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.

 

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.

 

Types in Roman “Transportation”-Carvings - Intro

A roman carving is not only a marble-plate with a few cut-marks, it is a piece of art designed to play a part in a given context, which means the motive shown on a carving (most often) deliberately is put there to “tell a story”. In triumphal art scenes with triumphal processions and captured enemies and goods (trophies) is showed, and burial art can have carvings showing mythical scenes, often with dying or sleeping persons, or they can show scenes from the life of the buried person. 

In most kinds of roman art, transportation-carvings (scenes with some kind of transportation) are represented, and they are therefor treated as one group here. The group has two parts, each concentrating on land-transport and water-transport, which will be treated separately. In the case of land-transportation more carvings from the roman empire, mostly from the burial art though, are taken into discussion, and the same goes more or less for the water-part.

In both parts more types of vehicles are shown, to prove that any picture given on a marble-plate not necessarily is some kind of “standard” carving.

 

The Etruscan Wagon at the NY Met

Yesterday, rogueclassicism had a piece from the Times which concerned the Etruscan chariot in the Metropolitan Museum, New York.

This post is only here to bring a photo (see left) of the wagon mentioned in the article. It is clearly another type of wagon than the one in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, mentioned in an earlier post, also in the media because the Italians want it shipped home to Italy.

More info on this wagon on www.metmuseum.org

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

Ongoing bibliography

Now an “ongoing bibliography” is posted on its own page, called “bibliography”. It should be visible at the top of the main page.

“Ongoing” means this is no definite list of literature on the subjects of Roman Wagons or Ancient Transportation. It is merely a list of the literature I work with in my thesis and in writing posts on this blog.

If you have knowledge of books or articles not mentioned here, but working with Ancient Transportation, especially Roman Wagons, please write a comment and (if possible) leave a small review of it.

This list also includes titles on water-transportation.

 

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.