hi there
I'm not sure if people can access this, it's from
Academia.edu Weekly Digest [noreply@academia-mail.com]
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Tamás Dezső
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The Assyrian Army II: Recruitment and Logistics
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David F Brown
Quote from: evilgong on March 17, 2017, 04:59:05 AM
I'm not sure if people can access this ...
Their excellencies have taken to requiring one to register and set up a newsgroup account, sadly.
David, would you like to outline for us any particular highlights that take your fancy?
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 17, 2017, 08:16:51 AM
Quote from: evilgong on March 17, 2017, 04:59:05 AM
I'm not sure if people can access this ...
Their excellencies have taken to requiring one to register and set up a newsgroup account, sadly.
David, would you like to outline for us any particular highlights that take your fancy?
I've just downloaded all three! Mind you I probably registered more than ten years ago :-[
There has long been a teaser for volume 1 pts 1-2 up on academia.edu, intro and ToC and not much more, and I think we may have mentioned it on this forum before. But this looks like the whole thing, which is great because actually buying volume 1 pts 1-2 would set one back £85.
Quote from: Duncan Head on March 17, 2017, 09:43:53 AM
There has long been a teaser for volume 1 pts 1-2 up on academia.edu, intro and ToC and not much more, and I think we may have mentioned it on this forum before. But this looks like the whole thing, which is great because actually buying volume 1 pts 1-2 would set one back £85.
yes these seem to be the full volumes
Hi there
>>>>>>>>>>>
David, would you like to outline for us any particular highlights that take your fancy?
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I haven't read through yet, its 2 x 300pp books. A lot of data, the nuggets might be spotted by somebody with more experience on the topic than me.
regards
David F Brown
I would encourage anyone who has extracted the nuggets to air them on the forum, bearing in mind that not every member will wish to sign up to Academia.edu. (It could be said that this is just encouraging laziness, but it may also encourage more people to register once they see what is on offer.)
Two things strike me just flicking through the infantry volume. First, the identification, as officers of archers and officers of auxiliary spearmen, of some figures carrying quite small staves or batons of command.
Second, Dezso discusses the meaning of the vexed term kallapu/kallapani and suggests that "the term
kallāpu might denote Assyrian infantryman, regular or heavy". The only passage bearing on Nigel Tallis' suggestion, enshrined in the DB* lists, that they were cart-mounted mobile infantry, is to one document that associates officers of kallapani with horse-teams:
QuoteA fragmentary tablet of the Nimrud Horse Lists dated to 711 B.C. probably lists on its obverse rab kisir Arraphāia (cohort commanders of the Arraphāia unit) and the horses they obtained. The reverse, however, lists 15 kallāpu commanders and 32 teams (urû) of horses they got. Consequently every kallāpu commander got 2 teams and a spare pair remained. These teams mean only, however, that the kallāpu commanders might have served on chariots (befitting their rank) and it cannot be concluded that the kallāpu troops were mounted soldiers.
Does that mean that the use of the term in Elamite list is completely unjustified/speculative? I confess I'd sort of assumed it was an Elamite word.
Thanks, Duncan.
The fact that the tablet is but a fragment leaves open the possibility that the rest of the unit was mounted. From the little we know of Sargon's chariot practice (essentially just his off-the-march charge into the Urartian army during his eighth campaign) it is possible that chariots served as formation-breakers leading units of cavalry.
Do we know the Assyrian term for Elamite wheeled platforms (chariots by courtesy)? There seems to be a school of thought that these may have been 'kallapu equivalents', as Andreas has just pointed out.
Quote from: Andreas Johansson on March 19, 2017, 05:42:30 PM
Does that mean that the use of the term in Elamite list is completely unjustified/speculative? I confess I'd sort of assumed it was an Elamite word.
I'm assuming that Nigel T thinks that the archer-carrying carts shown in the Assyrian depictions of the Elamite army are just the sort of thing that horse-associated infantry like kallapani might have used. But yes, somewhat speculative terminology, if I understand things correctly.
