In 1985 McGrail (see bibliography) wrote the article ”Towards a Classification of Water Transport” dealing with all the different types of boats through history.
But what about the wagons? Has anyone ever gone through all the wagon material, lets say, from ancient times or even better just from the roman period? If someone has the work cannot be that well published, for such a work is nowhere to find. An obvious problem against this kind of article is; What is there to write about… Some wagons have two wheels and some have four, what else can be said?
I think it could be interesting to gather all the “wagon-words” from the Latin sources and combining them to archaeological finds and perhaps even to carvings. Much could be learned about the different wagon-parts and even about the various wagon-types, with their different purposes. A work like this is important in understanding the entire system of roman transportation.. and it sure could come in handy for someone working with wagons and wagon-construction like I am in my thesis!
