donkeys). Each cart had a shield in front, a driver, and a warrior armed with
spears. The carts may have shaken the opposing phalanx by their noise and
appearance, or by the threat of outflanking the enemy, or they may have been
used to ride down those who fled.
Carey 2013, p. 13, also makes the “chariot” essential in Sumerian battles:
Perhaps no other single military invention is as associated with the ancient period
as the war chariot. The military application of the wheel came quite early in the
development of civilization, with the first chariot integrated into Sumerian battle
tactics around 3000 BCE.
9 Dawson 2001, pp. 16–17.
10 Schulman 1963.
11 Stillman and Tallis 1984, p. 56.
12 For an egregious example see Drews 1988, p. 89:
In the early days of chariotry the number of chariots was apparently quite small,
as infantry continued to be the king’s principal arm. In such circumstances,
chariots were assigned to harry the flanks and the rear of an infantry and then,
once a formation had been broken up, to pursue and kill the individual
infantrymen.
13 Drews 1993a.
14 As one of many examples, Egyptologist Ulrich Hofmann (Hofmann 2004, p. 151)
assumes that in the New Kingdom the pharaoh employed chariots to protect his
formation of offensive infantry: “In order to counter enemy chariots attacking the
flanks or the rear of one’s own infantry, one had to have a chariotry similarly
deployed and of similar size” (“Um einer gegnerischen Bewegung auf die Flanken
und hinter den Rücken der eigenen Infanterie zu begegnen, bedurfte es einer gleich
gearteten Waffenkombination (Pferd und Wagen) in angemessener Anzahl”). For a
detailed defense of the traditional understanding of Late Helladic warfare as infantry
warfare see Dickinson 1999a.
15 Littauer and Crouwel 1996b, p. 300.
16 Gimbutas 1997a, p. 357.
17 Abrahami and Battini 2008.
18 Cooper 1986, Insc. La 3.1, ix (p. 34). For other interpretations see Cooper’s notes
on this text.
19 Parrot 1971, p. 255 reported that the 1971 excavations confirmed “que dans les couches
profondes, deux palais, tous deux présargoniques, furent superposes.”
20 Yadin 1972. Parrot 1971, p. 269, briefly discussed this “relief en pierre blanche avec
ornamentation incise (pl. XIV, 4).” He believed that it showed an “infanterie” that
had the foresight to provide itself with good weapons and good protection defeating
enemies who had neither.
21 Yadin 1972, p. 92:
The first thing that strikes one’s eyes is the use of the tall, top-curved Neo-
Assyrian shield (a remarkable phenomenon in itself, since its appearance in the
Mari slab precedes hitherto known appearances of this type by about eighteen
centuries); one should bear in mind that this shield was always used by the
Assyrian armies in siege warfare. It served to protect archers near the wall, in
exactly the same position as that depicted on the slab.
22 Kramer 1963, p. 74. For recent examples see above, note 8.
23 Lafont 2009, §6.5, doubting the use of such a vehicle in Sumerian warfare remarks
on “its virtual absence in our archival texts.” See Abrahami 2008, p. 12, on the absence
of the “char” in Akkadian armies: “Contrairement à la période présargonique, les98 Warfare in Western Eurasia