QuoteDo we know the Assyrian term for Elamite wheeled platforms (chariots by courtesy)?
I certainly don't.
Quote from: Duncan Head on March 19, 2017, 05:59:23 PM
QuoteDo we know the Assyrian term for Elamite wheeled platforms (chariots by courtesy)?
I certainly don't.
I just wondered because of this (http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/i/image/image-idx?id=S-AICT-X-NE057%5DNE000_IMG0057). Unfortunately Assyrians, unlike Egyptians, do not seem to have added written descriptions to their reliefs.
I love the title; 'Charge into battle' where one of the teams is beng led by a man on foot. Gung-ho titulature like that could confuse young peopke into thinking chariots charged formed infantry. Bext we will have hunting scenes on a marble box being headlined 'Companion cavalry charge formed hoplites'!
On the question of what to call the chariots,ndid not the WRG bible call them kallipani? I have a vagye recollection that this was derived from Assyrian boast lists which they assuredly did produce.
Roy
I may have managed to get somewhere with this. The University of Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (volume 'k' (https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/cad_k.pdf), if the link works) lists kallabu as troops of undefined but surmisable function:
sab hupsi kal-la-bu arkisunu usasbitma
I had the hupshu-soldiers and the kallabu follow them (the cavalry)
sab hupsi ka-la-bu nd[S ...] duranisunu uselima
I had the hupshu-soldiers and the kallabu, carrying [...], scale their (the palaces') walls
issen LU bel narkabti 2 LU sa pithalli 3 LU kal-la-ba-a-ni deku
one leader of a chariot, two cavalrymen (and) three men of the kallabu were killed
[L]U narkabte qurbute pithal qurbute saknute ma'assi sa rese [kit]kittu ummani LU kal-la-bu LU ariti dajalu LU.APIN re'u nukaribbu
(I enlarged the army) with charioteers of the guard, horsemen of the guard, men in charge of the stables, sa resi-officers, service engineers, craftsmen, kallabu, shield-bearers, scouts, farmers, shepherds, gardeners* [sic]
*Probably in the roles of tree-cutters and earth-movers. 'Farmers' and 'shepherds' would presumably handle grain and meat supplies on campaign.
Spot the missing component: it is a good bet that kallabu means archers.
Various online references differ on the meaning of hupshu - options include "ordinary freemen", "manumitted slaves", "semi-free serfs", and "peasants" - but all agree it's a relatively lowly social class*, not a troop-type in the sense of archers or swordsmen or the like. Your first two quotes would thus seem to imply that kallabu too is a social or perhaps recruitment category (hupshu were at times subject to conscription, unlike more privileged strata but also unlike outright slaves).
* It seems likely each of the different meanings may have been accurate at some particular time and place.
Good observation, Andreas: if the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (which incidentally 'guesstimates' kallabu to be 'light troops') mentioned which reigns feature these sample quotes our task would be easier.
If kallabu does mean archers, this could be both a troop type and a social class, on the basis that when the army was fleshed out with hupshu, who appear to have been soldiers of a relatively temporary nature, a permanent corps of trained archers would have been desirable as proficiency with this weapon, especially for effective shooting en masse, takes time and effort to acquire and, just as importantly, sustain (Egyptian archers shot 200 arrows per day to remain proficient, and Assyrians attempting to emulate Egyptian standards would have needed to make their archers full-time). Hence such troops would become a de facto 'soldier class'.
Dezso's treatment of kallāpani on pp.69-75 is interesting, and thorough. One text cited is:
QuoteAnother entry, however, lists the kallāpu troops within a section of fighting units (hupšu, kallāpu, archers, and shield-bearers) which were intended to scale the walls of besieged towns ...
