Since it's winter (well, in the northern hemisphere) and the air is dry, I'm getting shocked all the time by static electricity build-up. I understand (roughly) the physics of static electricity, and the kinds of materials that would cause static build-up. Some of those materials are probably only commonly available now, but many of those materials (such as fur, glass, perhaps some form of rubber) would have been common or at least known to ancients.

Surely someone shuffled his feet on a bear-skin rug, and then touched a metal bowl or statue or some such and received a tiny static electric shock. Did anyone notice? Did anyone record such a thing? If they did, what did they think was going on?