It may come as a surprise to many that the wheel is not one of the oldest inventions of the human race. Some items that pre-date the wheel include boats, sewing needles, woven cloth, rope and even the flute. The reason the wheel was a late comer in the world of human invention is because there are no wheels in nature. So when the wheel was invented what was it used for?
Reinventing the wheel
Would you believe that the first use of the wheel wasn’t even for transportation? The first wheels were used by the Mesopotamians in about 3500 BC and were used for potters wheels. It took another 300 years before the wheel was turned vertical and used on chariots. The wheel was reinvented yet again between the 6th and 4th centuries BC by the ancient Greeks when they figured out how to place the wheel on the front of a barrow, inventing the wheelbarrow.
The wheel was reinvented again by, depending on who you speak to, either the ancient Greeks or Romans when they developed the Rota Fortunae, otherwise known as the wheel of fortune. It was named after the goddess Fortuna who spun a wheel to determine the fate of those who she looked down on. Apart from these reinventions, the wheel has also undergone additional changes in use such as the torture and execution device called “breaking the wheel”. and in attempts to create a perpetual motion device.
Whoever invented the wheel did the human race probably the greatest good of all inventions. Without its invention or discovery the world as we know it would be very different.
