In more museums around Europe reconstructions of different types of roman wagons has been made. These wagons are often made in small-scale-models to give an idea of a certain wagon-type, but in some museums reconstructions has been made - full-scale!
Not all wagons are made due to archaeological finds of wagon-material, but the full-scale reconstructions has some original parts, most often iron-fittings or decorative bronze-items. Since the larger part of the wagon, the wooden part is normally missing in the archaeological finds, the roman wagons are reconstructed as the wagons found in the roman world of pictures (see my introducing post on the subject), and here especially the carvings are important evidence to the looks and constructions of the original wagons.
In the museum in Arlon, Belgium, they have, as mentioned in several posts a large collection of carvings with wagon-scenes and as an extra service they have made small-scale wooden models of most wagon-types to give the visitor an idea of what the carved wagons would have looked like in 3D. An other example of small-scale models of 
roman wagons are seen in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum in Bonn, Germany. One of the the wagons exhibited are a model of the well-known carving from Maria-Saal, Austria, showing what is known as a Roman travel-wagon, a wagon for long-distance travelling (see photo right). These models are all useful in giving an impression of the types of wagon they represent, but they are less useful when discussing details in wagon-construction. Here the full-scale reconstructions are important.
Large-scale reconstructions are also known from more museums, especially popular in areas containing carved stones decorated with wagon-scenes, meaning the northern Roman provinces. In Hungary and Germany more carved wagon-scenes on tombstones are known and these countries happen to have some of the best known reconstructions of 
Roman wagons, and luckily for the wagon-researchers the (most) wagons are different in type. In the Hungarian National Museum a reconstructed roman cart (see photo right) is exhibited. This wagon is a two-wheeler and a type best known from the roman carvingsin this area, but there is archaeological evidence for the used metal-parts and wagon-decoration. In Germany more reconstructions of roman wagons has been made during the last 25 years; in Bonn a two-wheeled transportation cart is exhibited, but the most famous reconstruction is the often mentioned travel-wagon in the Roman-Germanic Museum in Cologne. These wagons are also reconstructed in accordance the roman carvings, but some technological details still has to be documented in the archaeological material.
The wagon in Cologne is pictured on more websites and blogs and it will be treated separately in a later post on reconstructions.
