Posted on 12/10/2007 12:32:15 PM PST by Dean Baker
Just a simple question to kick-around unless someone knows for sure?
I'm watching the Nativity Scene the other day (Good movie, by the way) and I notice that the villagers around Mary, Joseph and family have pull carts with solid, wooden wheels.
I guess I've always assumed this type of wheel came first as far as history goes...
Then I started thinking about other movies like Gladiator, The 10 Commandments, various other "BC" movies and notice that they've got wooden, spoked wheels...Even though all of these movies took place much, much earlier in history than the Nativity Scene.
The only answer I can come up with myself is that maybe the more wealthy had wooden wheels with spokes and the less wealthy had solid wooden wheels?
Or is it all a big plot hole and once the spoked wooden wheel came around, the much less useful, comfortable and more easily damaged, (But probably much less expensive) solid wooden wheel went the way of the Doh Doh??
Here’s your answer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYkIdbdQQmE
Turn page paper alert?
This is an interesting article that might help—
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=33168
If anything— it is certainly a genuine wheel from ages past
LOL!!
Just another example of why even before Google, I do a search for any given subject on Free Republic.
Loved the Wheel Dancer!!
I would assume that solid came first. Spokes would be lighter but I suspect that there would be a lot more work involved in making them.
I dunno, but I want Ben Hur wheels.
I would assume the same thing but it seems solid wooden wheels would break-down pretty easily if traveling down stone roads?
IIRC, there were solid wheels in specific applications (cannons on ships, for example) hundreds of years later.
Not sure if that speaks to which came first, but the existance of one would not infer total replacement of the other.
Your wheels are weak, young Hur... < /Darth Vader>
All your wheels are belong to us.....
Spoked wheels are much lighter but I would have to guess that they were extremely expensive.
Solid wheels would have been much cheaper, and capable of carrying heavier loads as well.
You’re on a roll.
You’ll have to ask the spokesperson.
Not really, but the alternative is very labor intensive.
FWIW, “Gladiator” is set about 150 years after Christ died.
Solid wheels would have been much cheaper, and capable of carrying heavier loads as well.
I would assume the same thing, but I would also assume that solid wheels might become more expensive because when they break, the entire wheel is shot...When a spoke breaks, you just replace the spoke.
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