And the dead lay in heaps

[Erpingham]

The 'heaps of dead' topic could conceivably make an interesting thread of its own - examples in ancient and medieval battles, comparative examples in other periods, physical realities and limitations, literary tropes or battlefield reality, and so on. If anyone wants to, that might be worth starting.

To prevent a side topic completely overwhelming discussion of the attributes of Parthian camel riders, Rich T made the suggestion above.  I think I would add to it under what circumstances is it recorded as occurring?  What effect is it said to have had on combat, if any?

[Swampster]

While I can't find anything concrete about Waterloo, I thought I'd share this
"It was a most dreadful sight to behold,
Heaps upon heaps of dead men lying stiff and cold"

Not because of any evidential value but simply because it is part of McGonagall's Waterloo poem - which is up (down?) to his usual standard. It finishes

'Then, panic-struck, the French were forced to yield,
And Napoleon turned his charger's head, and fled from the field,
With his heart full of woe, no doubt
Exclaiming, "Oh, Heaven! my noble army has met with a total rout!"'

[Patrick Waterson]

A thorough treatment of the subject will require a long look at numerous accounts of battles, so just to ease ourselves in gently, a few observations (which are completely open for discussion).

1) Exception rather than the rule.
While it is a very rare battlefield which is not littered with casualties, 'heaps', especially piles or walls of dead which significantly impede the ability of combatants to get at each other, are noticeably rare.

2) Tactical disadvantage.
Where we get piles of bodies high enough to be considered worthy of remark, it is usually the result of one side persisting or being forced to persist in situ while being taken apart by the other.  This is usually through an imbalance in weaponry and/or tactical ability.

3) Non-clearance.
In a 'normal' situation, one might expect bodies to be cleared out of the way once they start to become a problem , especially if there is any sort of break in the action.  Hence despite the repeated massacres of Persian contingents by the defenders of Thermopylae, no wall of corpses hindered the attack by the Immortals.  For heaps to accumulate, circumstances or inclinations must allow the bodies to continue to accumulate.

4) Psychological imperatives.
Usually, troops who are caught in a disadvantageous situation and are being slaughtered will break and run, spreading the body distribution widely and fairly evenly across the field.  Those who have some overriding urge to close and fight even when the situation is obviously disadvantageous or the foe clearly superior will however continue to press themselves and their comrades forwards and into the 'meat grinder'.

2, 3 and 4 really need to occur together in order to create the kind of extraordinary heaping of corpses envisaged.  That at least is my suggested starting point: please feel free to investigate whether this basic idea holds together in detail when considering actual examples.

[RichT]

I did a bit of a search of this topic and interestingly, it saw an internet spike following a Game of Thrones episode (which I haven't seen) featuring such a heap, and subsequent discussion of the historical precedents. Nice that a TV show can provoke interest in history, I suppose (shame it's such a gruesome topic).

Anyway, it might be useful to gather some evidence of tactically significant heaps of dead before getting too far into the interpretation (which could then include consideration of what constitutes a 'heap'). So some examples, which I have largely lifted from http://www.scottmanning.com which discusses the Game of Thrones example.

Cremera (477 BC, Romans v Etruscans):
"Not long afterwards those also who had seized the hill, being oppressed by both hunger and thirst, resolved to charge the enemy; and engaging, a few against many, they continued fighting from morning till night, and made so great a slaughter of the enemy that the heaps of dead bodies piled up in many places were a hindrance to them in fighting." Dionysius of Halicarnassus 9.21.2.
(Livy 2.50 and Diodorus 11.53.6 don't mention any such heap in their accounts of this fight).

Leuctra (371 BC, Thebans v Spartans etc)
"Now as long as King Cleombrotus of the Lacedaemonians was alive and had with him many comrades-in-arms who were quite ready to die in his defence, it was uncertain which way the scales of victory inclined; but when, though he shrank from no danger, he proved unable to bear down his opponents, and perished in an heroic resistance after sustaining many wounds, then, as masses of men thronged about his body, there was piled up a great mound of corpses." Diodorus 15.55
Xenophon's account doesn't mention a pile of corpses.

Issus (333 BC, Macedonians v Persians)
"The Persian Oxathres was the brother of Dareius and a man highly praised for his fighting qualities; when he saw Alexander riding at Dareius and feared that he would not be checked, he was seized with the desire to share his brother's fate... He took up the fight directly in front of Dareius's chariot and there engaging the enemy skilfully and with a stout heart slew many of them. The fighting qualities of Alexander's group were superior, however, and quickly many bodies lay piled high about the chariot." Diodorus 17.34
Arrian has no such pile, nor the fight. Curtius has the fight, but not the pile. Arrian does record (2.103) "So great was the slaughter [in the pursuit] that Ptolemy, son  of Lagus, who then accompanied Alexander, says that the  men who were with them pursuing Darius, coming in the  pursuit to a ravine, filled it up with the corpses and so passed over it" - but this is moving those killed in the pursuit, not a pile forming in battle.

