subject: Wheel History [print this page] Wheels are actually pretty important; they have come a long way from representing something in certain cultures, to being on cars that we use everyday.
If you were to ask people what they thought about a wheel in general, the first thing theyd probably say would be, Like the ones that come on your car? For the most part, it is; but it had served so many different purposes before then. During the 5th Millennium BC in Mesopotamia, its purpose was to help potters make their... well, pots. It wasnt until about 3500-3350 BC that they had finally used it for the Bronocice pot (the very first pot that was recorded to be a wheeled vehicle); it was made by making a large hole in the middle of the clay pot then rotating it on its side.
This fad reached Europe & Western Asia first, then the Indus Valley, then finally China. So, even though the wheel wasnt fully developed-but yet reaching different places of the world-the cultures from the Western Hemisphere had already approached this idea, but with stones that were round & found on childrens toys from 1500 BC. Even though all of this was advancing, scientists do think that Nubians were ahead of all this because they had been using wheels for spinning pottery, waterwheels, & chariots that were driven by horses that were imported from Egypt.
The innovation of the wheel falls under the New Stone Age era & may be linked to other inventions that were created in the Bronze Age. If you happen to think about it, people just like us were walking everywhere & carrying everything with their bare hands; how unorthodox, huh? When people finally started using horses to transport themselves & other materials, thats when they realized how strong & how useful the wheel can be. Since wheels usually need smooth surfaces to function properly, & back then everything was transferred on uneven surfaces, this actually delayed the usage of the wheel because without even surfaces, how is the wheel going to work without cracking?
Some of the first wheels were made out of wood that included a hole for the axle; but since the wheels would be carved thinly & it didnt have enough structural durability to carry heavy loads, they had to carve out long pieces of wood to carry the actual material that they had to move around & set it on top of the wheels.
They finally decided to include spokes on the wheel which allowed the wheel to support the vehicle more. When this was invented, the horse cultures of the European & Asian region were seen using war carriages that were supported by spoked wooden wheels. This trend eventually reached Greece, but was used for a different purpose. Horse carriages were being used to show respect & high honor to people in Athens & Sparta. The European people saw this design & decided to put an iron rim around it to make it stronger. The spoked wheel didnt really have any major changes until about the 1870s when the wire wheel & tire was introduced.
So I guess you can say that people have been trying to improve wheels ever since they were first discovered. Theyve come a long way: from being used for pottery hobbies to being on all cars that we use today; & from being made out of flimsy wood to being made from the strongest material that we can find today: Aluminum & Steel. Today, we have so many nice wheels like the Mercedes E-Class Wheels & the Honda S2000 Rims that you would have never thought they needed anything like that back then. Were almost spoiled, dont you think? Feel free to visit us at OriginalWheels.com for all of your wheel needs (:
