la Roue en Bois la plus ancienne au monde
Selon le Discovery Channel la Roue en Bois la plus ancienne au monde a été retrouvée en Slovanie.
March 10, 2003 — A 5,100- to 5,350-year-old wooden wheel recently was found in Slovenia buried within an ancient marsh, according to a press release issued earlier this month by the Slovenian news agency STA.
The team of archaeologists who found the wheel claims it is 100 years older than the world's current tied record-holders, both said to be from Europe.
"The wheel is surprisingly technologically advanced — much more so than the later models found in Switzerland and Germany," said Anton Veluscek, an archaeologist from the Archaeological Institute at the Slovenian Academy of Arts and Sciences who was a member of the team that found the wheel.
Made of ash and oak woods, the wheel has a 27.5-inch radius and is nearly two inches thick. An axle, approximately four feet long, also was found at the marsh site near Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.
According to an exhibit taking place at the Owl's Head Transportation Museum in Maine entitled "The Evolution of the Wheel," the true beginnings of the wheel could date back to the Paleolithic era (15,000-750,000 years ago). While the location of the wheel's earliest inception remains unknown, general consensus places its invention in Mesopotamia, in what is now Iraq.
Before the wheel was invented, heavy loads probably were placed on a sled and pulled by men or oxen. Most historians theorize logs later were used as rollers underneath the sleds, or wooden platforms. When placed side by side, the logs would have allowed the top load to be moved with much less force.
Over time, friction from the movement would have worn down the logs, creating grooved rollers. To both combat and utilize this effect, rollers likely were shaped to be thin in the middle and thicker at the ends. Two wooden circular disks connected by a primitive axel-tree then replaced the roller, and the wheel was born.
About the latest find in Slovenia, David Machaiek, curator of the exhibit and assistant director of the Owl's Head museum, told Discovery News, "It's an exciting find. The wheel is one of man's most important inventions. Few of us stop and contemplate where the world would be without it. Virtually everything revolves around the wheel."
He added that wheels continue to evolve today, with custom wheels driving the most recent improvements. For example, some custom wheels are machined using sturdy, yet lightweight, aircraft-quality aluminum using computer technology to ensure precision.
Extrait de dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20030310/wheel.html
Ecrit par zimzim, le Lundi 26 Janvier 2004, 15:01 dans la rubrique "Edito".