More on early war chariots

[Mark G]

I would suggest that rather than turning away, you are looking at threading. 

It is certainly the experience if formed cavalry through history, and efforts to force the opponent to run rather than thread seem to be the basis of all heavy cavalry tactics as they attempt to prevent the horse's (and rider's) natural inclination to head for a gap between rather than crash head on .

[Andreas Johansson]

True; I suppose the question is how much speed is represented by four asses at the canter.

Noble doesn't say, but one may infer that it was less than 15 mph (24 km/h) because he later says that the vibrations during a run at that speed were too terrifying to the crew to repeat.

(This is frankly unimpressive. I ran the 100 m sprint with a higher average speed than that in high school, and I was in the middle third of boys in my class.)

He also mentions another turn at with a 11 m radius, which I missed the other day; speed and gait not stated, but context suggest less than a canter.

[Patrick Waterson]

His reference to vibrations is interesting; most if not all two-wheel chariots seem tohave been designed to limit or eliminate vibration experienced by the crew.  Vibration is decidenly undesirable when aiming a missile weapon.

Which leads me to wonder: the first Sumerian chariot inventor presumably encountered the problem; what did he do about it?  Egyptian chariots had a sprung floor.  Yet if the floor of the Sumerian four-wheel chariot were sprung, then what supports the warriors on the Ur Standard standing right at the back of their chariots?  They would be tipping the front of the floor up as far as it could go, which would be somewhat inconvenient for the driver.

For this reason, I cannot see the Sumerian chariot being anything other than a solid box, but if it is limited to c.15 mph and vibrates furiously at that speed it is not going to be much of a missile platform.  It can also be outrun by an infantry target should the latter choose to evade.  I think there must be some sort of vibration damper provision in the design which Noble understandably missed but which would be needed to turn the Sumerian four-wheel chariot into an effective fighting vehicle.

I would suggest that rather than turning away, you are looking at threading. 

It is certainly the experience if formed cavalry through history, and efforts to force the opponent to run rather than thread seem to be the basis of all heavy cavalry tactics as they attempt to prevent the horse's (and rider's) natural inclination to head for a gap between rather than crash head on .

I would tend to agree in chariot-chariot clashes and for chariot penetration of infantry formations.  However there appear to have been occasions when chariots did not want to try conclusions with close-packed infantry and in such circumstances the chariots would have two basic choices: stand off and shoot or trundle up and shoot, then haul off and bear away.

[Dangun]

Vibration is decidenly undesirable when aiming a missile weapon.

Not my period or geography, so possibly a dumb question...
But do we have good evidence to suggest whether chariot-born archers fired on the move, or after the chariot paused?

For this reason, I cannot see the Sumerian chariot being anything other than a solid box.... I think there must be some sort of vibration damper provision in the design which Noble understandably missed but which would be needed to turn the Sumerian four-wheel chariot into an effective fighting vehicle.

Maybe it wasn't meant to be a fighting vehicle.
Maybe it was meant to be, "a solid box"?
If you were sick of having your infantry run off by chariots, maybe a few immobile boxes would prevent chariots charging infantry?
Obviously, no evidence to offer here 

[Andreas Johansson]

But do we have good evidence to suggest whether chariot-born archers fired on the move, or after the chariot paused?

Egyptian reliefs certainly seem to show archers shooting from moving chariots. This is however of dubious relevance to Sumerian battle carts 1000+ years earlier whose crews are depicted without bows.

Noble did find that javelins could be thrown from the cart with reasonable accuracy while moving; but the speed of movement was evidently modest. Though as Patrick says, the Sumerians may have found a way of limiting the vibrations (they surely had more time to perfect the design than Noble did).

Maybe it wasn't meant to be a fighting vehicle.
Maybe it was meant to be, "a solid box"?
If you were sick of having your infantry run off by chariots, maybe a few immobile boxes would prevent chariots charging infantry?
Obviously, no evidence to offer here 

As far as we know, Sumerian battle carts of the type reconstructed by Noble predates "proper" chariots by the better part of a millennium.

[aligern]

Perhaps we should spend a bit more time on looking at the context within which the Sumerian chariots were used. Were they  facing massed archery ? or large swarms of skirmishers? It looks from contemporary illustration as though there were very dense blocks of spearmen, some operating from behind a wall of pavises How do we envisage the chariots operating against bodies of protected spearmen? Could they survive against tribesmen with throw sticks and javelins?
Using a quiver full of javelins and having the high frontal structure on the cab suggests that this vehicle expected to come in close to the opponent? Were they expecting to meet mainly other chariots and to operate on the flanks against them, turning the battle by winning the chariot encounter and then cutting off the opposing spearmen?


Roy
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[Jim Webster]

It has struck me that it has been written variously, that Onagers were "notoriously untamable"

Was the battle cart a delivery vehicle to keep four Onagers on track and aimed at the enemy. 

[DougM]

Where's Nigel Tallis on this thread? He's built more replica chariots than anyone else I can think of.

[Duncan Head]

And published frustratingly little about them.

[DougM]

And published frustratingly little about them.

he keeps telling me he's busy...  I think he was trying to organise a kickstarter to do some large scale chariots last I heard...

[Andreas Johansson]

It has struck me that it has been written variously, that Onagers were "notoriously untamable"

Noble appears to be of the view that that description applies only to the Persian subspecies, not to the (extinct) Mesopotamian one.

Mind, it's been disputed that the animals depicted on the Standard were onagers at all. WP suggests they were "possibly onagers or domestic asses"*, and I believe I've seen onager-donkey hybrids suggested somewhere.


* citation: Clutton-Brock, Juliet (1992). Horse Power: A History of the Horse and the Donkey in Human Societies. U.S.: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-40646-9.

[Duncan Head]

Mind, it's been disputed that the animals depicted on the Standard were onagers at all. WP suggests they were "possibly onagers or domestic asses"*, and I believe I've seen onager-donkey hybrids suggested somewhere.

I keep calling these animals 'equids'. What kind of equids are they, exactly? This question is another reason why I like this object. It is a great example of the discussion of equid species in the ancient Near East. The equids on the standard have been called onagers, donkeys, wild donkeys and mules/hybrids. One thing is clear: they are not horses. Beyond that, it is difficult from the iconography alone to establish with certainty what they are. There are such great variety in the sizes and shapes of equids that features like the length of the ears or the gracility of the body can only be suggestive. Donkeys might be a good candidate since they are by far the most commonly attested equid at this period, but it is also around this time that a hybrid (the kunga) is first mentioned. It is not known exactly what it is a cross between, but the domestic donkey is almost certainly one of the parents.

See here p.41 (p.49 of the pdf) for the kunga, identifying the Standard's equids as such.

[Patrick Waterson]

I wonder if this is the animal Ishtar refers to when attempting to woo Gilgamesh (these Sumerian goddesses could be rather forward at times):

Be you my husband, and I will be your wife.
I will have harnessed for you a chariot of lapis lazuli and gold,
with wheels of gold and 'horns' of electrum(?).
It will be harnessed with great storming mountain mules! - Epic of Gilgamesh Tablet VI