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.

 

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.

 

Dejbjerg - Centraleuropean wagons in a Scandinavian context?

As I wrote the other day one of the research-areas to be followed on this blog in 2007 is the ongoing work and re-exhibition of the Dejbjerg-wagons in the Danish National Museum, Copenhagen (see photo (from the 1970s exhibition) in the “Summing up”-post from Saturday). The museum is now (until spring 2008) working on a new-exhibition of the part concerning the danish prehistory, and during this work archaeologists have the possibility to reexamine the wagons from Dejbjerg Bog in western Jutland. 

The Dejbjerg-wagons, excavated in the 1880s, belong to a group of six wagons found in western Denmark, from Limfjorden to Funen. They are all made in a Pre-roman central European (La Tène) tradition with bronze-fittings decorated in a way not seen likely anywhere in the Danish Iron-age material. The iron-parts, e.g. the wheel-rings, is probably made of European iron, and the wagons themselves is made in a non-Scandinavian tradition, compared to the rest of the Danish Iron-age wagon-material. 

But does this mean these wagons were actually driven all the way from, let’s say, Bohemia or Schwitzerland just to be bogged down in Jutland?

I think the situation about the Dejbjerg-wagons and the rest of this group, might be a bit more complex than that. The Chieftains in the southern Scandinavian area can easily have traded the foreign iron and bronze-parts to their area, and if they could get the metal-parts then why not also the inspiration or maybe even the craftsmen to construct these luxurious central European wagons?

The work on the wagons belonging to the Dejbjerg-group (all of them, not only the ones in the National Museum) will be followed intensively and any progress in the work and republication of them will be reported here.

 

Some literature on roman wagon-technology

Searching for 20th century literature on roman wagon-technology is not an easy task. It is a well-known fact that most studies like the one I am doing here is missing a “handbook” saying what is to be said on the subject.

This said, a few authors actually have made some chapters in their books on the subject of transportation and even on land-transportation and wagon-construction, but water transport is still the hotter topic.

Concerned with ancient technology and therefore also writing on wagon-construction is K. D. White. “Greek and Roman Technology” and J. G. Landels “Engineering in the Ancient World”, both books being more than 20 years old and written without direct knowledge of the archaeological material. They leave out some important and interesting details on the construction, ex. the suspension system as discussed in earlier posts, but they do make use of roman carvings in the general analyses of wagons, but unfortunately not in discussing details in roman wagon-construction (Landels argues against the wagon-”pole” as being invented in roman times even though it is seen on carvings from the 3. century, see photo left).

K. Greene.”The Archaeology of the Roman Economy”, also 20 years old, discuss roman transportation from an economic point of view, and therefore the land-transportation is not left much attention. He believes carvings is no good in the research on roman wagons, so I am really looking forward to make a chapter on the use of roman carvings in my thesis.

I think we need some new editions of “Roman Technology” books, preferably new books on the subject! I do not know if anyone out there is writing a book on the subject right now, but if you do, please let me know and let us discuss the problems of roman land transportation and wagon-construction, and hereby eliminate the obvious errors in this field of research.

 

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..