The almost constant warfare among the Sumerian city-states for 2,000
years spurred the development of military technology and technique far beyond
any similar development found elsewhere in the Near East at that time. The
first Sumerian war for which there is detailed evidence occurred between the
states of Lagash and Umma in 2525 b. c. e. In this conflict Eannatum of Lagash
defeated the king of Umma. The importance of this war to the military historian
lies in a commemorative stele that Eannatum erected to celebrate his victory.
This stele is called the “Stele of Vultures” for its portrayal of birds of prey
and lions tearing at the flesh of the corpses as they lay on the desert plain.
The stele represents the first important pictorial portrayal of war in the
Sumerian period and portrays the king of Lagash leading an infantry phalanx of
armored, helmeted warriors, armed with spears as they trample their enemies.
The rise of the world’s first civilizations in southern
Mesopotamia and Egypt in the late fourth millennium bce also begins the history
of organized warfare in western civilization. The creators of the first
Mesopotamian civilization were the Sumerians, a people whose origins still
remain unclear. By 3000 bce they had established a number of independent walled
city-states in southern Mesopotamia, including the cities of Eridu, Ur, Uruk
and Lagash. As the number of Sumerian city-states grew and expanded in the
third millennium bce, new conflicts arose as city-states fought each other for
control of local natural resources or united against the persistent threat of
barbarian raiding and invasion.
With the rise of civilization and organized violence came
the experimentation with metal alloys in a search for harder, more lethal
materials to make weapons. As early as 6000 bce in Anatolia, Neolithic man
experimented with copper tools and weapons. But it was not until the fourth
millennium bce that tin was added to copper to produce a superior alloy,
beginning the Bronze Age. Roughly contemporary to the rise of civilization in
Mesopotamia, the Bronze Age made warfare a much more dangerous activity than it
had been before in the neolithic period. From the back of their bronze-gilded
war chariots, Mesopotamian kings and, later, Egyptian pharaohs made war and
carved empires, bringing civilization to newly conquered regions.
The Sumerians are credited with inventing numerous military
technologies, including the war chariot, bronze maces, sickle-swords, socket
spears and axes, and the defensive technologies of copper and bronze helmets,
armoured cloaks and bronze armour. Many of these weapons, such as the mace,
spear and axe, were present in the pre-neolithic and neolithic periods as stone
weapons, but the Sumerians improved their lethality by making them out of
copper and, later, bronze. In response to the increased lethality of metal
weapons, personal body armour was developed, made first out of leather, then
copper and, later, bronze. By 2100 bce, bronze scale-armour had been developed,
and by 1700 bce was widely used by Mesopotamian and, later, Egyptian
armies.
The standard shock weapons in Sumerian armies were the long
heavy spear, battleaxe and the dagger. The effectiveness of the heavy thrusting
spear on the battlefields of Mesopotamia affected the tactical development of
ancient armies more than any other weapon. If soldiers armed with the spear
were to fight effectively in groups, they had to arrange themselves in
close-order formation, giving rise to the first heavy-infantry battle-square in
western civilization. Unfortunately, historians know very little about ancient
Mesopotamian military formations and tactics because kings used writing to
commemorate significant military victories, not the manner in which the battle
was fought. Occasionally, the same events were recorded in pictorial form. The
most impressive of these early illustrations of the Sumerian army at war is
provided by the Stele of Vultures from the city-state of Lagash, dating from
around 2500 bce.
The Stele of Vultures commemorates a victory of King
Eannatum of Lagash over the king of Umma and takes its name from a section of
the stele depicting a defeated enemy whose abandoned bodies are shown being
picked at by vultures and lions. The battle scene shows the army at the moment
of victory, marching over the bodies of their defeated and slain enemies. In
the upper register the king leads a troop of heavy infantry, while in the lower
register the king is shown riding in a four-wheeled battle chariot pulled by
four onagers in the van of a troop of light infantry.
The Sumerian light infantryman is depicted without
protective equipment and armed with a long spear in the left hand and a
battleaxe in the right. It is not known whether these unarmoured light infantry
used their spears for shock combat or as throwing weapons. The Sumerian heavy
infantry are portrayed in formation, with the unnamed sculptor carving helmeted
spearmen, organized six files deep with an eight-man front, with the front rank
bearing large rectangular shields. What is interesting is the apparent
standardized equipment and number of spears projecting between the shields. The
common panoply and close order suggests that these soldiers were well trained,
uniformed and equipped to fight as a corps, anticipating later Greek,
Macedonian and Roman heavy infantry formations. Still, without corroborating
textual evidence it is unknown whether this early battle square was a common
battlefield formation, if it was capable of offensive articulation, or if it
served primarily as a defensive formation.
Eventually, the Sumerian civilization would fall to the
inventor of imperium, Sargon the Great, around 2340 bce (Map 1.1). During his
fifty-year rule, the Akkadian king would fight no fewer than thirty-four
military campaigns and carve out an empire that would include all of
Mesopotamia, as well as lands westward to the Mediterranean, inspiring
generations of Near Eastern rulers to emulate his accomplishment.
During the Sargonid period (c.2340–c.2100 bce) the Akkadians
contributed another major innovation in weaponry: the composite bow. Although
it is likely that the Sumerians utilized the simple bow in warfare, no textual
or pictorial evidence exists to support this claim. The first evidence of the
bow being used in collective warfare is found during the reign of Sargon’s
grandson Naram Sin (2254–2218 bce), though it is possible that Sargon himself
utilized the weapons in his own campaigns.
