Invention of Wheel - Sumer

The revolutionary invention of the wheel




A Mesopotamian wheel

A Mesopotamian wheel. Photo source .


Pottery Wheels





By Ḏḥwty


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Wikipedia, 2014. Wheel. [Online]
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Without draft animals wheels, for transport are pretty useless. First you really can't stop on a hill without a sophisticated breaking mechanism. Secondly, if you look at the places that could have made the wheel, but didn't the ground is usually horrible for wheeled transport. Older wheeled transport was quite heavy for the volume they they could carry. Sand or Muddy conditions were out. Wheels are a fixed width apart on the axle which means no getting them through dense forest without a lot of work. Third as mentioned before even if you have domestic animals not all of them are suited to wheeled conveyance. The Andean llamas can pull a cart, but you have to go back the hill factor they are not sturdy enough beasts to break a heavily laden cart. They also don't like ramps as opposed to steps in their natural state. The dogs that were used in North America with travois might have have been able to adapt to carts if they had nice flat roads, something they might have had in a few centuries had there been no European contact. However, they did just fine with travois. By all accounts their 50-60 pound dogs could carry a quartered bison without slowing down the hunters and they could do it over all sorts of terrain from sand and grass to forest and snow.

Wheels were not preferred by Arab Muslims because of the desert. Wheels are not suitable for such terrain as they will sink in the sand. This has nothing to do with religion. It's just more practical to use camels than wagons and horses.

A better question than one simply about the invention of the wheel is why knowledge of this device was ignored by relatively advanced people. Arab Muslims virtually traded the wheel for the camel, the wheel no doubt being contrary to the wishes of Mohammed and allah. But the Mayas in central america knew the wheel. They used it only in children/s toys. A number of examples have been found in tombs of wood carved dogs having four wheels supported by an axles running through holes drilled in the front and rear legs. The toy was pulled by a string. No full sized ancient Mayan wheels have ever been found.

Peter Harrap's picture

I am definitely with Angie here on this one. I believe there have been wheels for almost as long as we have been around because you cannot observe an apple or orange or cherry rolling on the ground without being struck by its way of moving, and once you look again and again at it, the next thing is to slice through your apple, or cut it into slices and see if they roll. There are dozens of fruits in nature that move like this an they probably predate us, so the catalyst and the inspiration have always been all around us.

angieblackmon's picture

it's funny that this article comes out now when I was just talking to my husband the other day about the wheel and why it wasn't created sooner. I couldn't figure out why someone would understand the idea of rolling. Even small kids (like our 8 month old daughter) understand how to roll over...and it seems to me that trees that could/would have fallen down could have been rolled out of the way...the same thing with like fruit or anything else circular or similar....glad to read this! :)

love, light and blessings



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