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Hi SandRhoman could you please consider doing an episode about life under siege? For both the civilians and soldiers? It's very hard to find things covering this topic. Tyvm 🙏
I know this is not exactly what you're are asking, but I found "Victus: The Fall of Barcelona" by Pinchez to be a great description of a siege from the point of people who had to survive it, even if it's fiction.
Ogg: "I am no leaving cave, you come in me bonk you and eat you." Krugg: "Good. Me stay out here and bonk anything and eat it. Even from cave." Ogg: "Fug. I didn't think of that." Fug: "Dis new warfare Ogg. Times change."
The first siege “ HA you can’t get in!” “ yeah well you can’t get out!” “ so? We’re inside!” “ I mean eventually you’ll need to have things brought in or you’ll die, right?” “……….. well you’re not gonna stay out there that long!” “ I bet we will!” “F@&$ you!” “No F@&$ you!” “No F@&$ you!” “No F@&$ you!”
I am from a town quite close to ancient Hattusa, in Turkey. Fortifications, underground escape tunnels, intricate design of the walls and those giant slabs of rocks impress me every time. Sometimes I stand by the sloped polished rocks over the hill which the citadel stands and fathom myself a hostile soldier approaching to attack, which would be quite a scary experience. Even today, in order to design, carry, place that kind of heavy items require a lot of time and energy with contemporary technology. Considering the security aspect of those logistics take quite some time. Just think about it, if you drop even one of those 5-10 ton rocks, you would break not only that item, but hurt people, other structures and deal with A LOT of cleaning up. This kind of projects require close to perfect organizational planning, let alone technology. They did it thousands of years ago. Blows my mind. Those fortifications had been there even when indo-europeans first conquered it somewhere around 18th century BC. In fact the tablets describing these events are the first indo-european written records ever, if you are interested search Anitta (king) in wikipedia. Anitta was very upset about the siege of Hattusa.
i would guess the long sticks were not for dislodging bricks, but rather used to hinder the defenders from shooting effectively at the workers directly beneath the wall, building a ramp or trying to fill the moat. it's kinda hard lo lean over and shoot down when there's a giant fly swatter swinging in front of you
@@bugtesties That is because cities are built on rugged mountains or have outdated drainage systems. Therefore, China is working hard to build urban infrastructure. The construction efficiency and results are amazing. This situation is relatively rare in China, but it happens every year in maritime countries.
@@jrwolf4955 lol okay 👌 that’s why everything’s falling apart over there. Tofu dreg projects where the concrete crumbles. I wouldn’t trust anything built by China.
Thank you for giving slingers the credit they deserve. I love the idea of slingers and archers working together. I would totally expect to see archers in front as they are able to aim, with slingers running support bombing or running skirmishes as needed. Great analysis, rhank you
An intuitive case for the frequency of sieges in early warfare over battles, which may be completely redundant to literature: These would be states without standing armies, and without any of the modern amenities of communication. Rulers would probably become aware of an invading army when fleeing refugees from the outskirt villages that got burned on the march start showing up, at least close enough that an official passes on the report to the centre. IIRC this happened with the arrival of the Spaniards in Mesoamerica for a much, much later proof of concept. You don't have radar stations, you don't have regular scouts - at most you have regularly manned border forts. If one of these is invested without a messenger getting out, you don't know you're being invaded until you see em on the horizon. SO! Given all this, and the lack of a standing army, and the processes involved in raising a levy army - you don't often have a *chance* to offer pitched battle. Meanwhile a defensive posture in fortifications mitigates some of your disadvantages and forces the male population to commit to participation, for cities.
*without standing armies as we understand them from the modern era on. I'm a simple former potsherd-digger-upper, not a military history guy and just going off my gut here, I'm sure someone could correctly note the presence of professional corps of palace guards etc large enough to form the cores of armies as far back as Mesopotamia/Egypt. Also forgot to note the prolonged nature of a siege gives you time to bring the spears and shields out of storage and distribute them among the peasant-serfs.
I think you are right in that first and most important reason of those early fortifications was to prevent quick raids by enemy, which just have been the main way of eating wars before. I think I read somewhere it was actually very common for defenders to meet the enemy in a battle outsider of the walls. Why? Because in the age of city states there was no help coming and the enemy could pillage everything outside of the walls while you slowly starve to death. If you could, you would at least try to prevent that. So walls stopped the raid and gave defenders enough time to gather the troops, which would then match outside the city. Unless they were vastly outnumbered by the attackers, I imagine.
We now have evidence of fortifications that are even older. Even before the time humans developed agriculture. In Siberia there were fortifications when there were only hunters.
Really love the video, but the expression, the first sieges is wrong. The first seiges actually date to the Neolithic. The chalcolithic (copper age) has characteristic large sieges, for example Siege of Susa 4300 BC.
@@mauzekoni5196 Your channel is great stuff and I will subscribe my friend. Thank you for the reply. The late Neolithic and Chalcolithic is pre literary of course, but that has driven a current bias in the archaeological and historical community until recently. Where via battlefield archaeology we observe there were proto-empires even in the era of non literacy. Ie Uruk Period, Eridu during the Ubaid potentially. One important part which really gets forgotten is the hypothesised semitic invasions on Mesopotamian in the late half of the 4th Millennium BC. It seems they were pushed out by the earliest Indo European migrations, the one to Anatolia c. 4000 BC. The power of Uruk is remembered even in the Bible, where it seems it can be compared to the fall of Rome. 5th Millennium BC and the 4th Millennium BC are underrated.
From iron cometh strength From strength cometh will From will cometh faith From faith cometh honor From honor cometh iron This is the Unbreakable Litany. May it forever be so Iron within iron without
You mention to many places in my homeland of Souria Syria Right infront of my mlthets front door in Masyaf Hama syria is a giant castle where the Hashashins where
Absolutely great video for this interesting topic! But I did have a problem trying to stay focused on the discussion when a town or location was being pinged on the map. The sound used was unfortunately really distracting. Otherwise, love your content and hope to see more soon!
I rhink what freaks me out is what must have been going on in the minds of the fighters. That their last stand that won the battle would be remembered through history, only for the sands of time to erase them. That their mighty conquest would be spoken of for all time, only for their tales to be long forgotten. So many glories and triumphs, so much tragedy and loss, all erased to but a few fragments of scattered documents, reliefs.
You left off one siege method: Treachery. Never underestimate the power of human greed. Even a LAVISH bribe would be much cheaper than maintaining an army in the field.
@@Alguien644At this time, they have learned to solidify the mixed earth wall. If it is a wooden wall, it will not burn quickly. It usually burns completely after the attack.
