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Bible Dictionaries
Fortification and Siegecraft
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
or FORTIFICATION AND SIEGECRAFT . At the date of the Hebrew invasion of Canaan its inhabitants were found to be in possession of ‘cities great and fenced up to heaven’ ( Deuteronomy 9:1; cf. Numbers 13:28 , Joshua 14:12 ), most of them, as is now known, with a history of many centuries behind them. The inhabited places, then as always, were of two classes, walled and unwalled ( Deuteronomy 3:5 ), the latter comprising the country villages, the former the very numerous ‘cities,’ which though small in area were ‘fenced,’ i.e. fortified (the modern term everywhere adopted by Amer. RV [Note: Revised Version.] ), ‘with high walls, gates, and bars.’ In this article it is proposed to indicate the nature of the walls by which these cities were fenced in OT times, and of the fortresses or ‘strong holds’ so frequently mentioned in Hebrew history, and finally, to describe the methods of attack and defence adopted by the Hebrews and their contemporaries.
1. The earliest fortification yet discovered in Palestine is that erected, it may be, as far back as b.c. 4000 by the neolithic cave-dwellers of Gezer. This consisted of a simple bank of earth, between six and seven feet in height, the inside face of which is vertical, the outside sloping, and both cased with random stones ( PEFSt [Note: Quarterly Statement of the same.] , 1903, 113, with section plan 116; 1904, 200; for date see 1905, 29). A similar ‘earth rampart’ was found at Tell el-Hesy, the ancient Lachish.
The Semitic invaders, who appeared in Canaan about the middle of the third millennium, were able with their tools of bronze to carry the art of fortification far beyond this primitive stage. Their cities were planted for the most part on an outlying spur of a mountain range, or on a more or less isolated eminence or tell . In either case the steep rock-faces of nature’s building may be said to have been the city’s first line of defence. The walls, of crude brick or stone, with which art supplemented nature, followed the contours of the ridge, the rock itself being frequently cut away to form artificial scarps, on the top of which the city wall was built. Consequently the walls were not required to be of uniform height throughout the enceinte , being lowest where the rock scarp was steepest, and highest on that side of the city from which approach was easiest and attack most to be feared. In the latter case, as at Jerusalem, which was assailable only from the north, it was usual to strengthen the defences by a wide and deep trench. Where, on the other hand, the city was perched upon an elevated tell , as at Gezer, Lachish, and in the Shephçlah generally, a trench was not required.
The recent excavations in Palestine have shown that the fortifications of Canaanite and Hebrew cities were built, like their houses, of sun-dried bricks, or of stone, or of both combined. When brick was the chief material it was usual to begin with one or more foundation courses of stone as a protection against damp. After the introduction of the hattering-ram (§ 6 ) it was necessary to increase the resistance of brick walls by a revetment or facing of stone, or less frequently of kiln-burnt bricks, more especially in the lower part of the wall. At Tell el-Hesy or Lachish the lower face of the north wall ‘had been preserved by a strengthening wall on the outside, consisting of large rough stones in a parallel line about three feet away, with the intervening space filled in with pebbles’ (Bliss, A Mound of Many Cities , 29). At Tell es-Safi, again perhaps the ancient Gath the lower part of the city wall ‘shows external and internal facings of rubble with a packing of earth and small field stones,’ while the upper part had been built of large mud bricks (Bliss and Macalister, Excavations in Palestine , 30 to be cited in the sequel as BM. Exc. In this work will be found detailed descriptions, with plans and illustrations, of the walls of the various cities of Southern Palestine excavated by the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1898 1900).
The treatment of the stone used for fortifications and other masonry of importance varied considerably in the successive periods, gradually advancing from that of the imposing but primitive ‘cyclopean’ walls characteristic of the early architecture of the Levant, to the carefully dressed stones with drafted margins, laid in perfect courses, of the Herodian period. There was also a great variety in the size of the stones employed. Some of those still in situ in the wall of the Temple enclosure at Jerusalem are ‘over 30 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 3 1 / 2 feet high, weighing over 80 tons’ (Warren), and even these are exceeded by the colossal stones, over 60 feet in length, still to be seen in the temple wall at Baalbek.