Zama (202 BC, Romans v Carthaginians)
"The space between the two armies that still remained in position was full of blood, wounded men, and dead corpses; and thus the rout of the enemy proved an impediment of a perplexing nature to the Roman general. Everything was calculated to make an advance in order difficult - the ground slippery with gore, the corpses lying piled up in bloody heaps, and with the corpses arms flung about in every direction." Polybius 15.14
Livy's version: "such heaps of dead men and their arms filled the place where the mercenaries had been standing a short time before that the Romans began to find it almost more difficult to make their way through them than it had been through the dense ranks of the enemy" (Livy 30.34).

Sabis/Sambre (57 BC, Romans v Gauls)
"The enemy, however, even at this critical moment showed such determination in their bravery that when those in the front rank had fallen the men behind them stood upon the slain and continued the fight from on top of the corpses. When they were overthrown the pile of bodies grew higher, while the survivors used the heap as a vantage-point for throwing missiles at our men, or catching their spears and throwing them back" (Caesar, Gallic War, 2.27).
Plutarch's version (Plutarch, Caesar 20.4-5) doesn't mention this, though earlier he claims Caesar "fell upon the enemy as they were plundering the Gauls that were in alliance with Rome, and so routed and destroyed the least scattered and most numerous of them, after a disgraceful struggle on their part, that the Romans could cross lakes and deep rivers for the multitude of dead bodies in them" (20.3)

Nisibis (217 BC, Romans v Parthians)
"So great was the number of slaughtered men and animals that the entire plain was covered with the dead; bodies were piled up in huge mounds, and the dromedaries especially fell in heaps. As a result, the soldiers were hampered in their attacks; they could not see each other for the high and impassable wall of bodies between them. Prevented by this barrier from making contact, each side withdrew to its own camp." (Herodian 4.15)

And that's all I've got. Two Medieval examples get mentioned:

Agincourt
Dupplin Moor

I don't have primary sources for these - anyone? I believe both refer to piles of "spear's length height", whatever that may be.

From other periods - the Game of Thrones discussions cite a number of American Civil War examples, of which the chief seems to be the 'Bloody Angle' at Spotsylvania Courthouse - on which the Wikipedia page offers this:

"The appalling sight presented was harrowing in the extreme. Our own killed were scattered over a large space near the "angle," while in front of the captured breastworks the enemy's dead, vastly more numerous than our own, were piled upon each other in some places four layers deep, exhibiting every ghastly phase of mutilation." (Grant's aide Horace Porter, Campaigning with Grant). Wikipedia further comments "The combat they had endured for almost 24 hours was characterized by an intensity of firepower never previously seen in Civil War battles".

I'll hold off on comments or interpretations in the hope that more examples may be forthcoming.

[Erpingham]

Battle of Roosebeke 1382 (after Froissart)

There was a great pile of
Flemish dead, long and high, but never before in so great a
battle in which so many were killed had so little blood been
seen flowing. This was because by far the greatest number
were crushed or smothered to death, and these men did not
bleed.

This is one of those crush battles, where attacks on multiple sides compress the enemy to the point they can no longer move or fight.  There is no evidence that the pile inhibited the killing in the text.

[Mick Hession]

I've got an Irish one (naturally  ). Battle of Corcomroe, 1317AD (See the Historical Battle Reports section):
"In the end there grew between them rows of the noble dead; so that across those mounds of them no one might reach another, but it was by fetching a compass round about the thick-laid slain that they had to keep the battle going."

So in this instance the pile of dead did inhibit fighting. I don't imagine the entire battle-line "fetched a compass" around the dead and given the small numbers involved in the battle (about 1,000 men a side) I suspect we're talking about a few localised clumps of corpses forming an obstacle.

Cheers
Mick

[Erpingham]

Agincourt 1415 after Gesta Henrici Quinti

For God had smitten them also with another irrecover-
able affliction, thus, when some of them in the
engagement had been killed, and fell in the front,
so great was the undisciplined violence and pres-
sure of the multitude behind, that the living fell
over the dead, and others also falling on the
living, were slain ; so that in three places, where
the force and host of our standards were, so great
grew the heap of the slain, and of those who
were overthrown among them, that our people
ascended the heaps, which had increased higher
than a man, and butchered the adversaries below
with swords, axes, and other weapons. And
when at length, in two or three hours, that front
battle was perforated and broken up, and the
rest were driven to flight, our men began to
pull down the heaps, and to separate the living
from the dead, proposing to keep the living as 
slaves, to be ransomed.

Note here that the heaps are mainly caused by men falling on each other.  Height here is "higher than a man" i.e. over 5ft 6in.  Note that these heaps are quite confined, not all over the battlefield.

[Erpingham]

Battle of Dupplin Moor 1332 (from Lanercost Chronicle)

One most marvellous thing happened that
day, such as was never seen or heard of in any previous battle,
to wit, that the pile of dead was greater in height from the earth
toward the sky than one whole spear length.

