Ceiba Dick-Read Humanities Grade 6 Mr.

Eichert

City wall defence against the Assyrian Army

The defence of city walls back in 4700 BC was not too good compared to defences of
later civilizations like the Greeks and Romans[Mr. Eichert].Mesopotamians walls were mainly made of mud and clay bricks which was not the hardest material compared to the say the Romans which had stone and lime cement. In their case it was the best material. It would've taken months to transport stone to the cities and they did not have the understanding of limestone to make cement. The Assyrians were very far ahead in their technical advances. In their cities life was peaceful.Trade flourished throughout their cities in their empire, but their warriors were ruthless and merciless to their victims. Their technical advances gave them huge advantages.For example. Their war machines would smash through city walls without problems because of the materials that were so weak. An example would be a siege tower or a battering ram. These siege towers were built on 6 wheels and were push by soldiers to the city walls.On the front of the siege towers were long poles and on the ends there were iron tips in the shape of an axe heads that was lifted and dropped to carve through the walls. The small city walls dont stand a chance against these weapons. There was almost no way to stop these weapons and when a small part of the wall falls in the whole army would rush in and overtake the city. The Assyrian army was not only good at sieges but also open field combat.

What I think could stop the army and siege engines is, if you had a good idea when they were going to attack, is send out groups of soldiers to do small attacks to
weaken the army so that where it reaches the city it is weakened and easier to fight off. For the siege towers you could set out big pit traps around the walls so that then they come close the siege tower would collapse in the pit. Another way is to put out little spikes that would take out any foot soldiers, cavalry and two horses-chariots. There is one other way you could stop them. To make fire arrows and fire fireballs to throw at the enemies to burn their siege towers and burn their soldiers to keep them out.

My sources
"Everyday Life Through the Ages (Reader's Digest) [Hardcover]." Everyday Life Through the Ages (Reader's Digest): Michael Worth Davison: 9780276420351: Amazon.com: Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Nov. 2012.

CeibaThis is a very informative rough draft and shows that you learned quite a lot about the Assyrians. I made some corrections and comments in red, and put words that should be omitted in gray. I also highlighted a few things. Blue highlighting means that the word is misspelled or in an incorrect form (for example, singular form instead of plural). Yellow highlighting means that rewording needs to be done to clarify the meaning of the phrase. Regarding your citation, the web address is relevant and Amazon.com are not needed because you had a physical copy of the book. Thank you for the effort, but you will need to fix that. Mr. Eichert