2. The thickness of the walls varied from city to city, and even in the same city, being to a certain extent dependent on the required height at any given point. The outer wall of Gezer, of date cir. b.c. 1500, was 14 feet in thickness. At one period the north wall of Lachish was ‘at least 17 feet thick,’ while a thickness of 28 ft. is reached by a wall which is regarded as the oldest fortification of Megiddo. The foot of this wall, according to a well-known practice, was protected by a glacis of beaten earth.
To increase the strength of a wall, the earliest builders were content to add to its thickness by means of buttresses, which, by increasing the projection, gradually pass into towers. The latter were indispensable at the corners of walls (cf. 2 Chronicles 26:15 , Zephaniah 1:16 , both RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.]; see the plans of the walls and towers of Tell Zakariya etc. in BM. Exc. ). Besides strengthening the wall, the projecting towers were of the first importance as enabling the defenders to command the portion of the walls, technically the ‘curtain,’ between them.
Col. Billerbeck, a recognized authority on ancient fortifications, has shown that the length of the curtain between the towers was determined by the effective range of the bows and slings of the period, which he estimates at 30 metres, say, 100 feet ( Der Festungsbau im Alten Orient , 4f.). This estimate receives a striking confirmation from the earlier of the two walls of Gezer, of date cir. b.c. 2900. This wall is provided with ‘long narrow towers, of small projection, at intervals of 90 feet,’ which is precisely the distance between the towers of Sargon’s city at Khorsabad. The most famous towers in later Hebrew history are the three ‘royal towers’ of Herod’s Jerusalem Hippicus, Phasaelus, and Mariamne.
3. The height of the fortifications, as we have seen, varied with the nature of the site. The minimum height, according to Billerbeck ( op. cit. 6), was about 30 feet, this being the maximum length of the ancient scaling-ladders. No Canaanite city wall, however, has yet been found intact, and we can only calculate roughly from the breadth what the height may have been in any particular case. The former, according to the authority just quoted, had for reasons of stability to be from one-third to two-thirds of the height. From the numerous representations of city walls on the Assyrian sculptures, and from other sources, we know that the walls were furnished with a breastwork or battlements , generally crenellated probably the pinnacles of Isaiah 54:12 RV [Note: Revised Version.] . The towers in particular were provided with projecting battlements supported on corbels springing from the wall.
When the site was strongly protected by nature, a single wall sufficed; otherwise it was necessary to have an outer wall, which was of less height than the main wall. This is the chçl frequently mentioned in OT, generally rendered rampart ( 1 Kings 21:23 ) or bulwark ) Isaiah 26:1 ). At Tell Sandahannah probably the ancient Mareshah were found two walls of the same period, the outer being in some places 15 feet in advance of the inner (BM. Exc. 54). It was on a similar outer wall ( chçl ) that the ‘wise woman of Abel of Beth-maacah’ held parley with Joab ( 2 Samuel 20:15; for the reading see Cent. Bible, in loc .). Jerusalem, as is well known, was latterly ‘fenced’ on the N. and N. W. by three independent walls (see Jerusalem).
4. In addition to its walls, every ancient city of importance possessed a strongly fortified place, corresponding to the acropolis of Greek cities, which served as a refuge from, and a last defence against, the enemy when the city itself had been stormed (cf. Judges 9:51 ). Such was the ‘strong tower’ of Thebez (Jg. loc. cit. ), the castle in Tirzah ( 1 Kings 16:18 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ), and the tower of Jezreel ( 2 Kings 9:17 ). The most frequent designation in EV [Note: English Version.] , however, is hold or strong hold , as the ‘strong hold’ of Zion ( 2 Samuel 5:7 ), the acropolis of the Jebusite city, which AV [Note: Authorized Version.] in 2 Samuel 5:9 terms ‘the fort ,’ and in 1 Chronicles 11:5 ‘the castle of Zion .’ In the later struggles with the Syrians and Romans, respectively, two Jerusalem forts played an important part: the citadel (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ) of 1Ma 1:32; 1Ma 3:45 etc. (in the original the Acra , built by Antiochus iv.); and the castle of Antonia , on the site of the earlier ‘castle’ of Nehemiah’s day ( Nehemiah 2:8; Nehemiah 7:2 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ), and itself the ‘castle’ of Acts 21:34; Acts 22:24 etc.
