Page 112 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol V

transportation—overview 1889

effort. Everywhere priests and warriors sooner or later principal civilizations depended on caravans using one or
came together and jointly supervised a transport system more of the animals of western Asia. Caravans attained
that brought large quantities of food and fiber into city more or less permanent trans-continental linkages after
storehouses, and used what they collected from the coun- 101 BCE when the Chinese emperor Wu Ti sent an expe-
tryside to maintain themselves and to feed specialized dition westward to Central Asia looking for a new breed
artisans who manufactured a multiplicity of objects for of “blood sweating” horses to use in wars against steppe
the use of professional soldiers and for religious rituals. nomads. He succeeded in his quest, and in subsequent
In Sumer, spinning and weaving wool and dispatching centuries contact across Asia was never broken off for
bales of cloth on donkey-back to exchange for items long. Silk, metal, and other precious goods traveling
needed to keep soldiers, priests and gods happy—metal, overland between China, India, and western Asia were
timber, lapis lazuli, perfumes and much else—was espe- matched by the spread of ideas, especially the missionary
cially significant since it kept the cities of Sumer in touch religions, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam that fitted
with diverse and distant hinterlands. the human needs of city living. Infectious diseases also
spread far and wide along caravan routes, leaving sur-
The Wheel vivors with antibodies in their bloodstreams that were
Sumerian rulers thus became the managers of a transport effective against an expanding array of lethal infections.
network that brought anything of unusual interest or use- Caravans had their limitations however, since even a
fulness to their attention from across many hundreds of camel, the strongest caravan animal, could only carry
miles.Wheels, capable of carrying heavier loads with far about 400 pounds. Making rough terrain suitable for
less effort than before, were among the items invented wheeled vehicles in order to carry heavier loads required
somewhere within that network, and duly appeared in building smooth, firm roadways, and bridging streams.
Sumer where wheeled toys of clay show up a long time That required prolonged and costly effort. Nevertheless,
before archaeologists have found any traces of actual the Assyrian empire (935–612 BCE) pioneered large-
carts and wagons. At first, wheels were made of solid scale road construction. It did so to allow marching sol-
wood, fixed to an axle that turned underneath the body diers to repel invaders and suppress revolts more quickly.
of the cart or wagon. About 1800 BCE fixed axles and But armies needed supplies from the rear, so merchants
spoked wheels were invented, concentrating friction in used military roads from the start, and long-range carry-
well-greased wheel hubs so that pulling heavy loads ing capacity by wheeled transport correspondingly
became far easier than before. increased wherever roads existed.
Spoked wheels and hubs made chariots decisive in Later empires, both in China and Europe, also put
war, while carrying large quantities of grain, wool, timber, much effort into building roads. Roman roads are espe-
and other heavy commodities on two- and four-wheeled cially well known. They eventually linked the city of
carts and wagons supplied armies and cities much more Rome with all the provinces except insular Britain, while
easily than before. A pair of oxen hitched to a four- within Britain local roads linked the productive south
wheeled wagon by their horns could pull thousands of with the north, where a garrison defended a wall
pounds across the dry and level landscapes that prevailed intended to keep barbarians out.Yet sea commerce across
in the land of Sumer. But in hilly and wetter places, carts the Mediterranean was far more important for Roman
and wagons long remained of little use because they society than anything transported by road. Ships circu-
bogged down in mud and could not cross streams. lated articles of common consumption—grain, wine,
Other civilizations constructed other transport sys- salt, cloth, pottery, and much else—among the coastal
tems to supply their cities and sustain states and their cities. The Roman roads fed that sea commerce by
rulers.Within the Old World, contact by land among the extending its reach inland, and also linked up along the