The History of Spiral Staircases

When Were Stairs Invented? Ancient Origins

There’s no single date for the invention of stairs. People have been rising through structures, in some form, since long before anyone was writing anything down. What survives from that period is fragmentary, and the spiral staircase is one of the few shapes with actual physical evidence attached to it.

Some ideas outlast their era: rope has been coiled for roughly 28,000 years, and bread has been baked for about 14,500. In what is now China, a potter shaped a small terracotta vessel around 5,378 BC that carries the oldest surviving depiction of a spiral staircase. The idea wouldn’t appear in writing for another few thousand years, and it would take even longer to reach steel. But the shape, and the problem it was built to solve, hasn’t changed.

The terracotta artifact predates any record of the staircase actually being built. What it proves is intent: the idea of a rising, turning form was worth rendering nearly 7,400 years ago, long before anyone had the means to construct one at scale.

The earliest written reference appears in the Old Testament, which describes “winding,” not spiral, staircases leading to the altar of the First Temple, built around 990 BC. A Study of the Winding Staircase traces how that image, a stair that rises toward higher purpose, was carried into ritual and symbolism long after the Temple itself was gone.

How Rome Popularized the Spiral Staircase

While no record marks the spiral staircase’s true invention, history does credit Rome with popularizing it. The upper classes of the Roman Republic, from 509 BC to 27 BC, were the first to bring spiral staircases into their houses of worship and civic buildings, and the form spread further still under the Roman Empire, becoming a fixture of ecclesiastical architecture as Christianity rose across the region.

But Rome didn’t invent it. Around 480 BC, a spiral staircase already stood at Temple A in Selinunte, a Greek colony in what is now Sicily. Its remnants are still there. And the oldest spiral staircase still standing anywhere is in Rome itself: Trajan’s Column, built in 113 AD, where 185 steps still carry visitors 115 feet up to the overlook at its peak.

Wide vs. Narrow: The Anatomy of a Spiral Staircase

Every version of a spiral staircase in history, wide or narrow, shares one constant: a central pole, or newel, that the treads attach to as they rise. It’s a simple mechanical idea, and it’s why the form has survived essentially unchanged for millennia.

From Medieval Castles to the Renaissance Staircase

During the medieval period in Europe (roughly 500 AD to 1400 AD), the kingdoms of the continent built massive fortifications and stone castles, most of which featured spiral staircases. A common misconception claimed for years that medieval castles built their spiral staircases to require moving clockwise when climbing, in order to impede invading forces, who would mostly be right-handed and carrying their weapons on that side.

Later investigations have shown this was likely not the case. Many castles have spiral staircases that require moving counterclockwise when climbing, and modern historians now believe spiral staircases were not primarily defensive structures. They were built for many of the same reasons we still build them today; they are convenient, efficient, attractive, durable, and architecturally sound.

By the Renaissance, the spiral staircase had become a centerpiece worth building a house around. In the 16th century, the design moved out of castles and cathedrals and into the homes of a newly wealthy merchant class. Nowhere is that shift more visible than at the Chateau de Chambord, a landmark of French Renaissance architecture, where a double-helix staircase serves as the literal center of the house. Its two spirals descend three full floors side by side without ever physically touching. Leonardo da Vinci, who lived nearby at the time, is often credited as its designer, though that attribution has never been confirmed.

How Steel Changed the Spiral Staircase

Steel didn’t invent the spiral staircase, but it gave the design its most enduring material yet. In 19th-century Britain, advances in metallurgy put steel within reach of ordinary builders, and the material proved almost perfectly suited to the form: strong enough to carry weight on a narrow footprint, precise enough to hold a tight curve. From there, the spiral staircase’s reach only widened. It now appears in structures of every size and purpose, on every continent.

The Spiral Staircase Remains Timeless

Nearly seven thousand years after that first terracotta vessel was shaped, the spiral staircase endures because it solves a real problem. Stairs may be as old as architecture itself, but the spiral shape is still prized today for its ability to harmonize beauty and functionality in one form.

Explore Iron Shop’s spiral staircases by series, from Victorian to American Industrial, and find the shape that fits your home.