During its history, there have been many different Troys built one on top another, as the previous ones were either abandoned or destroyed. During the digs, it was found the Troy that corresponds to the myth of Trojan Horse was most likely damaged by an earthquake, which either destroyed the city or damaged it to allow it to be more easily captured by its attackers. Couple of points here... First, when Homer was writing his Iliad about the Trojan War, we're talking early stages of Ancient Greece. But the actual Trojan War took place long before that, before the Bronze Age Collapse. That's before Ancient Greece, it's during the time of Mycenaean rule (think proto-Greek, I guess). Before Homer, but after the Bronze Age Collapse, Greece lost its written language for a long while, so by the time Ancient Greece arrived and Homer started writing, pretty much all of those stories were hundreds of years old, and all oral traditions. Not exactly history as we understand it. Second, if it's true that the Troy we're talking about was either destroyed or damaged by an earthquake, there is a possibility that the Trojan Horse means something entirely different than what we think. In Greek mythology, the god of the seas was Poseidon, who not only was able to conjure up sea storms but could also generate earthquakes. Also, many Greek gods had their own corresponding animal. For example, Athena, goddess of wisdom, had an owl as her animal. Poseidon's animal was the horse. There is a number of today's scholars who think that Homer's Trojan Horse is symbolic, basically stating that Troy of those days got hit by an earthquake and got severely damaged, which made it possible for the Mycenaeans to conquer the city. Considering that siege warfare back in those days was extremely primitive, an earthquake sent by Poseidon might've been the Trojan Horse that was needed to enable a capture of an otherwise well-defended city.
I hope we find a way to learn about the history in these days and how everything worked. The different alliances and cities ect. I want to watch movies or play games in these eras. It’s sad that a lot of history is completely lost
I love your animations here and the topic of the video is really interesting and exciting. So many questions and so much to learn. I never heard about early sieges.
well to be fair, in the movie (Troj) they never tried to (a) surround the city (b) showed ladders or any other siege equipment (c) build a ramp or tunnel. Hence, we have to assume they planned to look incompetent by design to use a sneak :D yeye I know, movie
Get a good thick stick and go outside and dig in the ground, easier then you might imagine. Now imagine a bunch of people doing the same. And that's without making a special shovel stick, like a stick that gets wider and thinner in one end. Probably bronze had nothing to do with it, bronze was an expensive material and it would be damaged by repeatedly hitting it in the ground. But why use it when there is no need?
This is a late comment, but of all the pike-and-shot formations you have not talked about, you have missed the New Model Army made during the English Civil war. I really hope you can make a video on them because some say they are the best itteration of the Pike-and-Shot model ever made
I wouldn't be so quick to relegate the Trojan Horse to myth, after all, how many myths have in recent years been proven to come from fact, including the most famous example of this, Troy itself.
@@samsonsoturian6013 Invincible Soldiers didn't exist sure. As I'm also Certain the War didn't happen because Aphrodite Bribed the Judge to get a Golden Apple. But i wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the Siege itself existing including the Size of the Armies. A lot of people undermine how large some ancient Civilizations could have been. Even though they had massive Cities and were capable of Building Mega-structures and Historians would often Report Massive Battles that modern Historians just decide to Ignore for no reason. If bronze Age Civilizations were capable of Building the Pyramids I wouldn't put 60.000 men sieges beyond them. Egypt already had 50.000 men Campaigns in the Bronze Age (Conquest of Syria). And the Achaemenid Empire and Greece would have a War Involving at Least 100.000 Each in an era that's generally believed that Greece was weaker than in the Mycenae era
What myths are you talking about? It’s not controversial that Troy was real. The Iliad may have been based on one or more real conflicts but the details are fictional.
The first siege probably occurred when a wondering tribe came across the first fortified town. The date, name and location of which has most likely been whipped out of existence by time.
Also, walls are useful to defend inhabitants from natural dangers such as wild animals and help keep scavengers and vermin out. That is a danger to the lives of the people who live there. Meanwhile writing doesn't really benefit people until you reach a certain point. So it's no wonder that you see walls before you see evidence of writing. One of them has use earlier than the other. And it's not automatically indicative of some misanthropic "humans are innately violent monsters!" culture.
Only if you believe the manipulated version of history. Remember that history is just a narrative written by the controllers to manipulate humanity. We only know tiny fractions of the little people history (us) from the last 5-6000 years. Before that there were the giants who also built giant walls and had their own wars. Ruins of giant fortresses exist in the mountains of some countries... People have been making war on one another since the first humans started walking the Earth and making settlements.
Siege is not the same as assault. Most sieges, at least in more known later history, didn't actually end with an assault. Treachery, terror, disease and hunger were the most effective methods to win a siege. I'm a bit surprised the video didn't talk about that at all, but then maybe in bronze age it was different...?
Nah, but how many kings & potentates are going to commission stella and other inscriptions talking about how they sat on their asses around a town for 6 months until the others guys gave up?
Just think about how much arrows, stones, rocks and medicine you would to have prepare for such a siege on both sides. It could take months so arrow makers must have been in high demand back then.
@@John14-6... 2 Kings, 25 mention siege walls, but i also haven't found anything about dart-throwing engines in the siege itself, but 2 Chronicles 26 does mention "devices designed to stand on the towers and at the angles of the walls to shoot arrows and cast large stones" built in Jerusalem by Uzziah who reigned almost 2 centuries before, so i guess there is a possibility?
There is a debate as to whether the structure found in Jericho (known as "the Jericho Tower") was part of a fortification system: it doesn't seem to be constructed in a wa6 that would offer protection from an advancing army. The current leading view is that it was a religious site dedicated to the diety of the sun and a local mountain. This is based on the angle in which the sunrise is viewed as emerging from the top of the mountain when observed from the tower in winter solstice.
Not a criticism, but one thing not mentioned was the use of incendiaries. Flaming brush to create smoke, hot oil, etc...I imagine the lack of catapults/trebuchets would make the classic "throw fire into the town" a little harder, but these weren't big towns for the most part, either. Somebody with a bow and some burning tarred thatch could probably do some damage.
As far as I know, and I've studied Bronze Age history extensively, there is no mention of that. Boiling oil being used by defenders is largely a myth. The 1st and one of only a few records of it come at the siege of Jerusalem that was mentioned at the beginning of the video. Same with flaming arrows, mostly a Hollywood myth.
@@robo5013 As much as flaming arrows are bullshit, how come in contemporary (medieval) texts they are mentioned quite often? It must have come from somewhere? (Genuinly curious)
@@HansWurst1569 What are your sources that mention them quite often? Not once in my forty years of studying history have I come across the use of flaming arrows in the middle ages. Now I don't read the actual source material very often as I don't read Latin or Old English, etc., but I'm sure that even in translations or general histories if flaming arrows were a thing it would be mentioned. So if you have some easily accessible sources that describe their use I'm genuinely interested. The main use of fire that I've come across, other than Greek Fire by the Byzantines, is the use of fire brands, or throwing torches. And I can only recall a couple of mentions of this and they were Roman sources.
Modern Sieges are rare because of air attacks and better artillery. Usually something like the Westwall is the best you can get. A relative weak defence but with many protected places for soldigers and equipment as well as physical barriers and mine fields against tanks. Last line would be the artillery and air defense. And when you are really lucky a airfield.
Yes it does work! I can confirm! Had to clean my roof so i used a siege latter to get on top of my house to battle the dreaded LEAVES! It was a massacre. They never expected my ladder and broom siege weapon combo!
