Manouevering with a sarissa

[RichT]

I'd also forgotten about:

"Flamininus being unable to ascertain where the enemy were encamped, but yet being clearly informed that they had entered Thessaly, gave orders to all his men to cut stakes to carry with them, ready for use at any moment. This seems impossible to Greek habits, but to those of Rome it is easy. For the Greeks find it difficult to hold even their sarissae on the march, and can scarcely bear the fatigue of them; but the Romans strap their shields to their shoulders with leathern thongs, and, having nothing but their javelins in their hands, can stand the additional burden of a stake." Pol 18.18.1-4

Doesn't tell us how they carried them, but does suggest they carried them themselves, not in baggage.

Also I see this exact same discussion happened on Historum a while ago. The best contributions are from Matthew Amt, including:

Well, from my own (not extensive) experience with my sarissa and with 17th century pikes, and from depictions of Renaissance armies, there are several ways to march with pikes. Vertically, though I agree that's not best for distance marching, it was probably used mainly when the army was deploying for battle and actually on the battlefield. "At the trail" (in later terminology) meaning holding it near the head and letting the butt drag behind you. FAR behind you. I have a little trouble believing this was "standard", it's just too much wear on the butt, it'll raise a horrible racket as well as terrible dust, and the column will be a disaster of men tripping on pikeshafts. "Sloped" is better, balanced on the shoulder with the butt forwards and pointed down at a shallow angle. You do have to take care to point it between the men in front, but that's not hard if the files aren't too close together. Corners or tight curves may be tricky, but it's easy enough for everyone to shuffle their pike quickly up to vertical to go around the turn, then slide it back down to "sloped". Having 2 men carry multiple pikes may be an option, too.

[Erpingham]

Can't disagree with Matthew there (as usual, he's pretty practical).  As said earlier, provided the formation is still fairly open, shouldered pikes aren't much problem.  You would need some other carry as the formation deployed for imminent action though - as Matthew says, something more vertical.

[PMBardunias]

Seems universal

[Cantabrigian]

May not be directly applicable, but there's a similar problem in sport rowing.  Oars are difficult to carry not because of their weight, but because of their length.

One common technique when you have to carry them a long distance is to have two people supporting opposite ends of each oar under their arms.  That way two people can fairly easily carry eight oars fairly easily.

It could be improved further with straps, and you can take it in turns.

[Erpingham]

Having seen this resurface, I have been looking at Sumerian/Akkadian images recently (I blame Jon Freitag)

I was studying the well known Stele of Naram-Sin

https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010123450

Looking at picture 4 in the gallery, I noted the way the warriors carried their spears and standards as they climb the mountain.  Unless these are moonlighting SK members, people have been marching with spears in this way for longer than I'd realised.