This is perhaps the earliest reference to the "spear's depth" story (mid 14th century) but it repeated in several other places apparently.  Other chronicles (this is a well covered battle, though many sources draw from each other) are more forthcoming on what led to the heap - essentially another crushing battle caused by the second division colliding with the back of the front division.  If anyone can lift some of these descriptions, it may be helpful in building our understanding.

[Mark G]

Could any of those be describing the bodies after the battle when they had been collectd from the field for disposal?

[Patrick Waterson]

Could any of those be describing the bodies after the battle when they had been collectd from the field for disposal?

No; as is evident from the narrative they a) occurred during the fighting and b) often directly affected it.

At Agincourt, the process of sorting out the dead (and ransomable still-living) after the battle explicitly disassembled the heaps.

[RichT]

Useful examples, thanks people.

On Dupplin Moor Wikipedia adds:

"The chronicler and historian John Capgrave describes the carnage at Dupplin thus:
In this battle...more were slain by the Scots themselves than by the English. For rushing forward on each other, each crushed his neighbour, and for every one fallen there fell a second, and then a third fell, and those who were behind pressing forward and hastening to the fight, the whole army became a heap of the slain."

[RichT]

I'll add here John Keegan's views on the wall of dead at Agincourt, since this is most often quoted in this context (and I suppose there might still be some benighted fools out there who haven't read the book):

"This 'building of the wall of dead' is perhaps the best known incident of the battle.... Brief reflection will, moreover, demonstrate that the 'heap higher than a man' is a chronicler's exaggeration. Human bodies, even when pushed about by bulldozers, do not, as one can observe if able to keep one's eyes open during film of the mass-burials at Belsen, pile into walls, but lie in shapeless sprawling hummocks. When stiffened by rigor mortis, they can be laid in stacks, as one can see in film of the burial parties of a French regiment carting its dead from the field after an attack in the Second Battle of Champagne (September, 1915). But men falling to weapon-strokes in the front line, or tripping over those already down, will lie at most two or three deep. For the heaps to rise higher, they must be climbed by the next victims: and the 'six foot heaps' of Agincourt could have been topped-out only if men on either side had been ready and able to duel together while balancing on the corpses of twenty or thirty others. The notion is ludicrous rather than grisly."

Other opinions are available, of course.

Could any of those be describing the bodies after the battle when they had been collectd from the field for disposal?

Yes that could certainly be a possible origin for stories of man high, spear high piles, with chroniclers confused by two pieces of evidence (bodies piled up in the battle; the pile of bodies was spear high; conclusion, the two piles are the same - not necessarily so). Other alternatives - chroniclers (or their informants) exaggerated; or the piles really were that high.

[Patrick Waterson]

Could any of those be describing the bodies after the battle when they had been collectd from the field for disposal?

Yes that could certainly be a possible origin for stories of man high, spear high piles, with chroniclers confused by two pieces of evidence (bodies piled up in the battle; the pile of bodies was spear high; conclusion, the two piles are the same - not necessarily so). Other alternatives - chroniclers (or their informants) exaggerated; or the piles really were that high.

This puzzles me: given a) the general difficulty of piling up dead even during a battle, b) the preference for getting them (stripped and) straightened out for burial before rigor mortis sets in, c) the effort involved in shifting corpses and d) the religious (and sanitary) need to put them in the ground or burn them, what purpose could be served by piling them in great heaps after the battle?

[Dangun]

How do we avoid excessive literalism, in instances when we know authors will be most tempted by colourful imagery?

The comparison of Diodorus and Xenophon's description of Leuctra seems to be revealing in this regard.

...Just so that we understand what is being claimed, a US Army study from 1979 estimated average chest depth to be 21cm for male soldiers who also averaged 174cm in height.  My manual of human design from university says that the average depth of a human body is about 14cm.

So ignoring any post-mortem balancing problems (Jenga anyone?), and ignoring how the last causality managed to trip over such that he rose 6 foot into the air, the claim is equivalent to 9 to 13 soldiers lying precisely on top of each other.

If we'd like to entertain a "wall of death" literally, then average shoulder width is about 45cm, and so again without considering buttressing or stacking issues, a head-high 50m "wall of death" would contain approx. 1000 to 1500 bodies in it.

Opinions will vary.

[Patrick Waterson]

So ignoring any post-mortem balancing problems (Jenga anyone?), and ignoring how the last causality managed to trip over such that he rose 6 foot into the air, the claim is equivalent to 9 to 13 soldiers lying precisely on top of each other.

This presumably refers to Keegan's approach to the piles of dead at Agincourt.  However what stacked up consisted not of naked bodies but occupied suits of armour, whose external dimensions are the operative parameters, so we need to slim down the body count a bit.  Furthermore, a casualty-to-be can find himself boosted to the top of a (say) 5-foot mound by the pressure of several hundred tight-packed men around and behind him without conscious effort on his part.  He can, once atop the mound, with equal lack of required effort stumble or trip and fall forwards, offering his head to the opposition at a level convenient for helmet-sundering.  This process will continue until the pressure from behind eases, and the physics of gravity are left to themselves without input from the physics of crowd pressure.