Were the ancient Egyptians stupid?

[Rokcet Scientist]

In the ancient Egyptian mythological pantheon the Scarab God rolled Ra, the sun god, everyday across the heavens, like the scarab beetle rolls balls of dung across the desert floor (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbcIdq4e ... re=related).
(Clearly that parable was the prequel to Saturday Night Live... Those ancient Egyptians had humor, I'll tell ya that!)

The operative word I'm drawn to here is "roll".

I'm puzzled why the ancient Egyptians, while they apparently recognised the mechanics of rolling, and very prominently I might add, nevertheless did not develop the wheel. Or so we're told. And that it took the Hyksos to introduce the wheel to Egypt, at least half a millennium after Khufu supposedly constructed his pyramid at Gizeh.

Something doesn't jive there: the old Egyptians rocked! So logic dictates that they must have rolled too, doesn't it?
But seriously: it doesn't add up, imo.

[Minimalist]

Probably had to do with terrain. Most of the country is desert and what isn't is cultivated. They were not great road builders so the utility of wheeled vehicles is dubious. Still, you'd think the occasional ox cart would be useful but perhaps they were so dependent on the river that any thought of non-river transport never entered their minds?

[kbs2244]

I would call that a good guess Min.

Wasn’t the cultivated, and thus settled, strip along the Nile less than a mile wide?
A donkey would make a decent load carrier for that distance.
Sand to river.

Camels for the long trips across the sand, where wheels would sink.

[Minimalist]

It varies, of course, but..........


http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/geography/nile.htm

The area inhabited included the Delta apart from the marshes, the Fayum around Lake Moeris, a strip of land along the Nile up to the first cataract at Aswan, never exceeding 25 km in width, but often much narrower and a few oases in the Western Desert, a few tens of thousands square kilometres of irrigated and thus habitable land.

25 km is what? About 15 miles? So a max of 7.5 miles on either bank of the river.

[Rokcet Scientist]

It varies, of course, but..........


http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/geography/nile.htm

The area inhabited included the Delta apart from the marshes, the Fayum around Lake Moeris, a strip of land along the Nile up to the first cataract at Aswan, never exceeding 25 km in width, but often much narrower and a few oases in the Western Desert, a few tens of thousands square kilometres of irrigated and thus habitable land.

25 km is what? About 15 miles? So a max of 7.5 miles on either bank of the river.

25 km is at its widest. In practice the Nile Valley is on average 6/7 miles wide = 3/4 miles (4,5 to 6 km) max of fertile, habitable soil on either side.

Probably had to do with terrain. Most of the country is desert and what isn't is cultivated. They were not great road builders so the utility of wheeled vehicles is dubious. Still, you'd think the occasional ox cart would be useful but perhaps they were so dependent on the river that any thought of non-river transport never entered their minds?

I don't think the Hyksos came from much more wheel-friendly terrain than the Egyptians lived in. The Hyksos had high altitude rock deserts and lots of mountains to contend with where they came from. And afaik they weren't road builders either.
Egypt doesn't have mountains or high altitude rock deserts. Outside of the Nile Valley they have only sand. But not just soft beach type sand. Much of the country was/is hard packed sand and rocky desert. Flat and hard: ideal for wheels.

I know because I did it: in 1983 I drove 40 mph with a 20 tonne (but unladen) truck-trailer combination in the desert 20 miles west of Gizeh!

How else do you think Rommel made such lightning progress in 1942? His army was comprised of only a couple dozen self-propelled, tracked tanks. The bulk of his army, hundreds of vehicles, were wheeled trucks and artillery pieces! And Rommel's winning strategy, time and again, was to outflank the enemy by cutting straight across the desert. With those hundreds of wheeled vehicles! And that worked admirably, didn't it?

And then there are the annual Paris-Dakar Rallye in west Africa and the Baja 900* race on your side of the pond that all demonstrate that wheels and deserts are the ideal combination.

Even in lunar and martian deserts.

*at least that's what I think it's called, but I'm probably wrong.

[Digit]

Horses etc require fodder=equal land not available for other uses, boats don't.

Roy.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Of course, and don't forget that cocks will usually crow at dawn!

[Digit]

Roy.

[Minimalist]

Your argument about Rommel was compelling...even if motor driven wheels are more powerful than horse or ox cart driven wheels ( you also have to carry a LOT of water to march animals through the desert or they have the disagreeable tendency to die on you) but something didn't quite ring true.

I ran a search on google images for Egypt Western Desert and found these:









As opposed to these photos of German and Italian tanks in the Libyan Desert.





The character of the desert looks different. For the record, I wouldn't want to stand in a chariot whipping along the rock strewn Libyan desert, either. They had no springs.

But I think Dig has the main answer. The Egyptians had no horse-breeding tradition of their own. The Hyksos introduced it. But they also introduced the compound bow which probably made an even bigger impact on warfare.

[Rokcet Scientist]

But they also introduced the compound bow which probably made an even bigger impact on warfare.

You must mean the recurve bow. The compound bow seems to be a 20th century AD invention as it was patented in 1966, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_bow.

[Minimalist]

Make that "composite" bow.

[Digit]

The British LRDG and the SAS used wheeled vehicles Min, but as you have correctly sussed they stuck, as far as posible, to the stony plains. AFAIK the sand desert is mainly to the south. Hence the current advance of the desert.

Roy.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Chariot racing in sand: http://tinyurl.com/32t4z8e

Observe the all terrain wheels: flat and wide.

And the race tracks in the Circus Maximus weren't asphalted pavement either, but hard packed sand as well.

[Minimalist]

but hard packed sand as well.

Key words. The "Way of Horus" the "road" between the Delta and Canaan across the coast of Sinai was little more than well-tramped dirt. It works quite well in areas that don't get a lot of rain.

I doubt that the sand in the Circus Maximus was more than an inch or so deep, though. It helped soak up the blood.

[Digit]

The major forces in north Africa Min fought near the coast. The LRDG and the SAS used 3 ton trucks and Jeeps with deep tread tyres call sand tyres and/or chains but avoided dunes as much as possible.
Horses are plains animals and need reasonable forage, Donkeys less so, Donkeys could have used the same east/west raised tracks as the farmers, wheeled vehicles would have needed much wider ways, and just how much material went east/west in bulk I wonder?

Roy.