Apart from these citadels there is frequent mention in OT of fortresses in the modern sense of the word, that is, strong places specially designed to protect the frontier, and to command the roads and passes by which the country might be invaded. Such were most of the places built, i.e. fortified, by Solomon ( 1 Kings 9:15; 1 Kings 9:17 f.), the ‘strong holds’ fortified and provisioned by Rehoboam ( 2 Chronicles 11:11 ), the ‘castles and towers’ built by Jotham ( 2 Chronicles 27:4 ), and many more. A smaller isolated fort was named ‘the tower of the watchmen’ ( 2 Kings 17:9; 2 Kings 18:8 ). Among the more famous fortresses of later times may be named as types: the Idumæan fortress of Bethsura, conspicuous in the Maccabæan struggle; Jotapata, the fortress in Galilee associated with the name of the historian Josephus; Machærus, said by Pliny to have been the strongest place in Palestine, next to Jerusalem; and Masada, the scene of the Jews’ last stand against the Romans.
While there is Egyptian evidence for the existence of fortresses in Southern Palestine or the neighbourhood as early as b.c. 3600, and while a statue of Gudea ( cir. b.c. 3000), with the tracing of an elaborate fortress, shows that the early Babylonians were expert fortress builders, the oldest actual remains of a Canaanite fortress are those discovered by Schumacher on the site of Megiddo in 1904, and dated by him between b.c. 2500 and 2000. Its most interesting feature is a fosse 8 ft. wide and from 6 to 10 ft. deep, with a counter-scarp lined with stone. At the neighbouring Taanach Dr. Sellin laid bare several forts, among them the now famous ‘castle of Ishtar-Washshur,’ in which was found ‘the first Palestinian library yet discovered,’ in the shape of a series of cuneiform tablets containing this prince’s correspondence with neighbouring chiefs.
It is impossible within the limits of this article to give details of those interesting buildings. The student is referred to Sellin’s Tell Ta‘anek in vol. 50 (1904), and his Nachless in vol. 52 (1905), of the Denkschriften of the Vienna Academy. An excellent résumé, with plans and photographs, both of the Taanach and the Megiddo fortresses, is given by Father Vincent in his Canaan d’après l’exploration récente , pp. 47 65. More easily accessible to the ordinary student is the detailed account, with measurements and plans, of the citadel of Tell Zakariya perhaps the ancient Azekah fortified by Rehoboam ( 2 Chronicles 11:9 , cf. Jeremiah 34:7 ) given by Bliss and Macalister in their Excavations , etc., pp. 14 23, and plates 2 5.
5. No mention has as yet been made of an important element in the line of a city’s defences, namely, the gates. These were as few as possible, as being the weakest part of the defence, and for the same reason the strongest towers are found on either side of the gates (cf. 2 Chronicles 26:9 ). The most effective arrangement was to make the gateway a passage through a single gate-tower, which projected beyond both the outer and inner faces of the wall. In such cases two gates were provided, an outer and an inner, at either end of the passage, as was the case at Mahanaim, where David is found sitting ‘between the two gates’ ( 2 Samuel 18:24 ). Here we further learn that it was usual to have a stair leading up to an upper storey in the gate-tower ( 2 Samuel 18:33 ), the roof of which was apparently on a level with the top of the city wall ( 2 Samuel 18:24 ). In place of a straight passageway through the tower, a passage bent at a right angle like the letter L increased the possibilities of defence. In most cases the base of the L would be on the inside, towards the city, but in one of the Taanach forts above referred to the outer gate is in the side of an outer tower, and it is the inner gate that is in line with the walls (see restored plan in Vincent, op. cit. 59). The average width of the numerous gateways laid bare by recent excavation is about nine feet.
