Wheel 2

The Near East
The wheeled vehicle was probably first invented in the fertile land between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers toward the end of the fourth millenniumb.c.Our first evidence appears in the form of pictographs used in the proto-literate script of the Uruk IVa phase (c.3200-3100b.c.). 5These representations take the form of platforms and superstructures resting on either captive rollers or actual wheels (see fig. 2).
Then, during the Early Dynastic phase of the Sumerian civilization (c.3000-2375b.c.) there are abundant representations of a four-wheeled vehicle called a "battle car" (see fig. 3) which carried two men and was used in an unquestionably military context. It was drawn by animals which most closely represent half-asses or onagers (Equus hemionus). 6At the same time, there is evidence for the use of two-wheeled vehicles for the first time, in a form which appears to some researchers to represent an antecedent to the chariot 7(see fig. 4).
Subsequently, around 1700b.c., cylinder seals from Anatolia start to represent a true chariot: a fast, light vehicle with two wheels of spoked design, drawn by domesticated horses. These seals show kings, deities, or other high-status individuals riding chariots in situations which could be related to either hunting or warfare. 8The first step towards mass chariot warfare also seems to have taken place in Anatolia, where Hittite texts from the 17th centuryb.c.tell of opposing armies employing forty or even eighty chariots in battle. 9Later, at the famous battle of Kadesh (c.1286b.c.) between the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II and the Hittite king Muwatallish, the Hittites took the field with twenty-five hundred chariots (according to Egyptian accounts). The chariots at Kadesh were probably used as mobile firing platforms for arrows (Egypt) and spears (Hittite). This was the heyday of the war chariot in the ancient world. At the same time, the chariot was being used as a status marker by ruling kings. Five gorgeous state chariots were found in the tomb of Tutankhamun (c.1352b.c.). 10These were fashioned of rare, imported woods and were splendidly outfitted in gold and other expensive ornament. These were probably not used as battle platforms, but as objects of awe-inspiring display.
Soon however, the Near Eastern chariot began to be replaced in importance by cavalry and then massed infantry. By the ninth centuryb.c., the mighty Assyrian kingdom was beginning to use mounted troops to perform the flanking function once served by the horse chariot. 11By the second half of the first millenniumb.c., the chariot was being used by the Persian Empire as merely a "shock" device to throw the enemy into confusion, through the use of spinning metal scythes attached to the axle. 12And finally, by the time of Alexander's conquest of the known world (324b.c.), the chariot was once again only a marker of status for the nobility.