Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c14.75

c14.75

Some scholars have claimed that in Western Asia the earliest representation of a wheeled vehicle, that might be a form of chariot, is depicted on a Tell Halaf painted pot, where a human figure stands by a circular object divided by cross-lines in such a manner as to suggest an eight-spoked wheel. If this interpretation is correct, it implies that the accomplished carpentry and wheelwright's craft necessary to produce such a wheel had been evolved on the Khabur River at an extremely early date, which is surely unlikely. The production of a spoked wheel demands good metal tools of a standard certainly not attained by the hesitant, experimental metallurgy of Tell Halaf times, and I find it difficult to accept this representation as that of a wheeled vehicle at all.