Page 22 - (DK) Smithsinian - Military History: The Definitive Visual Guide to the Objects of Warfare

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CE ANCIENT SIEGE WARFARE
O 500 THE SIEGE

OF LACHISH
ORDS T By the 8th century BCE, the Assyrian empire had an army of

unprecedented size and efficiency. Its assault on the fortified
AND SW town of Lachish, recorded in reliefs in the Assyrian palace
in Nineveh, demonstrated sophisticated, if well-established,
siege techniques and the calculated use of terror.

TS The army that King Sennacherib towers and metal-tipped battering
rams. Or, more simply, troops armed
led to Judah in 701bce comprised
CHARIO mounted troops on chariots or on forward with ladders to scale the
with spears and swords could be sent
a mixture of foot soldiers and
walls or fortifications.
horseback. There was also a dedicated
body of engineers, skilled in building
earthworks and siege machines.
At Lachish, engineers built a ramp
The army’s mission was to crush a SIEGE TOWER AND INFANTRY
revolt by the Judean King Hezekiah, of rocks and earth reaching to a point
and to impose exemplary punishment halfway up the fortifications. At the
to deter any further resistance to same time they assembled a large
Assyrian imperial rule. siege tower, with a ram in its lower
The Assyrians’ principal missile story. Mounted on four wheels, the
weapon was the composite bow. wooden tower was covered in hides
Capable of shooting an iron-tipped and canvas. When the Assyrians were
arrow to an effective range of ready to attack, they manhandled
over 820ft (250m), it was used by the tower and ram up the ramp.
charioteers and horsemen, as well While archers in the tower’s upper
as by troops on foot. Assyrian foot story shot at the defenders, soldiers
soldiers also employed slingshots, battered the ram against the exposed
flinging shaped stones a distance of wall. The defenders fought back
330ft (100m). Both of these were against the assault, throwing rocks
deadly anti-personnel weapons, and flaming torches onto the tower,
and during a siege arrows could be but the Assyrian soldiers kept
turned into incendiary devices by water-filled buckets in the tower
dousing their tips in flammable pitch. for extinguishing the resulting fires.
Neither arrows nor small stones Meanwhile, tightknit groups of
posed any threat to the high mud soldiers on foot launched a secondary
walls of Lachish, however, which assault on the walls, armed with
presented a formidable challenge, spears and protected by shields
even to an armed force that must and armor. Assyrian bowmen
have far outnumbered the defenders. supported this advance with a barrage
To force entry into a walled town, of arrows directed at the defenders
the Assyrian troops had to advance on the walls, each bowman sheltered
to the walls and find ways either to by a curved reed screen held by
breach them or go over them. Assyrian his shield-bearer.
engineers had developed a range of The exact sequence of events
techniques for assailing fortifications. leading to the fall of the town is
They could attack the foundations, not known, only that the Assyrians
digging at the base of the walls to overcame the town’s defenses. The
undermine them; they could build aftermath of this victory, depicted
a ramp against a wall or tower, in reliefs for the king’s enjoyment,
allowing troops a route to the involved the cruel execution of a
summit of the battlements; they large number of Judeans and the
could attack the walls with siege exile of the survivors.