Reconstructing Roman Wagons

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.

 

Roads, Tracks and driving in Pompeii

An ongoing discussion concerning roman transportation is on the tracks in the narrow streets of Pompeii. What type of vehicle(s) is able to drive around inside the ancient city? When walking around in Pompeii looking at the roads and crossroads (see photo below) the question about wagon-transportation, not least about 4-wheelers, pops into mind, and there-next another much discussed term: the pivoting front-axle!

The discussion of the pivoting front-axle is an old discussion on roman wagon technology, where the “ancient” argument is concentrating on a four-wheeled wagon which failed the ability to take a turn and therefore only moved because of the suppleness in the wooden construction. As a contrast to this view the idea of the pivoting front-axle was introduced with the finds of some roman-age wooden parts, which gave the wagon-construction the ability to turn on a single bolt, which again meant the wagon top was no longer placed directly on the front axle. A possible reconstruction of the pivoting front-axle is seen in the wagon in Cologne, mentioned in previous posts, but it is still to be found in the roman iconographic material.

The question is, though: Is it actually possible to drive a four-wheeled wagon round in a city like Pompeii, pivoting front-axle or not?

This is not an easy question to answer and therefore, instead of trying to do so, I will now turn the attention towards the roman legal question of having vehicles inside the ancient city: what kinds of vehicles were actually allowed in the city and when? Maybe only two-wheeled carts where allowed in the city, and preferably after sunset, as in the case of some medieval cities, and the four-wheeled wagon was more of a country-side vehicle concerned with long-distance cargo.

But where does this bring us in our search for wagon-transport inside ancient Pompeii? The tracks in the paving are clearly visible today, but not all roads bear marks of wagon-usage. Therefore it could be reasonable to assume that the transporting of goods around an ancient city like Pompeii could have been done by small two-wheeled carts concentrating their routes on the bigger more centrally placed in and outgoing roads, and therefor they did not have to make a turn inside the city.

All I know is the fact that I haven’t come across a road-cross inside Pompeii or any other ancient city with a “safe-to-say” mark of wagons taking some kind of turn - almost all marks I have seen are running straight ahead. This uncertainty is due to a photo of mine showing what just might happen to be a “turn-track” (see photo right), but it is unfortunately not safe to conclude anything from this photo alone.

 

Transportation-Carvings - Land Transportation

Actually, these more thorough posts were intended earlier than the discussion on the Suspension-system in November, and they were thought as an introduction to the carved material found in the northern roman provinces and in Rome herself.

In Rome some of the most prominent buildings show wagons in more scenes, e.g. The Column of Marcus Aurelius on the Piazza Colonna, and the Arch of Septimius Severus (photo right) in the Forum Romanum, but wagons are also represented on sarcophagi, in both mythical and “every-day-life”-scenes.

These are all nice carvings contributing in different contexts, but my personal field of interest is on the carvings from the northern roman provinces, especially from Pannonia (around modern Hungary) and Gallia Belgica (around Germany and Belgium). Most of these stem from burial monuments of some kind, but we do not know that many details about most of the monuments. In Arlon, Belgium, a lot of carvings were found build into a fortifying wall from the end of the third century AD, without any traces of origin or inscription to let us know more about the story of the carvings.

In the roman province of Pannonia, according to the National museum in Budapest, there was a “pre-roman” tradition saying, that dead people was transported into death on a wagon, which is why many tombstones/stelai show a carved wagon along with the grave inscription. Often the type of wagon used is the four-wheeled transport-wagon, as seen on the photo left, but in a few cases, where supposedly dealing with more wealthy persons, the two-wheeled wagon-type, as seen on the photo right, is used. This latter wagon-type is also seen on some city-roman sarcophagi, in a bit different output, though. Here the type is called “Sessel-wagen” in German, but I have not been able to find neither the English nor Latin word for the wagon-type yet. The Latin name would be crucial, though, if one were to make a full typology of the roman wagon types.

 

The Wagon-types in the Roman Empire

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!

 

Combining roads to wagon construction

Some authors do try to combine roads to wagon-construction using the tracks made in the roads. By measuring the distance between the center of the tracks, they are able to conclude various things about the distance of the wagon-wheels in different periods of time and in different geographical areas.