From Bronze Age brutality to tactical evolution. Battering rams & cunning warriors. Defenders' last stand & ingenious escape routes. A glimpse into the history of warfare, shaped by ever-evolving tactics and technology. ⚔
If you remove the 'mystical' element from the Siege of Jericho, it reads like a distraction before the signaling of horns. The Hebrew tribes circling the city would generate dust and disguise the movement of their warriors. The city of Jericho being unable to fully man all of it's walls would have weak points, which the tribes could identify in their procession. Then the blasting of all the horns signals the attack.
@@darbyohara lol, that’s now how it works. The oldest human remains found isn’t the first human ever and no scientist would ever argue so. He was only phrasing it like that because English isn’t his first language.
@@AlbertaGeek Indeed. And since a siege isn’t an innovation (siege engines, specialized tools, weapons, craft, etc. are another matter). It’s just an obvious action. It’s almost bizarre to portray it as an event that would have “first.”
@@The_ZeroLine And since the basic siege is really just waiting out an enemy in a fortified position, one could easily make the case for the first one happening some time back in the stone age. A group of hunters going after a critter in its lair, or whatnot.
I have so many things to do. My social life is in ruin, grades slipping, money non-existent, and my mental and physical health are deteriorating. But here I am in ignorant bliss watching a video about Bronze Age seizes.
@@jpaulc441 absolutely considering the state of internet and social media you could absolutely be doing much worse and rotting your brain, instead you're watching an informative, educational, engaging video. Better than TikTok by any measure
There seems to be a school of thought that dismiss Siege Tower to climb enemy wall. Siege Tower being an archer platform makes sense but it looks like Siege Tower also have function to climb the wall instead of just purely shooting device. But i dunno, i'm not historian so my word lacks legitimacy.
How have you come to that conclusion? Pretty sure if you say siege tower nine out of ten people are going to be thinking of dudes climbing it and storming the walls not just using it as an archery platform. Maybe I've completely misinterpreted what you meant but I'm pretty sure everyone knows they were for climbing onto walls and not just archery towers. Otherwise you'd just build a tower, much quicker and easier than making a siege tower.
Towers are great for archer positions. Ditches really negate them for assault. Earthen ramps are better but ladders work. Sieges have rarely been won by the attacker through purely assault. Most seiges you see in movies are nonsense. It's mostly sitting around and taking potshots while one side starves and the other side hopes no one shows up to contest the seige.
@@mrsquidly6395 SandRhoman have been consistant ever since '5 myth about medieval siege' that Siege Tower are mostly for archer platform, only in a rare case such as in the Siege of Jerusalem that Siege Tower were actually used to climb walls. Hence why i make the comment
@@iseeyou5061 because they are mostly for archer towers, an assault on the walls would be super rare and would happen only a few times max during a siege, so proportionally they probably were used much more for archer towers but even in this video he talks about how they fill the ditch around the fortress to assault the walls with towers with infantry gaining access using the towers. I totally get where you're coming from, but he's probably very correct in assuming they'd be more delegated for archer towers even though they were certainly used to assault walls as well. It's just that you can achieve very similar results by just building a ramp or using ladders. I love the idea of siege towers assaulting the walls with troops pouring through its very dramatic and would have looked crazy, but there's much better methods for achieving the same results so I would tend to agree they were probably mostly used as archery and slinger platforms with the occasional full blown wall assault.
If you could build a tower that is taller than the wall and then put it right next to the wall it would be possible to use it as basically a buffed up ladder. But there is two problems with that. First it would not be easy to build a 10 meter tall tower that you also can move forward, you would not be able to build a tower right under the wall because the defenders would not allow it. Second it would not be easy to move said tower up to the wall, as stated in the video even the earliest walls had measures to prevent attackers from just walking up to them do whatever, like a section outside the wall of slanted earth, a ditch full of water, maybe big rocks spread out, pits with sharp poles in them, whatever. The defenders would think about their defense just as much as the attackers would think about their siege engines. If the attacker can imagine a tower rolling up to the wall the defender can imagine some way of not letting that happen. So yeah if you had the most incompetent fortification ever with just a wall then completely flat steady ground you could use a siege tower to climb the walls, but what kind of wall builder would leave their wall that vulnerable?
@pvlgs very different circumstances. The peat was needed for warmth, regularly let into the city. It wasn't a one-time monument for unbelievable reasons (Greeks for no reason decided to lose when they were close to winning).
I believe the partners who run the channel are name Sandro and Rhoman (or something like that) and the EP are the greek letters that correspond to 'S' and 'R' (Sigma and Rho)
City walls are as much for defending the city as keeping taxpayers inside. In early states it wasn’t advantageous to live in a city and make grain farming. Epidemics, coercion and drudgery.
You could make some videos about Portugal's warfare, people tend to forget a lot about them, but the Portuguese have many great achievements in their history, they were the first European super power and were the first to control the oceans and there are many great battles that they won most of them at a numerical disadvantage
Super power is most definitely the wrong word to use, and if we are using the word superpower for Portugal, then I'm pretty sure a lot of other European countries were superpowers before Portugal
@@Julio_ap control the world? hardly. Portugal managed to create a large but really only coastal empire. It had a large and modern navy, thats for sure, but it was not a superpower. Also you seem to forget that they were not exactly a powerful land nation, they would have struggled on land against empires like spain or france. it was a comerce and maritime empire, not a military one. Calling them the greatest naval power in the moder age is an interesting take, although I am guessing that you mean in the 15-16th century, and not modern time. Their admitedly large empire, was stretched way to much compared to how much their population and economy could handle, hence why it collapsed. Their empire existed purely because they invented their ships first, and not because they were this almighty nation. in an actual war against spain they would have been stomped on.
@@confusedturtle2275 "whoever controls the seas controls the world" is a famous phrase that reflects the reality of the world after the great navigations, because countries fought to control the seas since they were the greatest source of wealth at the time, in the book sea power you sees that the author recognizes those who controlled the sea as great super powers, so much so that it does not recognize Spain as a super power because it never actually had control of the sea.
@@Julio_ap spain at its greatest extent and at its most powerful would absolutely be a super power. Controlling the seas doesnt matter if you cant defend your own borders, and said control over the sea would probably matter a lot more if portugal had been an island. No matter what way you phrase it, portugal was never a superpower, a great power for certain, but not a superpower. its two different things really. Portugal could easily deploy its vast navy against an adversary, and probably cause great harm to any nations economy by doing so, but if you cant land on the shores of that nation, and if you cant control their land or fight against their armies, then it doesnt matter. And claiming that spain wasnt a superpower because they didnt control the seas is like claiming the mongols werent a superpower because they didnt control the seas. both a false.
Nah, sunburns were bad back then too. Low level conscripts and footmen were broke like us and just wore their clothes on campaign. Land owning soldiers like hoplites had better kit but their garb was still just their tunics and straw hats while marching. Nobody in their right mind marches cross country or does everything in armor. Even the Romans took their gear off and dismantled shields for long transport)
@@DontLookNowBuddyobvious layman lmao, "Sunburns" are caused by the consumption of plant and seed oils which inflames the body ergo burning your skin whilst under Sun. When a human consumes animal fats this does not happen.
