infantry formations. The only sentences in this lengthy inscription that refer to
the battle itself have been variously translated, but Sumerologists agree that the
text tells of Eanatum being hit by an enemy arrow:
He fought with him. A person shot an arrow at Eanatum. He was shot through
by the arrow and had difficulty moving. He cried out in the face of it. The
person... [(12 cases broken or frag.)]. Eanatum provoked a windstorm in
Umma, unleashed a deluge there.^18Because Eanatum was wounded in what must have been an exchange of
missiles, it may be that the “phalanx” went into action only at the end, to force
its way into Umma’s main gate after Eanatum’s archers and slingers had slain
many of their opponents.
That possibility is strengthened by the best evidence we have for Mesopotamian
combat in the third millennium BC. This is a relief on a small stone slab discovered
in 1971 by André Parrot in his excavations at Mari. The slab came from the pre-
Sargonic palace at Mari, and therefore dates toward the end of the Early Dynastic
period (ca. 2400 BC).^19 Although Parrot misinterpreted the scene, Yadin imme -
diately recognized it as the earliest representation of a siege in Mesopotamian
iconography (see Figure 3.1).^20
The portable shed (or canopy-shield), which protects both the holder and the
archer from arrows or sling-stones coming from above, is well known from Neo-
Assyrian reliefs depicting a siege.^21 On the slab shown here we see one of the
besieging archers shooting an arrow almost vertically, and a naked defender falling
through the air. The archer is armed with a composite bow with reflexed tips. In
light of this slab from Early Dynastic Mari, we may be able to make better sense
of the relief on the Stela of the Vultures, which dates from the same period. The
naked Ummites whom the stela shows being trodden underfoot by the phalanx
can perhaps be understood as defenders who had fallen from atop Umma’s city
wall, where they had been sending arrows or sling-stones down on the besieging
force from Lagash.
For the last 90 years the “chariots” of the Ur Standard have been seen as central
to Mesopotamian warfare in the third millennium BC. Samuel Noah Kramer
supposed that “the kings established a regular army, with the chariot—the ancient
‘tank’–as the main offensive weapon,” and that assessment now appears regularly
in military histories.^22 It is, however, surely wrong. Sumerian and Akkadian
texts relating to warfare do not mention the wagons.^23 The four equids (onagers?
donkey/onager hybrids?) that pulled each wagon were controlled—hardly the right
word—by nose-rings. Littauer and Crouwel observed that such a mechanism
could only stop the animal from moving forward, and that “directional control,
if attempted, must have been by voice, goad, or whip, or combinations thereof—
as oxen may still be directed.”^24 The lack of directional control over his equids
would not have distressed the Sumerian driver, because his wagon was not built
to change directions. With a front axle that did not pivot, the wagon “could only
be turned in a wide arc or by manual lifting or levering of its rear wheels.”^25
62 Warfare in Western Eurasia