Transportation-Carvings - Desert edition

So far, the series of transportation-carvings has concentrated on wagon and water transport, with a small view to transportation in mountainous areas, but an other field of interest also regarding the Roman period, has so far not been mentioned; the Desert. Large areas of the southern and eastern parts of the Roman Empire was desert-land, which required extraordinary skills to survive and even more to deal with transportation.

The old Egyptians used wagon-transportation, but since the sandy ground is not well fit for heavy wagons, it is difficult to believe that their use of wheeled transportation went beyond the chariots used in war. In stead of wagons, camels were (are) used for transporting goods in this dry climate, and more roman carvings actually show pictures of this peculiar kind of transportation.

One carving in the Capitoline museum (see photo right) show the camel with a saddle and in front of it the owner pulling a rope. This carving has no inscription or modern sign saying what it is or where it come from, but the idea that it might stem from a monument dealing with trade or a tradesman in the desert-region is supported by another carving, this time in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen. This carving also show the camel and the owner, but here the camel is showed in the background and focus is on the man.

This latter carving (see photo right) is more easily recognised in type, since it is carved in a style known from the Roman province of Syria, which again, especially, is widespread in the area around Palmyra. Roman Palmyra was for many years one of the most important cities in the Roman east and it got rich due to its location as desert trade-station on the silk-road. Therefor a lot of tradesmen lived here and took care of the difficult and dangerous transport of goods through the desert, and when they died, they where buried in different types of tombs/monuments. The type of carving shown here is often seen as a portrait of the buried person in the tomb of which the carving stem, and carvings of this type are exhibited in more museums around Europe. In this example we have a representation of a man and his work, which can be compared to the carvings from the northern provinces showing the “daily-life”-scenes, and therefor this, along with the carving from the Capitoline Museum, can be categorized as Transportation-Carvings.

Nowadays researchers has successfully tried to find some of the old/Roman Caravan-routes in north Africa, and one of these field-projects is based at the University of Bergen, Norway. For more info please check: www.hist.uib.no/ and click “Antikksider” under the “links”-menu.

 

Transportation-Carvings - the 20th century

The tradition of letting pictures “tell the story” has been practised ever since ancient times. e.g. in churches. An interesting, to the subject here, ”modern” picture is seen on the Vittorio Emanuele Monument in Rome, the big white monument on the northern slope of the Capitoline Hill.

About halfway up, the monument has a platform with a statue and on the statue-base a large carving with “instruments of war” is placed. On one side of the base the carving shows a very detailed four-wheeled wagon for transporting goods. This wagon show details of the traction system and many construction-details, which is very interesting, since here we have an evidence showing how the wagon was constructed in the beginning of the 20th century.

The details are pretty clear on the carving on this monument build in 1911, and since the workmen here were able to make details in their carving, then why not the Romans, too? It is not possible for us to know what the ancient stone masons used as measurement in their carvings, but once in a while we do find details, perhaps not as clear as the ones on the Vittorio Emanuele Monument, but still clear enough to conclude that these carvings where not all made as “free-hand-carvings”.

 

Transportation-Carvings - Land Transportation II

Since I am working with roman wagons it comes natural to me, to place land-transportation on an equal footing with transport on wagons. There are other means of land-transportation, though, and they are visible in the roman carvings, too.

Especially two kinds of transport pop into mind as alternatives to wagon-transport; walking and transporting on a pack-animal, often a donkey or a mule. On the latter a scene on a burial-monument in Igel by Trier, Germany, illustrates it quite well (see drawing). Here, a man and his animal are seen (twice) crossing a mountain area, which is one of the great advantages in this type of transport, since not all wagons can cross these areas and those who can will need some kind of road.

The other kind of land-transportation is best exemplified in carvings showing transportation of troops. The roman army had a need for transporting large amounts of soldiers very fast between various places in the empire, which again might be one of the main reasons for the road-network. These troops where walking and carrying all their goods, I believe some 25-30 kg each, themselves. Scenes where troops are seen walking together, are especially common on the larger monuments in Rome, where the two columns telling the stories about the Dacian Wars of Emperor Trajan (98-117) and Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180) wars against some Germanic tribes, probably the Marcomanes, carry more scenes of different aspects of war. One scene in particular is interesting here since it combines land- and water-transportation (see photo right). It is from the column of Marcus Aurelius and show the soldiers crossing a bridge made of boats, a pontoon-bridge. It was necessary for the army to cross the Danube, and therefor the roman engineers made a “floating” bridge during the night.

 

Summing up on 2006

Well, another year gone and a new one about to start. After a week (Christmas) without news on Ancient Transportation, I think it is about time to sum up on 2006 and to introduce some of my ideas of what is to come on this blog in 2007.

After only three months of Ancient Transportation the statistics on blog-activities says:

• Posts: 15
• Comments: 13
• Total views: around 2200

This is probably not much for three months on the Internet, but since my topic here is relatively narrow I am satisfied so far.. after all, not much happened the first month.

In 2007 my thesis on roman wagons will be handed in (around March/April) and therefore the work on this subject, including some discussions on water-transportation, will be a major theme in the first few months. Beside my own work I will also concentrate my posts on wagon-research around the world, especially in Scandinavia and Germany, where the now ongoing research on the Danish “Dejbjerg-wagons” (see photo left), a group of Celtic wagons, six in all, from more parts of Denmark, will be followed closely because they are of great interest to my own work on roman wagons.

I hope you will continue your interest in the archaeology of transportation and I also hope you will enjoy the 2007-edition of Ancient Transportation.

 

Does Ancient Ships and Wagons share methods of research?

The idea of this weblog is, as mentioned more than once, to learn more about roman transportation, especially wagons and transportation on land.

But ancient transportation also includes ships and seafaring, which is why posts on this material now will be introduced on this blog. The water-transportation material is parallel to the wagon material, and the different groups of archaeological evidence (original parts and iconography) are the same as in the case of the wagons (in my opinion, anyway). Therefore, I think, the ship-research, which, in many cases, is more discussed than the research on wagons, can be useful in the methodical part of research on roman transportation in general.

Any progress in this “new” topic will be noted on this page and categorized under “Water Transport”.

 

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.

 

Transportation - intro

Transport and transportation is and was allways an important factor for a “modern” society. Roads, railroads, containerships and air crafts are all important for us today, to keep the world moving, and they are all actors in our understanding of transportation.

This blog, however, is mostly concerned with the Romans and their idea of transportation. I will concentrate my writing on roman wagons and wagontechnology, but also make parrallels on more modern material, whereever I find it interesting.

I hope to give (and get!) a better “vista” of the wagons and landtransportation in the roman world.

Please feel free to comment on every post in this blog.