Correction: Babylon did not exist in the Bronze Age. The biggest city in that region at the time was Akkad, and even then only in the late bronze age. The reason for the changing center of population is because the Tigris and Euphrates have shifted course many times.
@@paulbukowiecki1213It's Swiss German, to be precise. Since there are four different official languages in Switzerland, you get four kinds of very different native speakers who each have a distinct accent. A Swiss who grew up speaking Romansh will obviously have a different accent than our narrator here, yet they're both equally "Swiss" accents.
$Your Babbel 60% off offer gives the price for 1 year as 90$, while when I check it independently it says its 72$ for a year with supposedly 50% discount.
You overstate the scale of sieges during this period as by all accounts populations appear tiny, especially in the early and middle bronze age when national governments did not exist either. Most states had kings that were also sherrif, judge, and army captains and most states praised how tall and mighty the king was rather than praise how efficient he ran a government. It is likely sieges were the norm of warfare because battles mostly consisted of fights between individuals and the urban siege was the only conventional fight in existence.
You truly speak like someone who got lucky to live in this age, sieges were so demoralizing that the population, in hunger(because they weren't getting food inside at all) and fear of being entirely executed, that they could turn on their leaders and open the doors themselves to avoid total destruction.
Idk man for small population they sure had massive cities and structures. They were also pretty advanced technologically and in terms of Science. But sure because they praised how tall and Mighty the king was (it's not like that's something that happens to this day with politicians flaunting their personality more than any efficiency Ex:Obama and Trump) that means they had small populations and wars were basically just street fights
That is not correct. What is the point of being king if you cannot have an army? How can you even be a king without an army? Sure it might not have been a really big army but an army none the less. To even suggest that there would be battle between individuals as the main conflict is the most absurd statement ever. The reason most battles were sieges was because most cities were at one point or another states unto themselves if not subjugated by another city. So if you have a city and build a wall around it then why would you go out to fight when your neighbor comes to take you over? You wouldn't, you would stay inside your walls and try to make the attacker leave, aka a siege. You seem sadly misinformed on a great many things, maybe you should pick up a book about you know, history?
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Are you interested in reading more on military history? Do you like the artwork in our videos? Then have a look at the various books that Zinnfiguren.com offers. They allow us to use some of their artwork in our videos and have an abundance of other books that might interest you: www.zinnfigur.com/en/Books-Me...
Love your videos!💚
Your timestamps are off.
thanks. Now it should be correct! @@lumburgapalooza
@@SandRhomanHistoryI suggest that you do a video on Sige of Siget
I'd use babbel but it doesn't have Greek :(
Hi SandRhoman could you please consider doing an episode about life under siege? For both the civilians and soldiers? It's very hard to find things covering this topic. Tyvm 🙏
cool idea
I know this is not exactly what you're are asking, but I found "Victus: The Fall of Barcelona" by Pinchez to be a great description of a siege from the point of people who had to survive it, even if it's fiction.
@@SandRhomanHistory There is a whole diary of somebody during the Siege of Den Bosch (1629) I believe
Ogg: "I am no leaving cave, you come in me bonk you and eat you."
Krugg: "Good. Me stay out here and bonk anything and eat it. Even from cave."
Ogg: "Fug. I didn't think of that."
Fug: "Dis new warfare Ogg. Times change."
Fridolin: "you sound like you got a shovel up your skrop sideways 😭"
Krugg would later on commission a series of cave paintings in his tribe's new cave. The work, "How to Bonk", is the first recorded military manual.
@@johntitor_ibm5100 you guys are funny and I like your comments
The battering ram wouldn't have any effect if the walls were made of rubber.
Not very effective from other forms of attack.
the bouncy castle is the truest form of defensive
@@Ghostrex101they could possibly be making a joke? who knows 🤔
Most fortresses were probably very similar to bouncy castles…
Flaming rubber, it would also keep the folk warm in winter. I see no cons
The first siege
“ HA you can’t get in!”
“ yeah well you can’t get out!”
“ so? We’re inside!”
“ I mean eventually you’ll need to have things brought in or you’ll die, right?”
“……….. well you’re not gonna stay out there that long!”
“ I bet we will!”
“F@&$ you!”
“No F@&$ you!”
“No F@&$ you!”
“No F@&$ you!”
If Empire Earth taught me anything, you need a guy named samson lugging around a log to conduct a siege in the bronze age.
I am from a town quite close to ancient Hattusa, in Turkey. Fortifications, underground escape tunnels, intricate design of the walls and those giant slabs of rocks impress me every time. Sometimes I stand by the sloped polished rocks over the hill which the citadel stands and fathom myself a hostile soldier approaching to attack, which would be quite a scary experience.
Even today, in order to design, carry, place that kind of heavy items require a lot of time and energy with contemporary technology. Considering the security aspect of those logistics take quite some time. Just think about it, if you drop even one of those 5-10 ton rocks, you would break not only that item, but hurt people, other structures and deal with A LOT of cleaning up. This kind of projects require close to perfect organizational planning, let alone technology. They did it thousands of years ago. Blows my mind.
Those fortifications had been there even when indo-europeans first conquered it somewhere around 18th century BC. In fact the tablets describing these events are the first indo-european written records ever, if you are interested search Anitta (king) in wikipedia. Anitta was very upset about the siege of Hattusa.
i would guess the long sticks were not for dislodging bricks, but rather used to hinder the defenders from shooting effectively at the workers directly beneath the wall, building a ramp or trying to fill the moat. it's kinda hard lo lean over and shoot down when there's a giant fly swatter swinging in front of you
Besieged Archer: Will you kindly stop putting that stick in my face!
Stick Wielding Besieger: Why don't you come out and make me!
@@stephenkenney8290haha, yea, pretty much
Chinese sieges often used the tactic of flooding the city by redirecting rivers. It would be good to have a video on that tactic.
they’re still doing that to this day just to their own people unfortunately
@@bugtesties That is because cities are built on rugged mountains or have outdated drainage systems. Therefore, China is working hard to build urban infrastructure. The construction efficiency and results are amazing. This situation is relatively rare in China, but it happens every year in maritime countries.
@@jrwolf4955 lol okay 👌 that’s why everything’s falling apart over there. Tofu dreg projects where the concrete crumbles. I wouldn’t trust anything built by China.
These animations you put in your vids always makes this one of my top fav history channels on RUclips
The bronze age and its warfare is so interesting please more
Thank you for giving slingers the credit they deserve. I love the idea of slingers and archers working together. I would totally expect to see archers in front as they are able to aim, with slingers running support bombing or running skirmishes as needed.
Great analysis, rhank you
Slingers can also have great aim
I actually really wanted to read about Bronze Age sieges, you made my day
this is pure quality. great content. other youtubers could learn something here in my opinion.
