Elias Manuel Morgado Pinheiro Dissertação de Mestrado em ...

of the felloe, or being mortised into the sides of the larger bar, effectively increasing the
number of cross-bars to four 21 . Either way, it is the first evidence of a new trend
towards lighter vehicles in the Near East.
This new trend becomes clearly dominant after 2000 B.C., where numerous
examples of experimentation with new designs of lighter wheels can be found. While
the traditional four wheeled wagons are relegated to ceremonial use, a new type of four
wheeled vehicle emerges, shown in seals originated in Karum Kanesh II, in Anatolia,
and dated c. 2000 -1875 B.C. Although some of these vehicles (fig.2) continue to use
the cross-bar wheel, others show a new design: the spoked wheel, similar to the ones
found in northern Kazakhstan, but of simpler design (fig.3). The relation between the
two, as well as the relation between these and the cross-bar wheel will be addressed
later.
Fig. 2 Enlarged detail from a cylinder seal of Karum Kanesh II
showing cross-bar wheels (c. 2000-1850 B.C.) after Littauer and
Crouwel, 1979, fig. 24
The spoked wheel consists in an outer rim united to an independent inner hub,
through a variable number of spokes, four in the considered case. These are the earliest
examples of the use of spoked wheels in the Near East. Besides these four wheeled
carts, the seals of Karum Kanesh II also show another type of vehicle: a lighter, two
21 Littauer and Crouwel, 1977, p.95
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