The gate itself, called the ‘door of the gate’ in Nehemiah 6:1 , consisted ordinarily of two parts or leaves ( Isaiah 45:1 ) of wood. For greater security against fire these were often overlaid with bronze, the ‘gates of brass’ of Psalms 107:16 , Isaiah 45:2 . The leaves were hung on pivots which turned in sockets in the sill and lintel, and were fastened by bolts let into the former. A strong bar or bars of wood, bronze ( 1 Kings 4:13 ), or iron ( Job 40:18 ) secured the whole gate, passing transversely into sockets in the gate-posts, as we learn from Samson’s exploit at Gaza ( Judges 16:1-3 ). ‘To have the charge of the gate’ ( 2 Kings 7:17 ) was a military post of honour, as this passage shows. In war time, at least, a sentinel was posted on the roof of the gate-house or tower ( 2 Samuel 18:24 , cf. 2 Kings 9:17 ).
6. It remains to deal briefly with the siegecraft of the Hebrews and their contemporaries. A ‘fenced’ or fortified place might be captured in three ways: ( a ) by assault or storm, ( b ) by a blockade, or ( c ) by a regular siege. ( a ) The first method was most likely to succeed in the case of places of moderate strength, or where treachery was at work (cf. Judges 1:23 ff.). The assault was directed against the weakest points of the enceinte , particularly the gates (cf. Isaiah 28:6 ). Before the Hebrews learned the use of the battering-ram, entrance to an enemy’s city or fortress was obtained by setting fire to the gates ( Judges 9:49; Judges 9:52 ), and by scaling the walls by means of scaling-ladders, under cover of a deadly shower of arrows and sling-stones. According to 1 Chronicles 11:6 , Joab was the first to scale the walls of the Jebusite fortress of Zion, when David took it by assault. Although scaling-ladders are explicitly mentioned only in 1Ma 5:30 a prior reference may be found in Proverbs 21:22 they are familiar objects in the Egyptian representations of sieges from an early date, as well as in the later Assyrian representations, and may be assumed to have been used by the Hebrews from the first. In early times, as is plain from the accounts of the capture of Ai ( Joshua 8:10 ff.) and Shechem ( Judges 9:42 ff.), a favourite stratagem was to entice the defenders from the city by a pretended flight, and then a force placed in ambush would make a dash for the gate.
( b ) The second method was to completely surround the city, and, by preventing ingress and egress, to starve it into surrender. This was evidently the method adopted by Joab at the blockade of Rabbath-ammon, which was forced to capitulate after the capture of the ‘water fort’ (for this rendering see Cent. Bible on 2 Samuel 12:26 f.), by which the defenders’ main water-supply was cut off.
( c ) In conducting a regular siege , which of course included both blockade and assault, the first step was to ‘cast up a bank ’ (AV [Note: Authorized Version.] 2 Samuel 20:15 , 2 Kings 19:32 , Isaiah 37:33 ) or mount (AV [Note: Authorized Version.] Ezekiel 4:2; Ezekiel 17:17 RV [Note: Revised Version.] has ‘mount,’ Amer. RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘mound’ throughout). This was a mound of earth which was gradually advanced till it reached the walls, and was almost equal to them in height, and from which the besiegers could meet the besieged on more equal terms. The ‘mount’ is first met with in the account of Joab’s siege of Abel of Beth-maacah ( 2 Samuel 20:15 ff.). In EV [Note: English Version.] Joab is represented as, at the same time, ‘battering’ or, in RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] , ‘undermining’ the wall, but the text is here in some disorder. Battering-rams are first mentioned in Ezekiel, and are scarcely to be expected so early as the time of David. The Egyptians used a long pole, with a metal point shaped like a spear-head, which was not swung but worked by hand, and could only be effective, therefore, against walls of crude brick (see illustr. in Wilkinson, Anc. Egypt , i. 242).
The battering-engines ( Ezekiel 26:9 RV [Note: Revised Version.]; AV [Note: Authorized Version.] ‘engines of war’) of the Assyrians were called ‘rams’ by the Hebrews ( Ezekiel 4:2; Ezekiel 21:22 ), from their butting action, although they were without the familiar ram’s head of the Roman aries . The Assyrian battering-ram ended either in a large spear-head, as with the Egyptians, or in a flat head shod with metal, and was worked under the shelter of large wooden towers mounted on four or six wheels, of which there are many representations in the Assyrian wall sculptures (see illustr. in Toy’s’ Ezekiel,’ SBOT [Note: BOT Sacred Books of Old Testament.] , 102). These towers were sometimes of several storeys, in which archers were stationed, and were moved forward against the walls on the mounds above described.
When Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem, his troops are said to have ‘built forts against it round about’ ( 2 Kings 25:1 , cf. Ezekiel 4:2 ), but the original term is obscure, and is rather, probably, to be understood in the sense of a siege-wall or circumvallatio the ‘bank’ of Luke 19:43 RV [Note: Revised Version.] for the purpose of making the blockade effective. On the other hand, the bulwarks of Deuteronomy 20:20 , also Ecclesiastes 9:13 , which had to be made of wood other than ‘trees for meat,’ properly denote wooden forts or other siege works ( Isaiah 29:3 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ) built for the protection of the besiegers in their efforts to storm or undermine the walls.
7. The Assyrian sculptures give life-like pictures of the various operations of ancient siegecraft. Here we see the massive battering-rams detaching the stones or bricks from an angle of the wall, while the defenders, by means of a grappling-chain, are attempting to drag the ram from its covering tower. There the archers are pouring a heavy fire on the men upon the wall, from behind large rectangular shields or screens of wood or wickerwork, standing on the ground, with a small projecting cover. These are intended by the ‘shield’ of 2 Kings 19:32 , the ‘buckler’ of Ezekiel 26:8 , and the ‘ mantelet ’ of Nahum 2:5 , all named in connexion with siege works. In another place the miners are busy undermining the wall with picks, protected by a curved screen of wicker-work supported by a pole (illustr. of both screens in Toy, op. cit. 149; cf. Wilkinson, op. cit. i. 243).
The monuments also show that the Assyrians had machines for casting large stones long before the tormenta , or siege-artillery, are said to have been invented in Sicily in b.c. 399. By the ‘artillery’ of 1 Samuel 20:40 AV [Note: Authorized Version.] is, of course, meant the ordinary bow and arrows; but Uzziah is credited by the Chronicler with having ‘made engines invented by cunning men to be on the towers and upon the battlements to shoot arrows and great stones withal’ ( 2 Chronicles 26:15 ). The Books of the Maccabees show that by the second century, at least, the Jews were not behind their neighbours in the use of the artillery ( 1Ma 6:51 f. AV [Note: Authorized Version.] ) of the period, ‘engines of war and instruments for casting fire and stones, and pieces to cast darts and slings.’ (A detailed description, with illustrations, of these catapultæ and ballistæ , as the Romans termed them, will be found in the art. ‘Tormentum’ in Smith’s Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Antiq .) At the siege of Gezer (such is the best reading, 1Ma 13:45 ) Simon is even said to have used effectively a piece of the most formidable siege-artillery then known, the helepolis (lit. ‘city-taker,’ RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘engine of siege’), which Titus also employed in the siege of Jerusalem (for description see ‘Helepolis’ in Smith, op. cit. ). In this siege the Jews had 300 pieces for discharging arrows or rather bolts ( catapultÅ“ ), and 40 pieces for casting stones ( ballistÅ“ ), according to Josephus, who gives a graphic account of the working of these formidable ‘engines of war’ in his story of the siege of Jotapata ( BJ III. vii. 23.)
8. The aim of the besieged was by every artifice in their power to counteract the efforts of the besiegers to scale or to make a breach in the walls ( Amos 4:3 ), and in particular to destroy their siege works and artillery. The battering-rams were rendered ineffective by letting down bags of chaff and other fenders from the battlements, or were thrown out of action by grappling-chains, or by having the head broken off by huge stones hurled from above. The mounds supporting the besiegers’ towers were undermined, and the towers themselves and the other engines set on fire ( 1Ma 6:15; cf. the ‘fiery darts’ or arrows of Ephesians 6:16 ).
In addition to the efforts of the bowmen, slingers, and javelin-throwers, who manned the walls, boiling oil was poured on those attempting to place the scaling-ladders, or to pass the boarding-bridges from the towers to the battlements. Of all these and many other expedients the Jewish War of Josephus is a familiar répertoire. There, too, will be found the fullest account of the dire distress to which a city might be reduced by a prolonged siege (cf. 2 Kings 6:25 ff.).
A. R. S. Kennedy.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Fortification and Siegecraft'. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdb/f/fortification-and-siegecraft.html. 1909.
