Plough
A farming tool drawn through the soil to break and turn it before sowing, for millennia pulled by oxen.
Also: ard, hal, ox plough
The plough is one of the main reasons cattle became so important to farming. Its earliest form, the ard, a pointed wooden beam that scratches a furrow, was pulled by oxen in the Near East, Egypt and the Indus valley thousands of years ago, and ard marks preserved under prehistoric burial mounds in Europe show fields ploughed crosswise. Later mouldboard ploughs, which turn the soil over, needed larger teams, up to eight oxen on heavy soils in medieval Europe. In South Asia the wooden hal with an iron share, pulled by a pair of bullocks, is still used on many small farms. Thailand's royal ploughing ceremony uses a pair of sacred oxen to open the rice season.