BATTERING RAMS: ANCIENT WEAPONS

The Assyrian army besieges Lachish, using a combination of scaling and ramming tactics. Auxiliary spearmen scale the walls with weapons in hand, covered by archers firing from behind high wicker shields.

No-one knows when the battering ram was invented, but it was used from the earliest times, when walls were first built around settlements.

In the era of King David it was probably a device with a hardened head, metal-capped, which was either swung in a harness secured to a fixed wooden scaffolding or by a group of resolute men charging a wall or gate.

Artist's reconstruction of an Assyrian battering ram

PROTOTYPE OF AN ARMORED TANK

Essentially, a battering ram was the prototype of the modern tank or armored vehicle. Covered with a shell of thick wicker work and leather, it protected the soldiers inside from arrows, spears and missiles hurled at them from the walls above.

Wicker work may sound flimsy by modern standards, but it made the four-wheeled mobile structure light and manoeuvrable.

The weight was in the rams - one or two poled ending in solid metal blades. These blades could be forced between the stones in a wall to prise them loose, causing a section to collapse. The vehicle needed to be light, to manoeuvre in the awkward spaces underneath the city walls.

In effect, the battering ram was an efficient mobile assault vehicle.

The wall relief on which the artist's reconstruction (above) is based

At about the time Lachish was attacked, the Assyrians had developed lighter four-wheeled rams. These were easier to manoeuvre. Their operators were still in danger from defending archers, but the Assyrians now had mobile towers with archers inside. These meant that the battering rams had continuous covering fire.

These lighter battering rams were prefabricated so that they could be transported and assembled whenever they were needed. A number of them were deployed in groups against certain parts of the wall. The wall reliefs at Sennacherib's palace, a graphic record of the attack on Lachish, show seven rams working simultaneously.

 Drawing of Assyrian wall relief (see photo of left section at top of page)

Artist's impression of a battering ram attacking city walls

Battering ram (center), sappers (lower left) and archers (lower right) 
from the Lachish wall relief at Nineveh.

THE TROJAN HORSE - A BATTERING RAM?

Now here's something interesting.

There are many theories about the Wooden Horse at Troy.

• What was it?
• Why did the Trojans allow it inside their walls, when they had withstood a long siege and were well aware of how tricky the Greeks could be?

There are several theories:

1. Was it in fact a battering ram that, covered by its leather armor, looked remarkably like a horse? Was the Greeks' use of this weapon transformed by poets and story-tellers into a 'wooden horse'? Battering rams were made of wood, and men hid inside them as they attacked the walls of a city. Did a battering ram finally break through the walls of Troy, allowing the Greeks to take the city?
2. Did earthquakes weaken the wall of Troy, helping the Greeks to break through? This idea may be woven into the story of the Trojan War, since Poseidon, god of earthquakes and of horses, had attacked Troy even before the war began. A 'horse' might be code, or symbolism, for an earthquake, both controlled by Poseidon.
3. There is also a theory that the 'Trojan Horse' may be a reference to the cavalry used by the army of the Greeks. This cavalry or 'horse' unit may have tricked the Trojans into letting them enter the city, probably using the armor and horses of a defeated Trojan cavalry unit. This last theory is appealing, but logistically unlikely: it is hardly feasible the Trojans retained a cavalry unit inside their cramped city after a long siege. Any animals within the city would have been eaten long ago. 

So what do you think?