Footnoted:
Quotesa-ab hup-ši kal-la-bu n[a-áš GIŠ.BAN as-ma-re-e a-na] BÁD.MEŠ-šu-nu ú-še-li-ma
I think this may be the same as Patrick's second dictionary quote, and that Dezso's archers are a restoration, in the square brackets in his version. Whether kallāpu means "archer" or not depends in part on how sound the restoration is. At the very least, the lacuna or uncertain reading means that you can't just write off the archers as "missing".
It does appear to be the same as the second dictionary quote; the dictionary has
kallabu na [s ...] duranisunu uselima for its version of the lacuna.
While owing to the lacuna one cannot, as Duncan points out, consider archers as definitely unmentioned, the last dictionary quote:
Quote[L]U narkabte qurbute pithal qurbute saknute ma'assi sa rese [kit]kittu ummani LU kal-la-bu LU ariti dajalu LU.APIN re'u nukaribbu
(I enlarged the army) with charioteers of the guard, horsemen of the guard, men in charge of the stables, sa resi-officers, service engineers, craftsmen, kallabu, shield-bearers, scouts, farmers, shepherds, gardeners
has just the one lacuna which is easily explainable as the 'kit' of 'kitkittu' (also 'kiskattu'), meaning engineer or pioneer (those chaps with mail coats and big axes). Ergo in
this particular example we
can say that archers appear to be missing - and there are no
hupshu to muddy the waters.
However the said waters are still somewhat turbid on account of the standard word for bowman,
qastu, which can also be represented by the Sumerian LU.ERIN.MES.GIS.PAN, appearing in various contexts but not, it appears, in the same contexts as
kallapu.
Deszo's reconstruction of his quote adds GIS.PAN, a shorthand for 'archers' (ERIN.MES just means soldier types), plus
asmare (
azmari), lancers - but his translation does not include the latter! I suspect he sourced this second-hand.
On p36, Dezso paraphrases another occurence of
kallāpu:
QuoteThe unknown governor had to prepare his army, his chariot troops, the Gurreans, the Itu'eans, the exempt infantry (LÚ.zu-ku), and the kallāpu troops.
Here
kallāpu appears to be parallel with the ethnica Gurreans and Itu'eans and with the
exempt troops, whoever they are. It seems unlikely that it means simply "archers" here, because the Itu'eans were noted as auxiliary archers, and the Gurreans as spearmen - Dezso suggests that the words may have come to mean simply "auxiliary archers" and "auxiliary spearmen" respectively, losing their original ethnic restriction.
The citation is Lanfranchi, G.B. – Parpola, S., eds.,
The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part II: Letters from the Northern and Northeastern Provinces, (State Archives of Assyria, V), Helsinki, 1990.
It is still possible that they may represent archers, on the basis that the 'exempt infantry' (presumably manpower mobilised only in an emergency) would not be bow-trained on account of the time and practice required for effective archery and would hence fight as spearmen without archers unless allocated a contingent of bowmen - which is where the kallāpu would come in on the same basis as the Gurrean and Itu'ean contingents.
I am still not wholly sure kallāpu represents archers, but it does seem to fit.
Being archers and meaning "archers" isn't quite the same thing. It would be perfectly sensible to list some other sort of archers next to the Itu'ean auxiliary archers, but it would be strange to list, in effect, "archers and auxiliary archers". If the kallāpu are archers (which I see no strong reason to assume; but also no particular reason to reject), they're probably some particular kind of archers, maybe recruited in some particular way, or possessing some particular sociopolitical status, as the apparent parallellism with hupshu elsewhere suggests.
Quote from: Andreas Johansson on April 02, 2017, 09:14:55 PM
Being archers and meaning "archers" isn't quite the same thing. It would be perfectly sensible to list some other sort of archers next to the Itu'ean auxiliary archers, but it would be strange to list, in effect, "archers and auxiliary archers".
