1 Kings 7:33 - "The wheels were made like a chariot wheel; their axles, their rims, their spokes, and their hubs, were all cast."

Nahum 3:2 - "The crack of whip, and rumble of wheel, galloping horse and bounding chariot!"

In the fourth millennium B.C., some Sumerian craftsman built the first known wheeled vehicle. With wheels on axles, one ox could now haul two to three times as much weight as before. The Sumerians’ solid wooden wheel, which has been called the greatest mechanical invention of all time, remained essentially unchanged for centuries. The ancient wheelwrights made wheels from wooden planks, which were pegged together, forming a solid wooden disk.

It wasn’t until some 1,900 years later that lighter, spoked wheels came into common use with the general advent of the horse. But even then, it wasn’t possible to maneuver well, and, in fact, it wasn’t until the Middle Ages that wheels on swiveling front axles made carts steerable.

I don’t suppose any of us has managed to avoid seeing at least one film in which a covered wagon, heading West, breaks down or bogs down, and breaks a wheel. Remember the massive, solid chunks of wood that made up these wheels? And, of course, usually our friendly neighbor cowboy was an adept at making another to take its place. And, as a matter of fact, the early settlers in our West had to be adept at such things. There weren’t any blacksmith shops or carriage shops along the route! So they did their own repairs, right on the trail.

And that was the job of the ancient wheelwright, too. He not only made wheels, but he repaired them, also. Imagine having to work on the battlefield, repairing a chariot wheel! But this they did.

But they also had more peaceful occupations. Remember what we said about the hard work that it was for the water carrier to draw up the water! Well, the wheelwright could also make wheels over which ropes were drawn to facilitate the movement of the water buckets.

Today, of course, we still have our industrial plants that turn out the wheels for our cars, and with them we’d have to include the tire-makers and gear makers. With our advanced mechanical technology, comes advanced know-how in the making of objects to help our lives become easier and more pleasant.