Assyria

[evilgong]

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
Bookmarked by John MacGinnis 
The Assyrian Army II: Recruitment and Logistics

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Tamás Dezső
Bookmarked by John MacGinnis 
The Assyrian Army I: The Structure of the Neo-Assyrian Army, 1. Infantry

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David F Brown

[Patrick Waterson]

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?

[Jim Webster]

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

[Duncan Head]

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.

[Jim Webster]

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

[evilgong]

Hi there


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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

[Patrick Waterson]

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.)

[Duncan Head]

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:

A 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.

[Andreas Johansson]

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.

[Patrick Waterson]

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.

[Duncan Head]

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. 

Do we know the Assyrian term for Elamite wheeled platforms (chariots by courtesy)?

I certainly don't.

[Patrick Waterson]

Do we know the Assyrian term for Elamite wheeled platforms (chariots by courtesy)?

I certainly don't.

I just wondered because of this.  Unfortunately Assyrians, unlike Egyptians, do not seem to have added written descriptions to their reliefs.

[aligern]

 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

[Patrick Waterson]

I may have managed to get somewhere with this.  The University of Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (volume 'k', 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.

[Andreas Johansson]

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.