The way I see this compilation is: auxiliary infantry (let us call them spearmen), auxiliary archers, domestic spearmen (an emergency levy of the usually exempt) and domestic archers (if that is what kallāpu really are). The obvious question is: what happened to the domestic non-exempt spearmen? It would be nice to have a context for this particular quote, which looks like a governor raising a force in a hurry while the royal army is elsewhere. If this is the case, it answers the question about the domestic spearmen, and it would not be unusual for a governor to have a contingent of domestic/national archers as a standing force (this was Egyptian 18th Dynasty practice as per the Amarna letters).
Quote
If the kallāpu are archers (which I see no strong reason to assume; but also no particular reason to reject), they're probably some particular kind of archers, maybe recruited in some particular way, or possessing some particular sociopolitical status, as the apparent parallellism with hupshu elsewhere suggests.
My suggestion would be that the kallāpu are permanent regular archers, often maintained in garrison (where else would one put them when not campaigning?) who would be expected to flesh out an army of levies and/or accompany a fast raid/counterstrike by chariots and cavalry. Their ethnicity is probably native Assyrian, which would distinguish them from auxiliary (non-Assyrian) archers.
I remain open to reasonable alternative explanations.
Unfortunately, the letter in question is fragmentary, so there may be no more context available. But if anyone has access to Dezso's reference, it may be worth looking up.
It does not appear in the University of Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (UCAD) examples, so presumably appeared after AD 1911.
This would seem to leave us with two likely possibilities for
kallāpu:
1) A permanently embodied regular force, often in garrison, superior in status and immediacy of mobilisation to such categories as
hupshu or exempt/emergency levies. This seems to fit with our available references.
2) As above, but specifically archers, on the basis that they are mentioned in addition to shield-bearers in this quote:
QuoteL]U narkabte qurbute pithal qurbute saknute ma'assi sa rese [kit]kittu ummani LU kal-la-bu LU ariti dajalu LU.APIN re'u nukaribbu
(I enlarged the army) with charioteers of the guard, horsemen of the guard, men in charge of the stables, sa resi-officers, service engineers, craftsmen, kallabu, shield-bearers, scouts, farmers, shepherds, gardeners
I regard this as a potential tie-breaker in favour of the term specifically meaning 'archers'. There is one question-mark over this, in that the UCAD has one reference to
shields [
ariate, from
aritu, shield] being 'drawn' [
issu] from officers of the
kallāpu. No context is given to clarify whether these shields were
kallāpu issue, temporarily borrowed or even captures from an enemy, although the first seems the most likely option.
We may have gone as far as we can on this particular subject, but it would seem that troops on wheeled platforms are not viable contenders.
Some points:
The Assyrians may well have operated a system like the Persian, with a large shield at the front and ranks of archers behind. That would make sense of a unit of archers being asked to give shields to another group.
Secondly, the occupants of the mule drawn carts are indeed archers. Maybe they are distinguished by their mobility, being able to keep up with chariots or cavalry, able to deploy rapidly. Military technology is very mutable, hussars might be dashing light cavalry or heavy lancers, on occasion a name might tell us more about how troops are raised than their equipment. Looking back from 2,500 years hence, how will a historian classify the Sherwood Foresters?
Roy
Quote from: aligern on April 05, 2017, 02:47:23 PM
Some points:
The Assyrians may well have operated a system like the Persian, with a large shield at the front and ranks of archers behind. That would make sense of a unit of archers being asked to give shields to another group.
As Dezso points out, Assyrian art often shows pairs of spearman and archer, the latter shooting from behind the former. But the cuneiform sources suggest there really was about one spearman to one archer, rather than the one to nine ratio assumed for Persian
sparabara.
On p72, Dezso summarizes another letter:
QuoteThe first section of the letter lists 106 chariotry personnel, the second 343 cavalry
personnel, the third 69 domestics, the fourth 8 scholars, 23 donkey drivers, 1 information officer,
and 80 kallāpu. The fifth section contains 360 Gurreans and 440 Itu'eans.
