish, alligator, snake, etc. Common commercial hides include leather from cattle and other livestock animals, buckskin ...
As documented in Frederick H. Hitchcock's 19th-century manual entitled Practical Taxidermy, the earliest known taxidermists were the ancient Egyptians and despite the fact that they never removed skins from animals as a whole, it was the Egyptians who developed one of the world's earliest forms of animal preservation through the use of injections, spices, oils, and other embalming tools. [3]
Humanity has used animal hides since the Paleolithic [clarification needed], for clothing as well as mobile shelters such as tipis and wigwams, and household items. Since ancient times, hides have also been used as a writing medium, in the form of parchment. Fur clothing was used by other hominids, at least the Neanderthals.
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.
Preserving animal skins has been practiced throughout human history. For example, embalmed animals have been found with Egyptian mummies. Although embalming incorporates lifelike poses, it is not considered taxidermy. In the Middle Ages, crude examples of taxidermy were displayed by astrologers and apothecaries.
The word skin originally only referred to dressed and tanned animal hide and the usual word for human skin was hide. Skin is a borrowing from Old Norse skinn "animal hide, fur", ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European root *sek-, meaning "to cut" (probably a reference to the fact that in those times animal hide was commonly cut off to be used as garment).
A dorsal incision is made by laying the animal on its abdomen and making a single cut from the base of the tail to the shoulder region. The animal's skin is easier to remove if the animal has been freshly killed. [11] Cape skinning is the process of removing the shoulder, neck and head skin for the purpose of displaying the animal as a trophy. [12]
Fur clothing is clothing made from the preserved skins of mammals. Fur is one of the oldest forms of clothing and is thought to have been widely used by people for at least 120,000 years. [1] The term 'fur' is often used to refer to a specific item of clothing such as a coat, wrap, or shawl made from the fur of animals.