Tigris, lands eventually comprised in the Great Kingdom of Mittani. In the second
millennium BCHurrian may have also been spoken, as either a first or a second
language, across the Bitlis-Zagros mountains as far as Lake Van (in the first
millennium BCthe kings at Van used “Urartian”—a late relative of Hurrian—for
their inscriptions).
Horses and chariots arrived early in lands where Hurrian was spoken. As
mentioned in Chapter 2, already ca. 1800 BCthe palace at Chagar Bazar, on a
Khabur tributary in northeastern Syria, owned twenty chariot horses and employed
grooms and trainers for them. Hurrian speakers were undoubtedly important in
bringing chariot warfare to the Near East. The term maryannu is one piece of
evidence, and equally important is the reputation of Kikkuli. No later than the
fifteenth century BCand probably a century earlier Kikkuli wrote or more likely
dictated the first and the most respected text on the training of chariot horses, and
he did so in Hurrian. The text—in Raulwing’s translation—announced its author
in its first line: “Thus [speaks] Kikkuli, the horse trainer from the land Mittani.”^12
At the bidding of one of the early Hittite kings several scribes, whose native
language was Hurrian but who also had various levels of competence in Hittite,
translated Kikkuli’s instructions from Hurrian into Hittite.
From siege warfare to battlefield warfare
In the Late Bronze Age, as is becoming increasingly clear, battlefield warfare
between Near Eastern kingdoms was the clash of chariotries.^13 We know this from
the only Late Bronze Age battles about which we are reasonably informed: the
battles at Megiddo in the twenty-second year of Thutmose III, and at Kadesh in
the fifth year of Ramesses II. In these battles the opposing chariotries were
numbered in the high hundreds or the low thousands. Although there is still some
confusion on this point, most historians recognize that the basic chariot crew
consisted of a driver (the charioteer) and an archer (the chariot warrior). Far less
skilled, and always optional, was a shield bearer. Hittite chariots were apparently
built to accommodate a shield bearer as a third man, but in Egypt and elsewhere
the chariot carried only a driver and an archer.^14 Men on foot seem to have played
only a supporting role. Camps were guarded by lines of men, each with a shield
and spear, and chariots in action were assisted by “runners,” men on foot who
were armed with a spear and/or a short sword and whose duty it was to protect
their own crewmen or to dispatch enemy crewmen whose vehicles had been
disabled. Cities of course continued to be besieged, and the siege required large
numbers of laborers, but now the siege of a city followed the defeat of its chariotry
in the open country.
In essence, chariots seem to have brought about the progression from siege
warfare to battlefield warfare. By 1750 BChorse-drawn chariots had been known
for over 200 years, first on the steppe and then in the Near East, where royalty
acquired them for sport and promenade. As a transport for an archer, the chariot
opened up new possibilities for hunting not only swift prey but also dangerous
predators. At least through the time of Hammurabi, however, in Mesopotamia,
114 Chariot warfare and militarism