Assyrian Army Assault on Lachish (Illustration)

Illustration

by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin
published on 19 July 2014

This wall relief delivers a very vivid description of the battlefield. The Assyrian army has built artificial ramps leading up to the city in order to transport their heavy equipment right up to the walls and gate.

On the right, the Assyrian archers attack the city with their bows and arrows. On the left, siege engines are being pushed slowly up the ramps. In the middle of the scene, the enemy soldiers are defending their city tower and are bombarding the attackers with arrows, stones, and torches.

Within the siege engine, the Assyrian archers appear to attack the tower and to pour water onto the battering ram so that it will not catch fire.

Some people of the city are leaving Lachish through a gate within the tower.

From the South-West palace at Nineveh (modern Kuyunjik, Mousil city, Iraq), room XXXVI, panel 7. Mesopotamia, Neo-Assyrian era, 700-692 BCE. (The British Museum, London).

About the Author

Associate Professor of Neurology and lover of the Cradle of Civilization, Mesopotamia. I'm very interested in Mesopotamian history and always try to take photos of archaeological sites and artifacts in museums, both in Iraq and around the world.

License

Uploaded by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin, published on 19 July 2014 under the following license: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.

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