The wheel is probably man’s most important technological discovery. A Sumarian pictogram dated 3500BC is the earliest reference for the wheel. By 2000BC man was making spoked wheels yet the earliest pictorial reference we have of a wheel driven lathe seems to be from the 15th century.
Leonardo da Vinci
How I built Leonardo Da Vinci’s lathe
A simple sketch by the Italian genius Leonardo Da Vinci C.1480 gives us our first glimpse of what an early treadle wheel lathe might have looked like.