🏺🛞 Street with cart ruts and stepping stones in Pompeii 🏛️

 🏺🛞 Street with cart ruts and stepping stones in  Pompeii  🏛️🐎

✅  Cart Ruts -  In those days, the Romans used chariots for transport  and these horse drawn vehicles  (often iron-rimmed)  frequently plied the stony roads of the city. To aid their movement, the roads had, and still have, parallel ruts cut into the surface to keep heavy wagons on track. Because articulated front axles for wagons weren't invented until the late Medieval period, steering was extremely difficult. 

The tracks cut in the city streets helped wagons avoid obstacles and make turns. In some places forked tracks were used like railroad switches  a strategically placed stone or wedge forced the wheels into the correct set of tracks.

✅ Raised block -   The streets also had raised blocks in the middle. These allowed pedestrians to cross the street without having to step onto the road itself which doubled up as Pompeii's drainage and sewage disposal system. The spaces between the blocks allowed vehicles to pass along the road.

✅  Combined function -  The entire system worked together: carts followed the ruts, while pedestrians used the raised stones to cross over the water and waste that flowed in the channels between the stones. 

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