The impact of the composite bow on the battlefields of the
Near East was significant. While the simple self-bow (a bow made of a single
piece of wood) could kill at ranges from 50 to 100 yards, it could not
penetrate even simple leather armour at these ranges. The composite bow, with a
pull of at least twice that of a self-bow, could easily penetrate leather
armour, and perhaps the bronze armour of the day. The reason for this increased
performance was the unique construction of the bow. The composite bow was a
recurve bow made of wood, horn and tendons from oxen, carefully laminated
together to create a bow of superior strength, range and impact power.
Possibly invented on the Eurasian steppes and brought to the
Akkadians by mercenary nomads, the composite bow quickly became an important
asset on the battlefields of ancient Mesopotamia. Aiming against packed
heavy-infantry formations, light infantry archers could fire withering barrages
of arrows, causing gaps and tears and eroding the morale of the foot soldiers.
Although we have no descriptions of Mesopotamian battles from the Bronze Age,
it is safe to assume that the co-ordination of heavy infantry and light
infantry archers working together on the battlefield represents a combined-arms
tactical synthesis, perhaps the first in the history of western civilization.
Once created, the composite bow spread quickly to other
armies over the next 500 years, appearing in Palestine around 1800 bce and
introduced to Egypt and the Aegean region by 1600 bce. In New Kingdom Egypt
(1567–1085 bce), the improved archer was placed in an improved war chariot,
combining for the first time a powerful weapon with increased tactical
mobility. Composite bow-wielding light infantry and cavalry would remain a
persistent adversary to the heavy-infantry-based armies of western civilization
for the next two-and-a half millennia (c.1000 bce–c.1500 ce).
Perhaps no other single military invention is as closely
associated with the ancient period as the war chariot. The military application
of the wheel came quite early in the development of civilization, with the
first chariot integrated into Sumerian battle tactics around 3000 bce. These
early chariots were either of the two- or four-wheeled variety, were manned by
a crew of two, and were pulled by a team of four onagers. The wheels were
constructed of solid wood sections held together by pegs, while the placement
of the axle either in front or in the middle of the chariot itself made the
Sumerian war chariot heavy and unstable at speed. The absence of a mouth bit
made controlling the wild asses very difficult, and it is unlikely that these
machines could have moved at more than 10 miles per hour.
Armed with javelins and axes, Sumerian charioteers used
their weapons to deliver a shock attack, driving into opposing heavy infantry
formations and scattering enemy footmen. The Sumerian machine, pulled by wild
asses, was too heavy and cumbersome to offer effective pursuit. Still, the
Sumerian chariot served as the prototype for wheeled shock combat for the next
thousand years. In the early centuries of the second millennium bce, two
different innovations appeared in significant conjuncture to create a superior
chariot: the widespread use of the domesticated horse and the new technology of
lightweight, bentwood construction.
Although horses were raised as food in central Asia as early
as the fourth millennium bce, it was only in the second millennium bce that
domesticated equines spread throughout Europe and the Near East. At first too
small to be ridden as a cavalry mount, the even-tempered horse was originally
used as a replacement for the onager, harnessed to chariots, usually in teams
of four. The development of bentwood techniques allowed for the construction of
the spoked wheel with a rim of curved felloes and the manufacture of lightweight
chariot bodies. At the same time, the appearance of the horse bit improved the
control of the animal teams at higher speeds. This lightweight chariot with
spoked wheels drawn by teams of horses provided for the first time a fast,
manoeuvrable chariot, one that could be used as a firing platform for
composite-bow-wielding archers.
By the fifteenth century bce, the Egyptians had modified the
chariot into the finest machine in the world. The Egyptian chariot was made
entirely of wood and leather and was so light that two men could carry the body
over rough terrain. The Egyptians improved the control, manoeuvrability and
speed of the chariot by moving the axle to the very rear of the carrying
platform. But manufacturing and maintaining a chariot corps was a very
expensive endeavour, the prerogative of rich and powerful kingdoms. The
chariots’ presence on the battlefield was supported by the complex logistics of
horse breeding and training, a small army of wheelwrights and chariot builders,
bowyers, metalsmiths and armourers, and the support teams on campaign who
managed spare horses and repaired damaged vehicles. Moreover, the chariots’
position as the pre-eminent weapon system in ancient warfare required continued
access to strategic materials, specifically the light and heavy woods required
for bentwood construction. In the case of Egypt in the late Bronze Age and
Assyria in the early Iron Age, this meant access to the famous cedars of
Lebanon. It is no wonder why both of these empires expended so much effort
maintaining their presence in Lebanon, the chief source of wood for the armies
of the Near East.
How chariots were employed in battle in the late Bronze Age
(c.1600–c.1100 bce) is a matter of some debate. One view holds that the
Bronze Age kingdoms used war chariots as a thin screen for massed infantry
formations, with chariots moving laterally across the front of their own
infantry and the chariot archers shooting – at a right angle – their arrows
against the enemy infantry. A second view suggests that chariots were held in
reserve until the infantry engagement reached a decisive point. At this moment,
commanders would commit their chariots and win the day.
A more recent interpretation has opposing chariot forces
lining up in long, shallow formations, then hurtling toward each other as
archers fired over their teams and into enemy chariot formations. As enemy
horses were killed and wounded, chariots veered, slowed and eventually stopped.
At this time, friendly infantry ‘runners’ would finish off enemy chariot crews
whose machines had been immobilized. Infantry may have also served as a cordon,
a haven for damaged chariots to return to after battle. Because there is no
evidence for a clash of close-order infantry formations in late Bronze Age
warfare, it is believed the infantry of the period was lightly armoured and
unarticulated, and was most probably used in direct support of chariot charges,
to fight in terrain unfavourable to chariot warfare and to garrison cities.
During the Egyptian New Kingdom period these new chariots would help pharaohs
carve an empire stretching from the Libyan Desert across the Sinai to the
Orontes River in Syria.
