(A friend, elsesite asked people to throw an infodump her way, and I figured people here might also enjoy it.)
A few years ago, an old, kind of intact, Roman plane was found at an archeological dig. Made from elephant ivory, and reinforced with iron banding if I remember correctly. The latter possibly being why it stayed intact enough to be identifiable, organic materials rot away usually. (Or, in the case of planes, a worn out body gets used as fuel, as making a new one is well within the skill range of a working woodworker.)
What really struck me though, was how utterly similar it was to planes I have. A rectangular block, an opening (mouth) in the sole (bottom of the plane), a sloped mortise for the iron to rest in, an iron, and a wedge. The better part of two millennia separating it from mine, and it's barely changed at all. Functionally identical if you will. I think that's just amazing, a design so sound, so thoroughly distilled down to do exactly what it needs to do, as efficient in time and materials that it stayed the same for all that time. Especially when you consider that until well into the 20th century and mechanization, everything (and that's a lot of things) made from wood would have a tool like that applied to it at some point.
I don't think it's an understatement to say that woodworking, making things from small to very large sticks, together with fibercraft, have been two of the most influential applications of human ingenuity and skill since, well, humans existed. To bring it back to that Roman plane, it's a relatively recent tangible artifact of that tradition that spans back to the dawn of humans. Because of their perishable and work-a-day nature, tools didn't survive or were preserved, except for a rare example like that. We can infer a lot from toolmarks, or construction details (surviving furniture in Egyptian tombs demonstrate that techniques like mortise & tenon, or dovetail joints were known to them), but an actual tool is just cool as fuck.
Like, if the ancient Roman woodworker whose plane it was, was transported to my workshop, I could hand them one of my planes, and they'd be "Righto" (except in Latin), and be able to get going immediately. That connection, with people living an unbelievably long time ago, is just mindblowing. (Don't get me started on seeing cave paintings, or animal carvings from 30,000 BC. They were here, they made or recorded things, and here I am, making carvings or pictures, just like them. It's both humbling and amazing. OK, now I'll stop or I'll cry.)
