Until the 20th century, traditional, centuries-old methods were used to extract the stone from the quarries, using water-swollen wedges and metal rods. The pieces ended up in the ashlars that made up the smooth walls of the constructions, which are clearly visible on the outside of the buildings. In general, an initial roughing out was carried out at the quarry, in order to transport regular ashlars and not waste energy and time with disposable materials. The stonemasons, with the help of the escoda or trillante, completed the carving of the ashlars, finishing them with great regularity. The aforementioned tool had a handle and was shaped like a flattened double-edged axe. Its mark can still be seen in numerous ashlars from other buildings, in which the parallel grooves can be followed in the same direction.

On the construction site, quotation workers and craftsmen of various specialities worked alongside woodcutters, forgers and lime kilns. Carpenters were indispensable because they were in charge of assembling scaffolding, ladders and pulleys. Blacksmiths repaired all the tools made from iron, staples, wedges and animal shoes. The rope-makers made position of the ropes needed to carry all the materials up subject .

In the early 13th century corbels of the parish church of La Magdalena in Tudela, together with other representations of other trades, such as a pruner, a musician and a seamstress, we find a stonemason. All these representations are accompanied by the image of the devil himself, suggesting that the work derived from the triumph of Satan and was the effect of original sin, obeying a negative interpretation of the trades represented, as Esperanza Aragonés pointed out in her study on the image of evil in the Navarrese Romanesque.

The small stone mason is shown with his traditional tools for stonemasonry: the pot and the pointer. The former, used by stonemasons, carpenters and notchers, is a hammer that is flat on both sides with a short handle that is used to strike the chisel, and the pointer is used for rapid roughing out, they used to be of different sizes and could be prismatic or round.

With regard to the workers of the medieval period, we must remember that, unlike what happened centuries later, the work of the stonemason and that of the sculptor who was position responsible for the monumental decoration of portals, corbels, capitals and tympanums, was not so clear. In this respect, we know that it was the Degree of preparation that defined a worker. The process of apprenticeship, specialization and mastery was behind the categories of what today we would call sculptor or architect. At the head of the factory there was a master as manager of the planning and distribution of both architectural and sculptural work .

One of the capitals in the Gothic cloister of Pamplona Cathedral recreates the construction of the Tower of Babel, topic which, incidentally, also appears in a miniature of the Book of Hours of Joanna I of Castile, the work of the Flemish miniaturist Gerard Horenbout and Sanders Bening. 

The capital to which we have referred is located on the northern side of the cloister of Pamplona Cathedral. It corresponds to the first phase, when the east wing and part of the north wing were erected between 1280 and 1318, when historicised capitals dominated. From the iconographic point of view, the cycle of Genesis ends with the sculpted account of what the book narrates about the tower of Babel (Gen. 11:4). Its main interest lies in the realistic and detailed reproduction of the activity of a stonemason's workshop of the time, such as the one that was made in those years position of the Pamplona cloister. 

In the centre is the construction in the form of a polygonal tower, on top of which are a couple of workers who pick up the perfectly worked ashlars and with their trowels place them rigorously in the building. The pieces are brought, with great physical effort, by other men who carry them up the tower, which is already quite high, by means of wooden ramps. On the viewer's left side, a woman in headdresses arrives, her breasts uncovered, carrying a trough or gamella with plaster or mortar on her head. She is followed by another man with an ashlar on his shoulder, expressing the effort in a masterly manner, and others carrying the stone pieces and working the ashlars with their tools. On the right-hand side, there is a repeat of the outline of the woman with the load on her head, the man bending down carrying the ashlars and another working. In this case the narrative ends with a seated man approached by a pair of servants, one with a jug and a cup. The seated one is dressed more elegantly than the rest, in a talar tunic, and is most likely the master manager of the factory because he has a large square next to the table, something that identifies him with the responsibility of the one who measures, traces and draws.

Evocations of carpentry workshops are more abundant. One of the capitals in the cloister of Pamplona Cathedral depicts the construction of Noah's ark (Gen. 6, 22), in the eastern bay, belonging to the first phase of construction, which coincides with the activity of the master Miguel, mentioned in a document from 1286. Professor Fernández-Ladreda has pointed out its naturalistic and meticulous character, with various tools that copy real models and which, in the end, is a sample of the familiarity of the craftsmen with them and at the same time a reproduction of a carpentry workshop of the period. The 17th-century paintings of the Nazareth Workshop in Leire or Pamplona Cathedral recreate the tools in detail.

As is well known, art became more erudite during the Renaissance, combining with great force optics, geometry, Anatomy, physiognomy, expression of the passions, natural history, architecture, antiquarianism and mythology. 

From the end of the Middle Ages average, access to architecture was marked by two conditions: technical virtuosity and decorative preciosity, as fundamental elements when it came to making designs or traces. From the 16th century onwards, as Professor Fernando Marías has studied, there were three main ways of gaining access to architecture. Firstly, in the traditional way, within a guild and by obtaining the degree scroll of master. For the latter, the best were those who were able to stop staining their hands with lime or sawdust and stained them with ink, and from the experience and the knowledge of the treatises, they learned the handling and everything related to the architectural orders. Secondly, there were others who came to architecture through figurative drawing and, therefore, it was a reverse path to that of the practitioners, starting with drawing, followed by study and ending with internship. Finally, there was a minority of humanists such as Juan de Herrera, the architect of El Escorial, who, following the line of Vitruvius and Alberti, abandoned the material internship , staining their hands only with ink.

The few examples we have of masters in 16th century Spain place special emphasis on placing the compass and square, to distinguish them from journeymen, stonemasons and masons, following the outline of the liberal arts.

Navarre's heritage includes the representation of the construction of a building in one of the panels of the main altarpiece in Ororbia, one of the first works in which the new Renaissance style made its way into the landscape of the 15th century. In this altarpiece, which dates from 1522-1524, we find painted stories of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, the textual sources of which refer to the Golden Legend. The panel mentioned above, accredited specialization, provides us with a chronicle of how construction was carried out in those decades, with wood playing a leading role in the use of falsework, scaffolding and elementary cranes. In the foreground, the patron Saint Julián converses with the master manager of the factory, who holds a small, delicate compass in his right hand, while an official cuts an ashlar, with a square, a compass and a brush beside him. Under the timbers supporting the ashlar, we find the detail of the food stored in the shade in a basket covered by a white cloth and a gourd for drinking.

The upper area sample is home to the stonemasons and is an excellent example of the methods used by stonemasons and masons in the construction of buildings all over the world subject. A total of nine stonemasons work at the top of the building, laying ashlars with trowels, pots and their bare hands. One of them operates the simple pulley to lift up material that another one has placed at the bottom of the factory. Another, in an everyday gesture, drinks from a large canteen, signifying his tiredness and exhaustion from the work at plenary session of the Executive Council sun. They are all dressed simply and their heads are covered with hats and simple headdresses to protect them from unwelcome blows. The wooden scaffolding with rough-hewn logs, as well as the formwork of a large span, are evidence of traditional uses which, moreover, have been in use until a century ago in all subject constructions.