when were pencils invented

Pencils were first invented in the 16th century. Specifically, an Italian couple named Simonio and Lyndiana Bernacotti invented the first wooden pencil around 1560 by hollowing out a stick of juniper wood and inserting graphite inside. This early pencil was oval-shaped and similar to modern carpentry pencils. Later in 1795, the invention of the modern pencil, as we know it today, came about when Nicholas-Jacques Conté, a French scientist in Napoleon’s army, combined powdered graphite with clay, fired it, and encased it in wood, creating a pencil with varying hardness levels depending on the clay ratio.