Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c14.90

c14.90

runs the simile, and this must surely imply that the felloe was single-piece, and bent into the circular shape, just as the Celtic chariot-wheels were made. The Egyptian chariot-wheels and probably (to judge by the representations) the Mycenaean examples were not made thus, nor do the later Hittite or Assyrian reliefs suggest this primitive, but extremely strong and light, form of wheel-construction. It presumably needs a fairly large number of spokes to make it function effectively, and might be a pointer to the Aryan wheels having more than four. Its occurrence in the two peripheral areas of Indo-European culture, so remote in time and space, is fascinating, and it still survives in Turkestan. The wheels were shod with metal tyres, as were the Homeric chariots and those of the Iron Age Celts just mentioned.