Wheelbarrow
Carretilla de una rueda
- Date
- c. 100 CE · confidence medium
- Place
- Sichuan and Chengdu, China
- Credited to
- Eastern Han; tradition attributes it to Zhuge Liang (231 CE) as the 'wooden ox'
- Field
- Movement
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A vehicle with a single large central wheel on which the load rests, balanced and pushed by one man along narrow paths. It multiplies fourfold the load a single porter can carry.
Han reliefs from Sichuan (2nd century CE) depict it; some authors see an unlikely Greek precedent in the Eleusis accounts (5th century BCE).
What it led to
- Military logistics over mountain paths (Shu Han)
- Peasant and market transport without draught animals
- The European wheelbarrow (12th century) with a front wheel, derived or independent
- Sail- and animal-drawn barrows in China
Built on
Made possible
- Animal-drawn and sail-assisted wheelbarrowc. 300 CE
- European wheelbarrowc. 1220
- Jinrikisha (rickshaw)1869
- Chinese sail-assisted wheelbarrow