An intuitive case for the frequency of sieges in early warfare over battles, which may be completely redundant to literature: These would be states without standing armies, and without any of the modern amenities of communication. Rulers would probably become aware of an invading army when fleeing refugees from the outskirt villages that got burned on the march start showing up, at least close enough that an official passes on the report to the centre. IIRC this happened with the arrival of the Spaniards in Mesoamerica for a much, much later proof of concept. You don't have radar stations, you don't have regular scouts - at most you have regularly manned border forts. If one of these is invested without a messenger getting out, you don't know you're being invaded until you see em on the horizon. SO! Given all this, and the lack of a standing army, and the processes involved in raising a levy army - you don't often have a *chance* to offer pitched battle. Meanwhile a defensive posture in fortifications mitigates some of your disadvantages and forces the male population to commit to participation, for cities.
*without standing armies as we understand them from the modern era on. I'm a simple former potsherd-digger-upper, not a military history guy and just going off my gut here, I'm sure someone could correctly note the presence of professional corps of palace guards etc large enough to form the cores of armies as far back as Mesopotamia/Egypt.
Also forgot to note the prolonged nature of a siege gives you time to bring the spears and shields out of storage and distribute them among the peasant-serfs.
I think you are right in that first and most important reason of those early fortifications was to prevent quick raids by enemy, which just have been the main way of eating wars before. I think I read somewhere it was actually very common for defenders to meet the enemy in a battle outsider of the walls. Why? Because in the age of city states there was no help coming and the enemy could pillage everything outside of the walls while you slowly starve to death. If you could, you would at least try to prevent that. So walls stopped the raid and gave defenders enough time to gather the troops, which would then match outside the city. Unless they were vastly outnumbered by the attackers, I imagine.
Please create a video about castles/ fortresses, how and what they were made of from the earliest times
We now have evidence of fortifications that are even older. Even before the time humans developed agriculture. In Siberia there were fortifications when there were only hunters.
A really interesting piece of human history. So thank you very much
Excellent break down of the information , and excellent Graphics to help with the explanation 10/10
Really love the video, but the expression, the first sieges is wrong. The first seiges actually date to the Neolithic. The chalcolithic (copper age) has characteristic large sieges, for example Siege of Susa 4300 BC.
Thanks for giving me a new thing to look up. (Seriously, I am severely addicted to new information on military history.)
@@mauzekoni5196 Your channel is great stuff and I will subscribe my friend. Thank you for the reply. The late Neolithic and Chalcolithic is pre literary of course, but that has driven a current bias in the archaeological and historical community until recently. Where via battlefield archaeology we observe there were proto-empires even in the era of non literacy. Ie Uruk Period, Eridu during the Ubaid potentially. One important part which really gets forgotten is the hypothesised semitic invasions on Mesopotamian in the late half of the 4th Millennium BC. It seems they were pushed out by the earliest Indo European migrations, the one to Anatolia c. 4000 BC. The power of Uruk is remembered even in the Bible, where it seems it can be compared to the fall of Rome. 5th Millennium BC and the 4th Millennium BC are underrated.
From iron cometh strength
From strength cometh will
From will cometh faith
From faith cometh honor
From honor cometh iron
This is the Unbreakable Litany. May it forever be so
Iron within iron without
Man, Peter Turbo was stupid with killing his sister After destroying his home
You mention to many places in my homeland of Souria Syria
Right infront of my mlthets front door in Masyaf Hama syria is a giant castle where the Hashashins where
Absolutely great video for this interesting topic!
But I did have a problem trying to stay focused on the discussion when a town or location was being pinged on the map. The sound used was unfortunately really distracting.
Otherwise, love your content and hope to see more soon!
Great video.
Interpreting the depictions of these millennia old clay tablets must be one hell of a work.
reading Cuneiform is not exactly fun either !
I just found this channel and this is awesome!
ykr?
I rhink what freaks me out is what must have been going on in the minds of the fighters. That their last stand that won the battle would be remembered through history, only for the sands of time to erase them. That their mighty conquest would be spoken of for all time, only for their tales to be long forgotten. So many glories and triumphs, so much tragedy and loss, all erased to but a few fragments of scattered documents, reliefs.
who are you man
yeah, it will happen to us to. time is the great eraser.
You left off one siege method: Treachery. Never underestimate the power of human greed. Even a LAVISH bribe would be much cheaper than maintaining an army in the field.
That's classified as a ruse or strategem.
RIP Melos
That assyrian ram is such a cool siege engine.
I will remember this next time
Build a city and someone will want to take it 😢
Even many stone age villages had wooden walls.
Some have been burned down, likely after an attack.
My history teacher told us that they burned them during the attack if there were troops on top of them
@@Alguien644At this time, they have learned to solidify the mixed earth wall. If it is a wooden wall, it will not burn quickly. It usually burns completely after the attack.
staggering!
Love the content
I really appreciate that you still use the traditional BC
Could the Trojan Horse a mythologized transformation of the siege tower? Interesting.
During its history, there have been many different Troys built one on top another, as the previous ones were either abandoned or destroyed. During the digs, it was found the Troy that corresponds to the myth of Trojan Horse was most likely damaged by an earthquake, which either destroyed the city or damaged it to allow it to be more easily captured by its attackers.
Couple of points here... First, when Homer was writing his Iliad about the Trojan War, we're talking early stages of Ancient Greece. But the actual Trojan War took place long before that, before the Bronze Age Collapse. That's before Ancient Greece, it's during the time of Mycenaean rule (think proto-Greek, I guess). Before Homer, but after the Bronze Age Collapse, Greece lost its written language for a long while, so by the time Ancient Greece arrived and Homer started writing, pretty much all of those stories were hundreds of years old, and all oral traditions. Not exactly history as we understand it.
Second, if it's true that the Troy we're talking about was either destroyed or damaged by an earthquake, there is a possibility that the Trojan Horse means something entirely different than what we think. In Greek mythology, the god of the seas was Poseidon, who not only was able to conjure up sea storms but could also generate earthquakes. Also, many Greek gods had their own corresponding animal. For example, Athena, goddess of wisdom, had an owl as her animal. Poseidon's animal was the horse. There is a number of today's scholars who think that Homer's Trojan Horse is symbolic, basically stating that Troy of those days got hit by an earthquake and got severely damaged, which made it possible for the Mycenaeans to conquer the city. Considering that siege warfare back in those days was extremely primitive, an earthquake sent by Poseidon might've been the Trojan Horse that was needed to enable a capture of an otherwise well-defended city.
@@TerraAntiqua Very nice answer, especially on the Poisedon (and his "domain" as deity, so to speak). Thank you!
@@TerraAntiqua That actually made a lot of sense and a nice read. Though its weird that they put horse as a sea god animal.
@@TerraAntiqua very nice but about the primitive siege warfare like bruh they used the same tactics till the 16 century
great video! thank you
Siege battles are nightmares.
Man the more I learn the more fun games like Civ, CK and M&B are!
I hope we find a way to learn about the history in these days and how everything worked. The different alliances and cities ect. I want to watch movies or play games in these eras. It’s sad that a lot of history is completely lost
I love your animations here and the topic of the video is really interesting and exciting. So many questions and so much to learn. I never heard about early sieges.
well to be fair, in the movie (Troj) they never tried to (a) surround the city (b) showed ladders or any other siege equipment (c) build a ramp or tunnel.
