The wheel has been around for at least 6000 years... from Mesopotamia in the Middle East all the way to central Europe. No one really knows when it was "invented". Wheels move people, wood for making fires and the construction of useful items, animals, and products of the harvest. The first wheels were wooden disks... the first spoked wheels came from the Caucasus region down toward Greece and the Mediterranean cultures about 4000 years ago. Of course, the Romans developed their two wheeled chariots...

...perhaps a precursor of the painted Sicilian Carretto, one of the most beautiful of all folk crafted technologies in all of Italy. Their bright primary colors (yellow, blue, red, green) celebrate the sun, the sea, lemons, the glowing lava from Mount Etna, the richness of green olive and grape leaves and the passions in the Sicilian soul.

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Source: http://grandvoyageitaly.weebly.com/