war and conquest: The Middle East BEFORE 3500 B.C.E Warfare seems to have been a constant preoccupation for Near Easterners, even as far back as the end of the last great ice age One archaeological site that indicates this is Jericho Sometime between 10,000 and 8000 b.c.e a giant stone wall was erected around a settlement at Jericho It seems to have been intended to protect a small population and a spring Of special interest to military historians is a stone tower attached to the wall The tower was about 35 feet high and built solidly, with a stone staircase up the middle The great antiquity of the tower is significant because of the tower’s sophisticated design, which suggests that its builders drew on a tradition of erecting similar towers The reason Jericho was fortified at such an early time is unknown, as is the identity of the enemy Speculation has tended to focus on the spring and the likelihood that Jericho was a farming community Nomads may have coveted the harvests of Jericho, and traders traveling the ancient trade route that passed through Jericho may have coveted the water flowing from the spring The physical remains at Jericho offer some idea of what warfare may have been like An important point to consider is the significant expense of fortifications Instead of farming more land or producing more goods, valuable time and thought were devoted to building walls and at least one large tower It is logical to suppose that if the massiveness of the walls and tower were unnecessary, the society of Jericho would have built a less imposing fortification Thus the structures’ heavy-stone construction, great height, and massiveness indicate that the enemy could bring down or penetrate walls built of wood or small stones This suggests that at that early date, attackers already knew about using sappers to undermine walls and fire to burn walls and may have even used battering rams The tower’s height may have been for guards to watch for enemies, which would mean that attacks could come unexpectedly On the other hand, the tower was situated so that people on it could fire arrows or hurl stones at anyone attempting to scale the walls Altogether, the evidence indicates that people were already thinking carefully about how to wage war Farther north, in present-day Turkey, another city offers hints about war Çatalhüyük, established before 7200 b.c.e., was built to resemble a beehive The city had no roads or footpaths, and its interlocking buildings had few, if any windows and no conventional doors People moved from place to place by climbing ladders through openings in their ceilings and walking across roofs, occasionally climbing or descending where buildings were of different heights The dominant theory about why the city was built as it was focuses on military defense An enemy, whether bandits or a full army, would have had no clear entrance to attack Attacking and entering an outer building would have left the enemy with nowhere to go but up a ladder, and defenders could heap stones, arrows, and burning oil on them Seizing the city would have required fighting to take each building Archaeologists believe that the 1131 lack of evidence that Çatalhüyük was ever taken by force indicates that its defensive layout was successful EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD (CA 3000–CA 2350 B.C.E.) By 3000 b.c.e the numerous Sumerian cities established in southern Mesopotamia were already warring against each other For several reasons the waging of war was not a simple matter of a king deciding to take his army to battle First, there were no standing armies Early Sumerian armies consisted of militias of free male citizens Second, kings were not absolute rulers and had to gain consent from a council of elders or an assembly of citizens For instance, during the rule of Gilgamesh (r ca 2700 b.c.e.) the city of Uruk received a demand to surrender itself to the dominance of another city-state Gilgamesh wished to fight for his city’s freedom, but Uruk’s council of elders voted to surrender Gilgamesh called for an assembly of Uruk’s free citizens, and the assembly overruled the council of elders and voted to fight to remain free Another difficulty was that typically citizens were expected to provide their own weapons: spears, daggers, stone maces, bows and arrows, and slingshots Although shields were available, a warrior usually carried his weapon in both hands and had a dagger strapped to his side Protective armor was typically no more than a hat of cloth or leather Battles in open land consisted of barrages of arrows when armies were less than 300 feet apart, because the bow of the time was accurate only up to that distance The barrage could be followed by a charge The enemy would meet the charging warriors with spears and rocks hurled from slingshots A battle between big city-states could result in 10,000 dead Gilgamesh was famous as a city builder Songs and poems lauded him for the great wall he directed to be built around Uruk It was constructed from fired clay bricks, which were expensive but durable for the time; good stone for building was hard to find in southern Mesopotamia The wall was wide enough for two chariots to pass side by side, and it had many towers Such defenses were necessary because military leaders were learning how to organize their troops for coordinated attacks that could overwhelm lesser defenses with the sheer number of warriors scaling the walls By the end of the Early Dynastic Period, an arms race had developed Bigger walls meant bigger weapons for knocking walls down Skulls crushed by maces led to the development of metal helmets, which in turn resulted in the invention of a battle-ax that could crash through metal This, in turn, created the need for sturdier helmets, leading to the development of new casting techniques and then sturdier ax blades that curved, making cutting through helmets easier OLD AKKADIAN EMPIRE (CA 2350–CA 2100 B.C.E.) The king who founded the Old Akkadian Empire may have been history’s first military genius Sargon I (r 2334–2279 b.c.e.) established what is thought to have been the fi rst