Hence, we have to assume they planned to look incompetent by design to use a sneak :D yeye I know, movie
🤓
Always learn something new!
Babe wake up SandRhoman dropped a new vid
It’s like you delve into my mind for videos I’d want to watch :)
Oh thank you so much for the video I am very interested in this topic
I wonder how they moved all the earth for building a ramp or digging a tunnel? Must have been enormously difficult with just soft bronze tools
Bronze, while not as 'hard' as iron or steel, is nowhere near 'soft.'
You should see what the viet cong achieved with tin cans or Nigerians and Maori with wooden tools.
Get a good thick stick and go outside and dig in the ground, easier then you might imagine. Now imagine a bunch of people doing the same. And that's without making a special shovel stick, like a stick that gets wider and thinner in one end. Probably bronze had nothing to do with it, bronze was an expensive material and it would be damaged by repeatedly hitting it in the ground. But why use it when there is no need?
The ramps that brought down Massada can still be seen... after two millennia!
More even, they can still be used!
This is a late comment, but of all the pike-and-shot formations you have not talked about, you have missed the New Model Army made during the English Civil war. I really hope you can make a video on them because some say they are the best itteration of the Pike-and-Shot model ever made
It never proved itself against a continental power so that would be a questionable statement
I wouldn't be so quick to relegate the Trojan Horse to myth, after all, how many myths have in recent years been proven to come from fact, including the most famous example of this, Troy itself.
I heard the city was real but we have virtually zero proof of the war. I know nothing.
The city of Troy definitely existed, but invincible soldiers and 60,000 man campaigns in the bronze age did not
course they did@@samsonsoturian6013
@@samsonsoturian6013 Invincible Soldiers didn't exist sure. As I'm also Certain the War didn't happen because Aphrodite Bribed the Judge to get a Golden Apple.
But i wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the Siege itself existing including the Size of the Armies. A lot of people undermine how large some ancient Civilizations could have been. Even though they had massive Cities and were capable of Building Mega-structures and Historians would often Report Massive Battles that modern Historians just decide to Ignore for no reason.
If bronze Age Civilizations were capable of Building the Pyramids I wouldn't put 60.000 men sieges beyond them.
Egypt already had 50.000 men Campaigns in the Bronze Age (Conquest of Syria). And the Achaemenid Empire and Greece would have a War Involving at Least 100.000 Each in an era that's generally believed that Greece was weaker than in the Mycenae era
What myths are you talking about? It’s not controversial that Troy was real. The Iliad may have been based on one or more real conflicts but the details are fictional.
The heavier projectiles were meant to do more damage but not necessarily to the walls.
The first siege probably occurred when a wondering tribe came across the first fortified town. The date, name and location of which has most likely been whipped out of existence by time.
Imagine the horror of that day.
Fair assumption to be fair
A wondering tribe wouldn't just consider sieging a city for a few months for no reason
Maybe if it's rival tribes then yes but otherwise I disagree
@@Kalseifer16 I genuinely have no idea. Ether scenarios are plausible.
The first siege did indeed happen when the first siege took place, that is correct
sweet sunday siege day
staggeringly sweet Sunday siege day
Sufferin succotash! Say, 's a staggeringly sweet n saintly Sunday siege day, seldom seen
The screaming slinger is literally me
I’ve been in the Forum Romanum more than 5 times and the Arch of Titus always amazes me
Ok, anyone else notice the date for Jericho's walls? 8,000 BC. Writing emerged between 4,000 BC and 3,500 BC.
Humans are terrifying.
The first known script. Possibly there are older scripts on other materials that werent conserved trough time
Yeah for all we know the first script was written on palm leaves lol and we would never know @@leonardblazevic9440
Also, walls are useful to defend inhabitants from natural dangers such as wild animals and help keep scavengers and vermin out. That is a danger to the lives of the people who live there. Meanwhile writing doesn't really benefit people until you reach a certain point. So it's no wonder that you see walls before you see evidence of writing. One of them has use earlier than the other. And it's not automatically indicative of some misanthropic "humans are innately violent monsters!" culture.
Only if you believe the manipulated version of history. Remember that history is just a narrative written by the controllers to manipulate humanity. We only know tiny fractions of the little people history (us) from the last 5-6000 years. Before that there were the giants who also built giant walls and had their own wars. Ruins of giant fortresses exist in the mountains of some countries...
People have been making war on one another since the first humans started walking the Earth and making settlements.
What is the image at 15:21? It looks like an ancient martial arts manual.
Wrestling
Oh man u guys just made my day.
Times were tough before the invention of tunnel bears.
a counter to being undermined?
@@scarecrow559fresno In the Third Mithridatic War, during the Siege of Themyscira. Yes.
i cannot imagine a greater terror
Siege is not the same as assault. Most sieges, at least in more known later history, didn't actually end with an assault. Treachery, terror, disease and hunger were the most effective methods to win a siege. I'm a bit surprised the video didn't talk about that at all, but then maybe in bronze age it was different...?
Nah, but how many kings & potentates are going to commission stella and other inscriptions talking about how they sat on their asses around a town for 6 months until the others guys gave up?
@@MM22966those that were inside and still won, probably
@@MM22966 yeah, I think it's a good point. Dramatic assaults are much more likely to be remembered and documented.
@@konstancemakjaveli Remember the Alamo-Ur!
Excellent. Thank You
Just think about how much arrows, stones, rocks and medicine you would to have prepare for such a siege on both sides.
It could take months so arrow makers must have been in high demand back then.
Babe wake up, new Sandrhoman video just dropped!
Now I want a video about the siege of Jerusalem! I know in the Bible both sides are described as using dart-throwing engines.
Are you sure? I've never heard that before. If you know the verses please let me know
@@John14-6... 2 Kings, 25 mention siege walls, but i also haven't found anything about dart-throwing engines in the siege itself, but 2 Chronicles 26 does mention "devices designed to stand on the towers and at the angles of the walls to shoot arrows and cast large stones" built in Jerusalem by Uzziah who reigned almost 2 centuries before, so i guess there is a possibility?
Troy is FAR older than
Great job ! Sounds like its time for some Troy Total War ;)
There is a debate as to whether the structure found in Jericho (known as "the Jericho Tower") was part of a fortification system: it doesn't seem to be constructed in a wa6 that would offer protection from an advancing army. The current leading view is that it was a religious site dedicated to the diety of the sun and a local mountain. This is based on the angle in which the sunrise is viewed as emerging from the top of the mountain when observed from the tower in winter solstice.
Very interesting
For defenders or invaders?
Not a criticism, but one thing not mentioned was the use of incendiaries. Flaming brush to create smoke, hot oil, etc...I imagine the lack of catapults/trebuchets would make the classic "throw fire into the town" a little harder, but these weren't big towns for the most part, either. Somebody with a bow and some burning tarred thatch could probably do some damage.
As far as I know, and I've studied Bronze Age history extensively, there is no mention of that. Boiling oil being used by defenders is largely a myth. The 1st and one of only a few records of it come at the siege of Jerusalem that was mentioned at the beginning of the video. Same with flaming arrows, mostly a Hollywood myth.
