A few years back I became interested in a style of box that was described to me as a snap box. it is an oval box with a lid held in place with vertical notched pins attached to the opposite ends of the box. When the lid is put in place it is forced down to the top of the box with force making a loud noise, hence the name.
The overall defining characteristics of the box are a body constructed of a thin piece of wood that is bent around and secured to itself, often by stitching together with thin roots or reeds but the use of brads or nails is not uncommon. The base is set inside the walls and pegged in place, the number of pegs varies but three to five is most common. A lid fashioned to settle on top of the box is constructed in the same fashion.
I turned up a lot of little bits and pieces of information relatively easily. The box in question was originally of Scandinavian design for one, another name for it was a "Tina" pronounced "tine", like on a fork. The earliest I have found examples of these boxs is the 1700's. They are relatively easy to find all over the inter net from auction houses, ebay, and antique sources.
I began to look a bit more widely around for the boxs, trying to find other examples and earlier uses of them. I began to discover similar boxs in 14th and 15th century manuscript illuminations. The handle and the pine were absent and they had a rounder end. Often you can see them on shelves, under beds, or placed to indicate they were an everyday item, perhaps a sewing or embroidery supply container.
They also have a very wide variety of names and description. Svepteknik, svepning, svepask, spanask, spanschachtel (german), lathe walled box, split wood box, bride box, svepkärl, and swipe box. The names vary from culture to culture and also in some cases size or task. They all have a commonality in that they are made of thin strips of wood, bend and fastened back to themselves, usually with a lid.
In Domestic Wooden Artefacts: In Britain and Ireland from Neolithic to Viking Times
by Caroline Earwood the boxs are described as a lathe waled box. One box, the hedeby box, was a small round box, found in pieces and reconstructed was discovered in Germany. It is theorized that this particular box had no lid to it, unusual in itself, and was round whereas most other examples are oblong or oval. A number of thicker pieces of oblong wood, consistent with finds at other sites, appear to be the surviving base plates of the more common shape of box.
