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An oxgang is also known as a bovate, from bovāta, a Medieval Latinisation of the word, derived from the Latin bōs, meaning "ox, bullock or cow". Oxen, through the Scottish Gaelic word damh or dabh, also provided the root of the land measurement 'daugh'. Skene in Celtic Scotland says:
The original term comes from Ancient Greek: βουστροφηδόν, boustrophēdón, a composite of βοῦς, bous, "ox"; στροφή, strophḗ, "turn"; and the adverbial suffix - δόν, - dón, "like, in the manner of" – that is, "like the ox turns [while plowing]". [2] It is mostly seen in ancient manuscripts and other inscriptions.
An ox (pl.: oxen), also known as a bullock (in British, Australian, and Indian English), [1] is a large bovine, trained and used as a draft animal. Oxen are commonly castrated adult male cattle, because castration inhibits testosterone and aggression, which makes the males docile and safer to work with.
When pulled in one direction, the trailing ploughs were lowered onto the ground by the tension on the cable. When the plough reached the edge of the field, the other engine pulled the opposite cable, and the plough tilted (balanced), putting the other set of shares into the ground, and the plough worked back across the field. [citation needed]
Dating back at least to early Anglo-Saxon times, it originally referred to the length of the furrow in one acre of a ploughed open field (a medieval communal field which was divided into strips). The furlong (meaning furrow length) was the distance a team of oxen could plough without resting. This was standardised to be exactly 40 rods or 10 ...
The wooden plow was then invented. (It is difficult to pinpoint the exact date of its invention. However, the earliest evidence of plow usage dates back to around 4000 BCE in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) [timeframe?]. It could be pulled with human labor, or by mule, ox, elephant, water buffalo, or a similar sturdy animal.
A four-ox-team plough, circa 1330. The ploughman is using a mouldboard plough to cut through the heavy soils. A team could plough about one acre (0.4 ha) per day. The typical planting scheme in a three-field system was that barley, oats, or legumes would be planted in one field in spring, wheat or rye in the second field in the fall and the third field would be left fallow.
It may have originated from the typical length of a mediaeval ox-goad. There are 4 rods in one chain. The furlong (meaning furrow length) was the distance a team of oxen could plough without resting. This was standardised to be exactly 40 rods or 10 chains.