Wooden Crane
Episode 3
How do you get all that cargo into and out of the ships? The Romans used wooden cranes.
Our dockside crane is a Tread Wheel Crane and many pictures of this kind of crane have been found by historians. Some of the Roman illustrations show huge cranes. Romans used them in building and lifting, especially stone. The source of power for these cranes would have been human and where cranes like this were used in quarries and building sites that would mean slaves. Turning the main drum, the winch, would have required many strong folk.
Click the picture to see a larger version - you might want to save it or print it too!