Anyone care to speculate as to why there's a circular hole (of unknown depth) drilled near the rim and why the centre of the wheel looks to have a large oval hole that's been filled.
Just curious.
Tim
Rotating knives?
and why the centre of the wheel looks to have a
Knots? seriously there's nothing to be gained from that photo at all. Could just be differential rotting where a dog pissed on it 3000 years ago .
Its where the crank from the steam engine went.
Somewhere to grip when you need to help it out of mud?
Cheers
Wild speculation of course, and much more will be learnt when they've unearthed more of the site, but it doesn't have to be part of a cart. In some countries, notably India, potters use a wheel that is roughly at ground level, rotating on a pivot, and given a spin every now and then using a stick placed in a hole hear the perimeter. The heavier the rim, the greater the momentum, longer it took to slow down and the less often it had to be spun up.
A lot of pottery was found on the Must Farm site.
Never used AFAIK
The neat circular hole was drilled by a 20th/21st century geologist doing a bore hole, according to the BBC article I read yesterday.
I apologise for providing such a mundane, but accurate, answer. :)
Perhaps it was an early apprentice being told to make a whole in the centre who didn't know where the centre was, after a few attempts the filled in bit he got it right ;-)
Oops, inaccurate ... it was the Guardian.
Although the discovery of a horse spine neary suggested cart.
That fragment as its stands is clearly too thin to have functioned as a wheel in its own right; either as a cartwheel or a potter's wheel.
Quite possibly it functioned as an outside veneer to cover the joints in a much more substantial plank wheel, made of a species more prone to rotting way
Hence why others have been found. And why this may have been part of a more "top end" wheel, as found on a typical "superchariot" or "supercart" of it's day
michael adams
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It's explained in one of the media articles, it is where a core sampler went though it in an earlier investigation.
Hence why no *others* have been found
Thank you! That makes a lot more sense that some of the other suggestions. ;-)
Tim
In article , Chris Hogg writes
snip
Sounds plausible to me. IIRC the wheel is pretty thin and doesn't look as if it would be strong enough for a cart of any kind.
FFS some of them are wearing hi viz.
Says someone who has obviously never seen a horse drawn vehicle
Especially if you want to throw cartwheel sized pots or you've got exceptionally long arms I'd imagine.
michael adams
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The report in the Guardian said that a geologist had drilled though it when taking core samples before it had been uncovered.
Nah. Last thing you need in a potter's wheel is a ruddy great axle sticking up through the middle. A wooden wheel unless massively thick wouldn't have enough momentum to spin usefully long on any sort of bearing they would have had then.
The thickness, or lack of it is a puzzle but given that it's only shown partially excavated I don't think we know how thick it is/was.
Tim
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