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Hi!
i meant to write something about it for some time now, so i cajoled myself into doing it now!
INTRO
so;
This is the viking horse cart that was in use in 9.th century A.D. It is called the Oseberg wagon, and was found was at a burial site.
some pages on ancient wagon designs call this wagon “heavy, and pimitive”, but i think it is a misconception to call it primitive or inferior.
the commonly made mistake is to judge its design from out contemporary standpoint of what is good and what isn’t. it was, in fact, well designed for the purpose and environment, and superior to our wagons in that environment.
PRIMITIVE… OR NOT?
the first thing that one notices it how “primitive” the wheels are, and by primitive i mean the broad and heavy wheel hubs and high outer traction surface. indeed they make for the half of the wheel diameter.
WHEELS:
there were four wheels of the same diameter. the absence of smaller front wheels and the bigger turning circle indicate that it was used for relatively fast travel (faster than oxen) on presumably pastures or smaller plains, where the smaller turning circle wasn’t necessary and speed could be developed.The wheel rims are surprisingly thin, so one can ask: if they were wides, surely they wouldn’t sink as much in the mud! But it would also make the wagon much heavier, slower and with less carrying capacity. My guess was that it was designed for relatively fast transport with good mud crossing capability when there was any. So in a sense the tall but thin rims were a trade-off of sinking vs.weight and speed.
the broad hubs provided ruggedness, as the outer rims were much heavier than ones on roman wagons. they could also indicate that the wagon was designed to take the beating of running tilted on mild slopes at maybe a trot. No ordinary wheel hub without iron reinforcement could take that for a long time, so it had to be quite massive and broad. they weren’t reinforced with metal, and that’s why they were unusually thick.
in comperance to the roman and our wheels, made or steam-bent wood, this design may look primitive, but it had distinct advantages to the roman wheel hubs.the “trick” for such a design was in what type of roads the wagon used; there were none.
so it had to go all wear round, when there was no snow, basically off road (a better option) or on “roads”(other option), or muddy tracks carved in the fields.
now imagine a contemporary wagon going a (half) foot deep in mud: it would be hard, and even harder since the mud would get between the spokes, and as the wheel moved, it would pull out the mud and put an additional strain on the animals, not only to pull the wagon through the mud, but also “out” of the mud, since the mud would get well over the outer disc of the wheel and would get between the spokes.
here the viking wagon was better: it had higher outer rims (a half of the wheel diameter), so the wheel would cut through the mud like a butter knife and would be easier to pull out.
the roman wheel, like ours, was designed to be mostly used on roads, while this vehicle was designed do go mostly off road (there were no roads to speak of in Scandinavia at the time), over grass and mud, and so its appearance can be misleading when looked from our costumary point of view.
[IMG]http://www.houndsofcaid.org/media/carting/viking_cart/OsebergWagon22.JPG[/IMG]
BOX:
second to the big wheels is the comparatively small space for the freight.
but, it clearly wasn’t a farm wagon, but a luxury wagon for traveling and status, probably also related to religion. the big but narrow wheels, the comparatively small but elaborately carved box all indicate that it wasn’t a simple farm wagon. thus no as big carrying box was needed.
note that despite its heavy appearance it was actually light.FRAME:
Frames are rugged, and two are running parallel to each other.
the construction is different since the skeleton is made of two parallel running beams, as opposed to only one found in our wagons.Therefore I think it was a design of old origins, presumably from sleds, hence the two runners were converted to frames f or axles.
the front axle couldn’t pivot a lot, but I think it was enough for the needs of traveling.
Conclusion:
It was a wagon of older, separate design, from our wagons, but well made for the environment and purposes it was designed for.
hope you enjoyed!
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