If this method worked perfectly, we could get all sorts of information trough our measurements on these tracks, but unfortunately it is not that simple at all. Beside the problem of correct measurement of the tracks, there are some problems which have to be considered before this method can be used properly, for example:

• Not all tracks are made in roman times
• Not all kinds of vehicles have the same distance between their wheels, and therefore
• Not all track-intervals are the same
• Not all kinds of vehicles were allowed inside the ancient city, and
• Not all kinds of vehicles could be used for transportation in mountainous areas

Beside the above mentioned problems we have to consider the differences between the “track-ways” (German: Geleise-strassen) and the paved roman roads, where tracks of wagon often are visible, too. Some of the tracks in the latter might be pre-made as in the case with track-ways, but some of them might be made due to usage of the roads. Via Amerina at Falerii Novii, Italy (see photo left) is a paved roman road in which it is possible to see the tracks made by usage, but on the left side of the paving the earlier road, cut out of the bedrock in a track-like style, is still visible.

When transferring this method of work to the work on roman wagons the first problem is to know when we are dealing with road-tracks actually used by roman wagons, and there-next to eliminate the tracks also used in post-roman times. The paved roads are often made in roman times, which goes for some of the track-ways in central Italy and the Alps etc, too, but many of these roads are also used in early medieval times or even later, so actually combining these tracks to roman wagons might be a bit far-fetched.

But then again, some roads seem to bear marks of roman, and in some cases only roman, wagons, which is why they in particular are interesting for this study. Here the tracks in some of the roads crossing the Alps and the roads in Pompeii have special interest, because we can be pretty sure on their date. In Pompeii we know that no vehicle drove on the roads after AD 79, and therefore the tracks (almost) certainly are made by roman vehicles. In the mountain areas not all tracks are of interest, but close to some of them roman artifacts are excavated, which again lead some researchers, among others Heinz 2003 (see bibliography), to conclude that roman track-ways has an interval of 107 cm between each track center. This distance, however, can only be connected to wagons able to drive in this area; the lighter two-wheeled carts.

 

The Roman Suspension System - an other angle

In my post on the suspension system I was most concerned with what I see as evidence for the system - especially from the iconography. In this post I will introduce another carving, which, to my knowledge, haven’t been used in the discussion on roman wagon-construction.

The carving, as seen here on the left, is a small carving originally from Rome, but now in the Swedish nationalmuseum in Stockholm. It shows two persons driving a four-wheeled wagon in a city-area. Besides details of the buildings in the background and the traffic in the street, the carving has some interesting details on the wagon itself. Underneath the wagon, what might be two construction-details are visible: the axle between the rear wheels and an interesting part (detail on photo below) bending upwards, close to the front wheel, from underneath the wagon. The last wagon-part might be the wooden part of the suspension system, shown without the Gurthalter or ropes, but in the right place and angle according to the reconstructions made of roman wagons.

Naturally a wagon this side would need more than one “wooden arm” to give the needed suspension, but this detail could indicate, that the carving is dealing with (rich?) people in an above average wagon. At least it is safe to state that the roman stone-worker, in this case, was concerned with details.

If the detail we see in this carving really is a part of the suspension system, we can add yet another carving to the iconographic material showing the Roman Suspension System, only this time - it is seen from an other angle..

 

The Gurthalter and the Roman Suspension System

Originally it was my plan to wait a few posts before getting into a discussion on the roman suspension system on wagons and carts. I wanted to show/discuss some of the wagon-bronzes and their purpose, before actually discussing the suspension system itself.

David Reads comment on my quick-post about the Internet-article: “Roman Traction Systems” made me realize, that this web-log need some more pictures (and posts), especially (perhaps) of carvings, to show what my thesis is all about, and therefore the discussion of the suspension system might be a good place to start.

The primary archaeological material in my thesis is what I earlier on called “the “roman pictures” of roman wagons”, and here I am most concerned with the roman carvings. The group of roman carvings with wagon-scenes is quite large, and it is represented in as well imperial art in Rome as in the grave-sculpture (tombstones and sarcophagi) of common people in the northern roman provinces. It is in this last group we, most often, find some detailed carvings of roman wagons.

A detailed study of all the, to me, known (published) carvings is what I am doing in my thesis, and therefore this post mainly concerns some carvings showing the suspension system. But first a word on the suspension system it self.