That's more Hollywood than history.
@@robo5013 As much as flaming arrows are bullshit, how come in contemporary (medieval) texts they are mentioned quite often? It must have come from somewhere? (Genuinly curious)
Middle eastern architecture was made mostly from bricks /clay, and this material is fireproof. Actually, wood and timber were rather luxurious.
@@HansWurst1569 What are your sources that mention them quite often? Not once in my forty years of studying history have I come across the use of flaming arrows in the middle ages. Now I don't read the actual source material very often as I don't read Latin or Old English, etc., but I'm sure that even in translations or general histories if flaming arrows were a thing it would be mentioned. So if you have some easily accessible sources that describe their use I'm genuinely interested. The main use of fire that I've come across, other than Greek Fire by the Byzantines, is the use of fire brands, or throwing torches. And I can only recall a couple of mentions of this and they were Roman sources.
Does this still work in the current edition of irl siege?
Yes, I just sieged my neighbor's home, however police showed up, I thought they were reinforcements but then they started shooting at me...
Modern Sieges are rare because of air attacks and better artillery.
Usually something like the Westwall is the best you can get.
A relative weak defence but with many protected places for soldigers and equipment as well as physical barriers and mine fields against tanks.
Last line would be the artillery and air defense.
And when you are really lucky a airfield.
Yes it does work! I can confirm!
Had to clean my roof so i used a siege latter to get on top of my house to battle the dreaded LEAVES!
It was a massacre. They never expected my ladder and broom siege weapon combo!
Awesome vid goddam
Great video as always
The guy with the sling looks like James May. He's defending his cheese supply from invaders.
From Bronze Age brutality to tactical evolution. Battering rams & cunning warriors. Defenders' last stand & ingenious escape routes. A glimpse into the history of warfare, shaped by ever-evolving tactics and technology. ⚔
First class video on a fascinating subject!
Thanks!
If you remove the 'mystical' element from the Siege of Jericho, it reads like a distraction before the signaling of horns. The Hebrew tribes circling the city would generate dust and disguise the movement of their warriors. The city of Jericho being unable to fully man all of it's walls would have weak points, which the tribes could identify in their procession. Then the blasting of all the horns signals the attack.
Damn, you're right.
_Very_ good point
Please explain how the walls were found knocked away from the city itself.
Great video!
That thumbnail looks like he had a giant dooby
What is the clip at 0:40 from? Is that also Troy?
I think that’s from a battle simulator game
Ye
Which is the most relevant siege in history?:
A) Constntinople.
B) Baghdad.
C) Stalingrad.
D) Ram ranch.
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
relevant to what?
If a siege has discoverable evidence leftover, it’s not the first siege ever. It’s just the oldest one we have evidence of.
Then it’s the first. No others exists prior to it if no evidence exists.
@@darbyohara lol, that’s now how it works. The oldest human remains found isn’t the first human ever and no scientist would ever argue so. He was only phrasing it like that because English isn’t his first language.
As Lindsay Nikole often says in her paleontology videos, "...that we know of!" It's almost become a catchphrase.
@@AlbertaGeek Indeed. And since a siege isn’t an innovation (siege engines, specialized tools, weapons, craft, etc. are another matter). It’s just an obvious action. It’s almost bizarre to portray it as an event that would have “first.”
@@The_ZeroLine And since the basic siege is really just waiting out an enemy in a fortified position, one could easily make the case for the first one happening some time back in the stone age. A group of hunters going after a critter in its lair, or whatnot.
I have so many things to do. My social life is in ruin, grades slipping, money non-existent, and my mental and physical health are deteriorating. But here I am in ignorant bliss watching a video about Bronze Age seizes.
Well at least it's something educational and not just cat videos!
@@jpaulc441 absolutely considering the state of internet and social media you could absolutely be doing much worse and rotting your brain, instead you're watching an informative, educational, engaging video. Better than TikTok by any measure
@@jpaulc441Seriously. This guy can at least use this knowledge to be a great history teacher. What are cats and anime gonna do for you?
@@adambrande higher chance of making a career making/reviewing cat vids and anime than tryna find a job as history teacher now
@@unhingedninja8565 death before dishonour
Did the tunnel miners try to collapse large parts of a wall by removing the supporting ground underneath?
Sapers
@@michaelpaliden6660Sapers
@@LMvdB02sappers
Yes
There seems to be a school of thought that dismiss Siege Tower to climb enemy wall. Siege Tower being an archer platform makes sense but it looks like Siege Tower also have function to climb the wall instead of just purely shooting device.
But i dunno, i'm not historian so my word lacks legitimacy.
How have you come to that conclusion? Pretty sure if you say siege tower nine out of ten people are going to be thinking of dudes climbing it and storming the walls not just using it as an archery platform.
Maybe I've completely misinterpreted what you meant but I'm pretty sure everyone knows they were for climbing onto walls and not just archery towers. Otherwise you'd just build a tower, much quicker and easier than making a siege tower.
Towers are great for archer positions. Ditches really negate them for assault. Earthen ramps are better but ladders work. Sieges have rarely been won by the attacker through purely assault. Most seiges you see in movies are nonsense. It's mostly sitting around and taking potshots while one side starves and the other side hopes no one shows up to contest the seige.
@@mrsquidly6395 SandRhoman have been consistant ever since '5 myth about medieval siege' that Siege Tower are mostly for archer platform, only in a rare case such as in the Siege of Jerusalem that Siege Tower were actually used to climb walls. Hence why i make the comment
@@iseeyou5061 because they are mostly for archer towers, an assault on the walls would be super rare and would happen only a few times max during a siege, so proportionally they probably were used much more for archer towers but even in this video he talks about how they fill the ditch around the fortress to assault the walls with towers with infantry gaining access using the towers.
I totally get where you're coming from, but he's probably very correct in assuming they'd be more delegated for archer towers even though they were certainly used to assault walls as well. It's just that you can achieve very similar results by just building a ramp or using ladders.
I love the idea of siege towers assaulting the walls with troops pouring through its very dramatic and would have looked crazy, but there's much better methods for achieving the same results so I would tend to agree they were probably mostly used as archery and slinger platforms with the occasional full blown wall assault.
If you could build a tower that is taller than the wall and then put it right next to the wall it would be possible to use it as basically a buffed up ladder. But there is two problems with that. First it would not be easy to build a 10 meter tall tower that you also can move forward, you would not be able to build a tower right under the wall because the defenders would not allow it. Second it would not be easy to move said tower up to the wall, as stated in the video even the earliest walls had measures to prevent attackers from just walking up to them do whatever, like a section outside the wall of slanted earth, a ditch full of water, maybe big rocks spread out, pits with sharp poles in them, whatever. The defenders would think about their defense just as much as the attackers would think about their siege engines. If the attacker can imagine a tower rolling up to the wall the defender can imagine some way of not letting that happen. So yeah if you had the most incompetent fortification ever with just a wall then completely flat steady ground you could use a siege tower to climb the walls, but what kind of wall builder would leave their wall that vulnerable?
Can’t believe a siege lasted 3,500 years!
