The lathe is an ancient tool. The earliest evidence of a lathe dates back to  Ancient Egypt around 1300 BC. There is also tenuous evidence for its existence at a Mycenaean Greek site, dating back as far as the 13th or 14th century BC.

It is a machine tool that rotates a work piece about an axis of rotation to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, facing, and turning.