"Men of former times used to cm ploy lard... for greasing their axles."
Pliny, historian
As long as there have been wheels, there has been the need for lubrication. Any tribologist (an expert in the science of lubrication) will tell you that it serves to reduce friction. It conserves energy, reduces wear and tear, prevents overheating, and reduces noise.
The ancient civilization of Mesopotamia, and later those of Greece and Rome, used wheels in pottery for channeling water and for transportation. Olive oil was used as an axle lubricant, and an Egyptian chariot dated to 1400 B.C.E. was found with animal fat on the axles. Fats add a crucial viscosity that water lacks.
For Roman chariot racers, wheel lubrication would have been life-saving, and a mosaic has been found in Spain showing a man holding an amphora of oil beside the racetrack, much like the pit-stop mechanics of today. A first century B.C.E. bronze wheel found in Jutland had special grooves for making the axle easier to grease. More than 1,500 years later, Leonardo da Vinci invented a self-oiling axle-end, using olive oil.
Olive oil and animal fat remained the primary forms of grease even as late as the nineteenth century. Sperm oil from whales and neatsfoot oil from animal hooves were used in the British Industrial Revolution to lubricate steam engines and locomotives. In the 1850s, mineral oils, particularly petroleum oil, were developed and revolutionized industry.
