A plough or plow is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before sowing seed or planting. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses but in modern farms are drawn by tractors. A plough may have a wooden, iron or steel frame with a blade attached to cut and loosen the soil. It has been fundamental to farming for most of history. The earliest ploughs had no wheels; such a plough was known to the Romans as an aratrum. Celtic peoples first came to use wheeled ploughs in the Roman era.
Traditional ploughing: a farmer works the land with horses and plough
13th century depiction of a ploughing peasant, Royal Library of Spain
Ancient Egyptian ard, c. 1200 BCE. (Burial chamber of Sennedjem)
Farmers using a plough. Akkadian Empire seal, circa 2200 BCE. Louvre Museum
Tillage is the agricultural preparation of soil by mechanical agitation of various types, such as digging, stirring, and overturning. Examples of human-powered tilling methods using hand tools include shoveling, picking, mattock work, hoeing, and raking. Examples of draft-animal-powered or mechanized work include ploughing, rototilling, rolling with cultipackers or other rollers, harrowing, and cultivating with cultivator shanks (teeth).
Tillage after corn harvest (Click for video)
Rice tillage. Valencian Museum of Ethnology.
A Kenyan farmer holding tilled soil
Tilling with Hungarian Grey cattle