Those stones there were for crossing the street because this street doubled as a sewer. That’s right there was a literal river of shit running through town lined with little shops and cafes.
Mackinac island in Michigan is no cars are allowed. Mail is delivered by horse and wagon. Tourists get pulled around by horses and big wagons with rows of seats.
The only problem is there is horse crap and pee everywhere. At popular tourist stops there is a literal river of horse pee to step over. They do a good job of cleaning the downtown area quickly.
Still, can’t wait to go back.
Ew.
Yep. You were supposed to empty your chamber pot into the sewers or a local latrine, but it was a perpetual problem that people would just dump it onto the streets to save time.
Something something wagon ruts lead to size of space shuttle main engine somehting
War chariots?! War fucking chariots? And enough if them to leave marks in streets? That guy is off by a few centuries and a few kilometers there. War chariots were a thing in ancient Egypt, long before Rome even thought of existing. Rome didn’t use those, at least not in any meaningful numbers
Yep a lot of early railways in UK were broad guage. Like brunnels Great Western. So even in England a lot of non compatible rail existed.
Yup! But it was a bit more clever than that. From what our guide said there was always water running, so it would have constantly been washing the crap away.
Ah, I love those stepping stones.
Here you can see the origin of the cross walk marking on the current roads. They were originally stepping stones so you didn’t have to walk through horse shit.
Though for little children, child adults (like me) and ocd, the current road markings still considered to be those stepping stones from the old days ;)
That seems like it would be hard for horses? If it’s a single horse pulling, then they constantly have to step over the middle stepping stone. And if it’s a team, they’re constantly having to avoid stepping into the wagon ruts.
Most roman carriages and wagons were carried by teams of two, which pretty much eliminates this problem.
It eliminates the issue of the center stone. But if it’s a team, then each horse has a small gutter running right underfoot, with especially limited hoof-space next to the stepping stones. While trodding on stones that are under water/sewage, and slippery with all that. How do they avoid twisting their hock in the wheel ruts?
It’s really not that narrow, horses have four legs, and they’re designed for worse from nature’s side. They didn’t evolve for flat concrete roads.