The suspension system on roman wagons is a much discussed area of the wagon-construction. Röring et al. presented the system in the late 1970’s early 1980’s reconstruction of the wagon from the Wardertal, Macedonia (now in Cologne/Köln, Römisch-Germanisches Museum). This wagon-reconstruction is mainly made on the basis of metal-finds, which is the same situation as two other wagons that I have knowledge of: The reconstruction of a two-wheeled cart in the Hungarian National Museum, Budapest, and a reconstructed part of a wagon in the Intercisa Múzeum in Dunaújváros, south of Budapest, Hungary. In the last case the reconstructed part is only the small front-section of the wagon whereto the metal-fittings belong.

As Dr. Weller and David Read mentions in the Roman Traction System-article a lot of bronze-fittings for the suspension system have been found across the roman provinces and they are often given the German name “Gurthalter” (I have not yet seen an English name for these metal parts). They exist in more forms, with one or two “arms”, and have various kinds of decoration, some including bronze statuettes. A one-armed is shown on the photo left and a two-armed type is used in the reconstruction of the wagon from Dunaújváros (see photo).

Now for the iconographic part.

I have found some examples of carvings in which I belive the Gurthalter is shown. In the begining, before I saw the carvings my self, I was not sure about the small details I saw in other persons photos. Now after having examined the carvings my self and knowing these details are parts of the original carvings, I do not doubt, that we actually have roman iconography showing this particular detail of the roman wagon construction.

Three carvings, one in Belgium and two in Hungary, show a detail which most of all is to be characterized as a “Gurthalter”. The wagons are all seen from a sideview and therefore only the metalpart, the Gurthalter itself, and not the wooden construction underneath it is visible. Of the three carvings only the one from Belgium (here below) show the function of the Gurthalter; here a rope, the one giving the suspension, is tied to the Gurthalter.

 

Roman traction systems

Searching for articles on wagon-construction in roman times, a much referred hit is Dr. Judith A. Weller et al. on the “Roman Traction System“. It is an article on www.humanist.de, but so far the only article here related to roman wagons and land-transportation. A lot of pages concerning the roman empire has a link to this article. Now I’ve made this link, too.

The article is most concerned on the traction systems, but it has a chapter on wagon-construction, which, besides a few errors, is interesting reading. Including good pictures.

 

The archaeological evidence 3 - The roman roads

Working with roman wagons you have to make a note on the roads. A lot of scholars around the world have been working on this subject and therefore I will not spend that much energy on the roads themselves.

The roman roads are, no doubt, one of the greatest works of engineering in the ancient world, not alone for their stability and longtime durability but also for what they carried along ex. bridges, tunnels and caves in mountain-areas. The roads are also one of the main reasons why the romans could keep the control of an empire stretching from the River Rhine to the Sahara dessert and from the Atlantic Ocean to the River Euphrates, because they guarantied the infrastructure and thereby secured the possibility of moving large troops a long distance in a short amount of time. (Click here to find out more about the roman roads)

However, my interest in the roman roads concern the tracks of usage discovered in many original road-pavings around the Mediterranean. Here below are some examples of roman roads with marks of wagon-usage. These four roads, and the one shown in the blog-header, are all roman roads found in Italy, but there are also known roads from the roman provinces around the Mediterranean. The roads are, from the left; from Pompeii (the city area), Via Amerina (outside Falerii Novi), Rusellae (the forum area), Vulci (the road towards Ponte Rotto) and the header is from Ostia Antica (main road). All photos are my own.

 

The archaeological evidence 2 - The “roman pictures” of roman wagons

The romans made a lot of pictures of how they saw the world and everything in it, and this gallery include pictures, in different quality, style and medium, of various kinds of roman wagons. Therefore we have a large material in this category of archaeological evidence. 

The roman pictures include carvings, paintings and mosaics showing roman wagons, two and four-wheeled vehicles, with/without people and/or goods, wagons in (or in no) motion and pictures with various kinds of wagonparts, mostly wheels. Some of these pictures happen to be very detailed and they are therefore, in my opinion, great evidence in the study of roman wagons.

Here below are some examples of roman picture-work showing roman wagons. All photos are my own.

1. Detail of roman wheel. Carving, Arlon, Belgium

2. Detail of roman wagon. Carving, Budapest, Hungary. 

3. Mosaic showing a fourwheeled wagon, photo in Saalburg, Germany.

4. Bronzemodel of lower part of a wagon, Bonn, Germany