Wheel rise, eventually, to classical Greece after the breaking of Minoan dominance and consolidations led by pre-classical Sparta and Athens. Celtic chariots introduced an iron rim around the wheel in the 1st millennium BCE. The spoked wheel was in continued use without major modification until the 1870s, when wire-spoked wheels and pneumatic tires were invented. The wire spokes are under tension, not compression, making it possible for the wheel to be both stiff and light. Early radially-spoked wire wheels gave rise to tangentially-spoked wire wheels, which were widely used on cars into the late 20th century. Cast alloy wheels are now
Ship's wheel (though sometimes as few as six or as many as ten) shaped like balusters and all joined at a central wooden hub or "nave" (sometimes covered with a brass "nave plate") which housed the axle. The square hole at the centre of the hub through which the axle ran is called the "drive square" and was often lined with a brass plate (and therefore called a "brass boss", though this term was used more often to refer to a brass hub and nave plate) which was frequently etched with the name of the wheel's manufacturer. The outer rim is composed