As Dezso notes, what seems to be missing here is Assyrian (sc. non-auxiliary) infantry. These would be the "regular infantry" and/or the "heavy infantry" of Dezso's reconstruction (each of which included both archers and close combat troops).
One might think, tho, that if this force contained just 80 Assyrian infantrymen to 800 auxiliaries, the Assyrian infantry contribution was close enough to irrelevant that its absense is equally conceivable.
Although if one adds the 80 to the 360, one gets 440 men (archers?) to accompany 440 Itu'eans, a nice 1:1 ratio ...
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on July 01, 2017, 11:11:56 PM
Although if one adds the 80 to the 360, one gets 440 men (archers?) to accompany 440 Itu'eans, a nice 1:1 ratio ...
That is a very tempting figure to play with
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on July 01, 2017, 11:11:56 PM
Although if one adds the 80 to the 360, one gets 440 men (archers?) to accompany 440 Itu'eans, a nice 1:1 ratio ...
The Itu'eans were noted as bowmen and the Gurreans as spearmen, so to get a 1:1 ratio the
kallāpu should presumably be spearmen.
If you have 80 regulars to 800 'militia' that could look a lot like 80 ranks wide and, effectively ten ranks deep, irvan officervand nco component of 80 in a unit of 900?
R
The Itu'eans and Gurreans are, in name at least, tribal auxiliaries. They seem to have been "regulars" in the sense of professionals - often used as garrison troops, frex - not part-time militia.
Note that in Dezso's usage, the "regular" infantry is simply the more lightly equipped class of ethnically (or at least sartorially) Assyrian infantry.
Quote from: Andreas Johansson on July 02, 2017, 03:45:16 PM
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on July 01, 2017, 11:11:56 PM
Although if one adds the 80 to the 360, one gets 440 men (archers?) to accompany 440 Itu'eans, a nice 1:1 ratio ...
The Itu'eans were noted as bowmen and the Gurreans as spearmen, so to get a 1:1 ratio the kallāpu should presumably be spearmen.
And the chance of the scribe getting it the wrong way round is slender, as presumably someone would be checking.
Quote from: aligern on July 02, 2017, 08:09:28 PM
If you have 80 regulars to 800 'militia' that could look a lot like 80 ranks wide and, effectively ten ranks deep, i.e. an officer and nco component of 80 in a unit of 900?
Interesting thought, as it presumably places the
kallāpu with the spearmen, perhaps as front-rankers. If so, it suggests status rather than armament as the primary lexical weight of the designation. It also makes us wonder why there is no similar distinction of designation for officers of chariots and cavalry. Perhaps these were sufficiently elite and/or staffed with integral officers as not to require an inserted 'cadre' to command them.
We may incidentally note that the ratio of approximately 1 chariot to 3 cavalry to 8 infantry is a rather higher ratio of mounted troops than we would usually expect. Does Dezso give any context for this particular inscription?
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on July 03, 2017, 09:44:54 AM
Does Dezso give any context for this particular inscription?
It is from "[t]he famous letter of Adad-issīa to Sargon II" that "lists the royal troops (king's men) stationed in Māzamua."
Thanks, Anders. Interesting that the Gurreans and Itu'eans are considered
kisir sharruti.
Unfortunately this leaves me no wiser (though perhaps better informed ;)). 106 chariotry (men or vehicles? - if men, 106/3 = 33.3333 vehicles and 106/4 = 26.5 vehicles, so I suppose it must be vehicles unless one crew has had a serious accident) and 343 cavalry is not exactly the sort of round number one would associate with unit size in a predominantly decimally-organised army. The chariot:cavalry proportion is also much higher then the 1:10 ratio one would expect in this period. Still, odd postings happen, and some of the cavalry may have been on detachment elsewhere.
On a distantly related topic, it does demonstrate that chariots as a military arm were alive and well during the reign of Sargon II.
