page_title: Siege
section_title: The necessity of city walls
hierarchical_section_title: Siege / Ancient period / The necessity of city walls
caption_attribution_description: English: Soldiers using siege ladders in Assyrian relief of attack on an enemy town during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III 720-737 BCE from his palace at Kalhu (Nimrud), gypsum, now in the collections of the British Museum on loan to the Getty Villa
context_page_description: A siege is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or a well-prepared assault. This derives from Latin: sedere, lit. 'to sit'. Siege warfare is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict characterized by one party holding a strong, static, defensive position. Consequently, an opportunity for negotiation between combatants is not uncommon, as proximity and fluctuating advantage can encourage diplomacy. The art of conducting and resisting sieges is called siege warfare, siegecraft, or poliorcetics.
  A siege occurs when an attacker encounters a city or fortress that cannot be easily taken by a quick assault, and which refuses to surrender. Sieges involve surrounding the target to block the provision of supplies and the reinforcement or escape of troops. This is typically coupled with attempts to reduce the fortifications by means of siege engines, artillery bombardment, mining, or the use of deception or treachery to bypass defenses.
  Failing a military outcome, sieges can often be decided by starvation, thirst, or disease, which can afflict either the attacker or defender.
context_section_description: The Assyrians deployed large labour forces to build new palaces, temples, and defensive walls. Some settlements in the Indus Valley Civilization were also fortified. By about 3500 BC, hundreds of small farming villages dotted the Indus River floodplain. Many of these settlements had fortifications and planned streets.
  The stone and mud brick houses of Kot Diji were clustered behind massive stone flood dikes and defensive walls, for neighbouring communities quarrelled constantly about the control of prime agricultural land. Mundigak (c. 2500 BC) in present-day south-east Afghanistan has defensive walls and square bastions of sun-dried bricks.
  City walls and fortifications were essential for the defence of the first cities in the ancient Near East. The walls were built of mudbricks, stone, wood, or a combination of these materials, depending on local availability. They may also have served the dual purpose of showing presumptive enemies the might of the kingdom. The great walls surrounding the Sumerian city of Uruk gained a widespread reputation. The walls were 9.5 km (5.9 mi) in length, and up to 12 m (39 ft) in height.
  Later, the walls of Babylon, reinforced by towers, moats, and ditches, gained a similar reputation. In Anatolia, the Hittites built massive stone walls around their cities atop hillsides, taking advantage of the terrain. In Shang Dynasty China, at the site of Ao, large walls were erected in the 15th century BC that had dimensions of 20 m (66 ft) in width at the base and enclosed an area of some 2,100 yards (1,900 m) squared. The ancient Chinese capital for the State of Zhao, Handan, founded in 386 BC, also had walls that were 20 m (66 ft) wide at the base; they were 15 m (49 ft) tall, with two separate sides of its rectangular enclosure at a length of 1,530 yd (1,400 m).
  The cities of the Indus Valley Civilization showed less effort in constructing defences, as did the Minoan civilization on Crete. These civilizations probably relied more on the defence of their outer borders or sea shores. Unlike the ancient Minoan civilization, the Mycenaean Greeks emphasized the need for fortifications alongside natural defences of mountainous terrain, such as the massive Cyclopean walls built at Mycenae and other adjacent Late Bronze Age (c. 1600–1100 BC) centers of central and southern Greece.
caption: Assyrians using siege ladders in a relief of attack on an enemy town during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III 720-738 BCE from his palace at Kalhu (Nimrud)
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