Babble is all nice and good...but it ain't have the language I wanna learn
I used babble for about a month, learned a few words but thats it.
Got pimsleur and i was speaking Spanish the same day
What language is that? Shmoney?
English?
This whole time I'm just thinking "this would make a perfect mobile game"
Interesting video. Sieges seem to get worse and worse over history.
worse as in more BRUTAL or worse as in more INCOMPETENT?
Highly skeptical you'd bring a giant horse into your walls in the middle of the siege. Odysseus otoh was known to tell some fibs...
Ha, the turfship of Breda.
@pvlgs I think that's very different. 🤷
@@specialnewb9821 same idea, and inspired by Homer.
It was amongst the loot left in the Achaean camp, allegedly
@pvlgs very different circumstances. The peat was needed for warmth, regularly let into the city. It wasn't a one-time monument for unbelievable reasons (Greeks for no reason decided to lose when they were close to winning).
What does the EP in the Gandalf thumbnail stand for? Also what's the story behind the channel's name?
I believe the partners who run the channel are name Sandro and Rhoman (or something like that) and the EP are the greek letters that correspond to 'S' and 'R' (Sigma and Rho)
@@Norgothic Thanks a lot, makes total sense. And do you happen to know why Gandalf, by any chance?
It took some time before fortifications were erected. The debate is still weeeeel out there on when and why.
"It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls."
- Aristophanes
City walls are as much for defending the city as keeping taxpayers inside. In early states it wasn’t advantageous to live in a city and make grain farming. Epidemics, coercion and drudgery.
You could make some videos about Portugal's warfare, people tend to forget a lot about them, but the Portuguese have many great achievements in their history, they were the first European super power and were the first to control the oceans and there are many great battles that they won most of them at a numerical disadvantage
Super power is most definitely the wrong word to use, and if we are using the word superpower for Portugal, then I'm pretty sure a lot of other European countries were superpowers before Portugal
@@confusedturtle2275 in fact, Portugal was the first country in Europe to control the world as the greatest naval power in the modern age
@@Julio_ap control the world? hardly. Portugal managed to create a large but really only coastal empire. It had a large and modern navy, thats for sure, but it was not a superpower. Also you seem to forget that they were not exactly a powerful land nation, they would have struggled on land against empires like spain or france. it was a comerce and maritime empire, not a military one. Calling them the greatest naval power in the moder age is an interesting take, although I am guessing that you mean in the 15-16th century, and not modern time. Their admitedly large empire, was stretched way to much compared to how much their population and economy could handle, hence why it collapsed. Their empire existed purely because they invented their ships first, and not because they were this almighty nation. in an actual war against spain they would have been stomped on.
@@confusedturtle2275 "whoever controls the seas controls the world" is a famous phrase that reflects the reality of the world after the great navigations, because countries fought to control the seas since they were the greatest source of wealth at the time, in the book sea power you sees that the author recognizes those who controlled the sea as great super powers, so much so that it does not recognize Spain as a super power because it never actually had control of the sea.
@@Julio_ap spain at its greatest extent and at its most powerful would absolutely be a super power. Controlling the seas doesnt matter if you cant defend your own borders, and said control over the sea would probably matter a lot more if portugal had been an island. No matter what way you phrase it, portugal was never a superpower, a great power for certain, but not a superpower. its two different things really. Portugal could easily deploy its vast navy against an adversary, and probably cause great harm to any nations economy by doing so, but if you cant land on the shores of that nation, and if you cant control their land or fight against their armies, then it doesnt matter. And claiming that spain wasnt a superpower because they didnt control the seas is like claiming the mongols werent a superpower because they didnt control the seas. both a false.
Were bronze age soldiers really mostly shirtless, lol?
Yes . And every building archaeologists uncover is defiantly a temple or is used for some ritual purpose.
@@hughgrection7246”we can’t figure out any practical use for this. It must be a ritual”
Nah, sunburns were bad back then too. Low level conscripts and footmen were broke like us and just wore their clothes on campaign. Land owning soldiers like hoplites had better kit but their garb was still just their tunics and straw hats while marching. Nobody in their right mind marches cross country or does everything in armor. Even the Romans took their gear off and dismantled shields for long transport)
@@DontLookNowBuddyobvious layman lmao, "Sunburns" are caused by the consumption of plant and seed oils which inflames the body ergo burning your skin whilst under Sun. When a human consumes animal fats this does not happen.
@@HeliodromusScorpio Give me some of whatever crack you're smoking
Correction: Babylon did not exist in the Bronze Age. The biggest city in that region at the time was Akkad, and even then only in the late bronze age. The reason for the changing center of population is because the Tigris and Euphrates have shifted course many times.
It existed in the late bronze age. It did speak Akkadian, though.
Mesopotamia has only had one largestcity at a time@@theprancingrat
You are wrong, Babylon was founded about 2300 years BC. The bronze age lasted till about 1200 BC.
What is your accent? I can't place it.
Swiss apparently i never would have guessed that. Should have know since hes a pike and shot fan.
@@paulbukowiecki1213It's Swiss German, to be precise. Since there are four different official languages in Switzerland, you get four kinds of very different native speakers who each have a distinct accent. A Swiss who grew up speaking Romansh will obviously have a different accent than our narrator here, yet they're both equally "Swiss" accents.
@themingwarrior6391 There's no "true Swiss". You're implying the French, Italian and Romansh speakers aren't Swiss lol
❤
$Your Babbel 60% off offer gives the price for 1 year as 90$, while when I check it independently it says its 72$ for a year with supposedly 50% discount.
cool
You overstate the scale of sieges during this period as by all accounts populations appear tiny, especially in the early and middle bronze age when national governments did not exist either. Most states had kings that were also sherrif, judge, and army captains and most states praised how tall and mighty the king was rather than praise how efficient he ran a government. It is likely sieges were the norm of warfare because battles mostly consisted of fights between individuals and the urban siege was the only conventional fight in existence.
You truly speak like someone who got lucky to live in this age, sieges were so demoralizing that the population, in hunger(because they weren't getting food inside at all) and fear of being entirely executed, that they could turn on their leaders and open the doors themselves to avoid total destruction.
That has nothing to do with what I just said@@di3727
Idk man for small population they sure had massive cities and structures. They were also pretty advanced technologically and in terms of Science. But sure because they praised how tall and Mighty the king was (it's not like that's something that happens to this day with politicians flaunting their personality more than any efficiency Ex:Obama and Trump) that means they had small populations and wars were basically just street fights
That is not correct. What is the point of being king if you cannot have an army? How can you even be a king without an army? Sure it might not have been a really big army but an army none the less. To even suggest that there would be battle between individuals as the main conflict is the most absurd statement ever. The reason most battles were sieges was because most cities were at one point or another states unto themselves if not subjugated by another city. So if you have a city and build a wall around it then why would you go out to fight when your neighbor comes to take you over? You wouldn't, you would stay inside your walls and try to make the attacker leave, aka a siege. You seem sadly misinformed on a great many things, maybe you should pick up a book about you know, history?
Could you kindly cite the sources on those accounts? Not trying to knock you down, actually curious