The best fit for the
kallāpu appears to remain the likelihood that they were being used as infantry officers in this case. However this could be a red herring, as the Gurreans and Itu'eans are listed in the fifth section of the tablet and the fourth section consists of
Quote8 scholars, 23 donkey drivers, 1 information officer, and 80 kallāpu
as if these constituted a single organisation. This would leave the
kallāpu as escorts for the scholarly expedition (or whatever it was), with the likelihood they were archers. (If they were crack spearmen, one might expect
quradu.)
If this is the correct interpretation, or close to it, then the 80
kallāpu could well be a company or half-company of archers escorting an academic expedition from (say) the capital and would not have any direct relationship to the remainder of the garrison. Archers might well be the troops of choice for dealing with local brigands, who would not close to contact with regular soldiers, and this would explain the low numbers - too many for ambassadors and too few for soldiers, but enough to look after a collection of scholars.
Depending upon the exact meaning of 'scholar' and 'information officer', we might even be looking at an administrative staff for the garrison, plus their guards/escort.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on July 04, 2017, 08:46:22 AM
Unfortunately this leaves me no wiser (though perhaps better informed ;)). 106 chariotry (men or vehicles? - if men, 106/3 = 33.3333 vehicles and 106/4 = 26.5 vehicles, so I suppose it must be vehicles unless one crew has had a serious accident) and 343 cavalry is not exactly the sort of round number one would associate with unit size in a predominantly decimally-organised army.
Given that Dezso's paraphrase speaks of chariotry/cavalry personnel rather than simply chariot crew and cavalrymen, it seems likely the numbers include grooms or similar noncombatants. (It still won't break down to a multiple of a reasonable number of men per vehicle, as the only divisors of 106 are 2 and 53, but a few vacancies or supernumeraries seem plausible enough. Perhaps squadron leaders rated an extra servant or something.)
QuoteThis would leave the kallāpu as escorts for the scholarly expedition (or whatever it was)
I sort of assumed that the "scholars" were administrative personnel.
If all associated personnel including grooms are included, we can make guesses about the teeth-to-tail ratios of these particular contingents.
This is pure guesswork, but 106 chariot personnel including noncombatants would suggest 25 crews of four and six supernumeraries, or 20 crews of four and 26 supernumeraries. This would also bring the chariot:cavalry ratio closer to 1:10, suggesting either 200 cavalry with 143 supernumeraries (which is perhaps too many of the latter) or 250 cavalry and 93 supernumeraries.
I would be inclined to assume 25 chariots with 100 combat personnel and six artificers for maintenance and repairs and 250 cavalry with 93 personnel involved in horse management and culinary and general noncombatant duties. These persons could look after both sets of horses and men. This is of course conjectural and does not explain why noncombatants in section 2 of the list are not associated with section 1.
Quote from: Andreas Johansson on July 04, 2017, 03:16:57 PM
I sort of assumed that the "scholars" were administrative personnel.
They may well be; I was just surprised that administrative personnel in barracks would have their own escort, if that is indeed why the 80
kallāpu are grouped with them. If they got out and about (for collecting information or even taxes) independently of the garrison, having their own escort becomes understandable.
*bump*
I just noted that the DBMM Urartian list refers to their cavalry as kallapu. I guess it could be an Urartian word that just happens to sound like Akkadian kallāpu, but I figure more likely it's the same word, applied by the Assyrians to an Urartian troop-type they considered equivalent to their own kallāpu. Anyone - Duncan? - know anything about the background for its appearance in the list?
It's use in itself is not necessary helpful: obviously, one can imagine cavalry archers, and equally well cavalry of some particular sociopolitical status, or recruited in some particular way.
How about mounted infantry, most probably archers?
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on January 27, 2018, 10:50:12 AM
How about mounted infantry, most probably archers?
All I can say is that whoever write the list - Nigel? - evidently thought they were proper cavalry fighting from horseback.