FORTIFICATION AND SIEGECRAFT

it was usual to begin with one or more foundation courses of stone as a protection against damp. After tlie intro-duction of the battering-ram (§ 6) it was necessary to increase the resistance of brick walls by a revetment or facing of stone, or less frequently of Itiln-burnt bricks, more especially in the lower part of the wall. At Tell el-Hesy or Lachish the lower face of the north wall 'had been preserved by a strengthening wall on the outside, consisting of large rough stones in a parallel line about three feet away, with the intervening space filled in with pebbles' (Bliss, A Mound of Many Cities, 29). At Tell es-Safi, again — perhaps the ancient Gath — the lower part of the city wall 'shows external and Internal facings of rubble with a packing of earth and small field stones,' while the upper part had been built of large mud bricks (Bliss and Macalister, Excavations in Palestine, 30 — to be cited in the sequel as BM. Exc. In this work will be found detailed descriptions, with plans and illustrations, of the walls of the various cities of Southern Palestine excavated by the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1898-1900).

The treatment of the stone used for fortifications and other masonry of importance varied considerably in the successive periods, gradually advancing from that of the imposing but primitive 'cyclopean' walls character-istic of the early architecture of the Levant, to the care-fully dressed stones with drafted margins, laid in perfect courses, of the Herodian period. There was also a great variety in the size of the stones employed. Some of those still in situ in the wall of the Temple enclosure at Jerusalem are 'over 30 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 3i feet high, weighing over 80 tons' (Warren), and even these are exceeded by the colossal stones, over 60 feet In length, still to be seen in the temple wall at Baalbek.

2. The thickness of the walls varied from city to city, and even in the same city, being to a certain extent dependent on the required height at any given point. The outer wall of Gezer, of date cir. B.C. 1500, was 14 feet in thickness. At one period the north wall of Lachish was 'at least 17 feet thick,' while a thickness of 28 ft. is reached by a wall which is regarded as the oldest fortification of Megiddo. The foot of this wall, according to a well-known practice, was protected by a glacis of beaten earth.

To increase the strength of a wall, the earliest builders were content to add to its thickness by means of but-tresses, which, by increasing the projection, gradually pass into towers. The latter were indispensable at the comers of walls (cf. 2 Ch 26is, Zeph l'«, both RVm; see the plans of the walls and towers of Tell Zakariya etc. In BM. Exc). Besides strengthening the wall, the projecting towers were of the first importance as ena-bling the defenders to command the portion of the walls, technically the 'curtain,' between them.

Col. Billerbeck, a recognized authority on ancient forti-fications, has shown that the length of the curtain between the towers was determined by the effective range of the bows and slings of the period, which he estimates at 30 metres, say, 100 feet (Der FestungsbauimAltenOrient, 4f.). This estimate receives a striking confirmation from the earlier of the two walls of Gezer, of date air. B.C. 2900. This wall is provided with ' long narrow towers, of small pro-jection, at intervals of 90f eet,' which is precisely the distance between the towers of Sargon's city at Khorsabad. The most famous towers in later Hebrew history are the three ' royal towers ' of Herod's Jerusalem — Hippicus, Phasaelus, and Mariamne.

3. The height of the fortifications, as we have seen, varied with the nature of the site. The minimum height, according to Billerbeck (op. cit. 6), was about 30 feet, this being the maximum length of the ancient scaling-ladders. No Canaanite city wall, however, has yet been found intact, and we can only calculate roughly from the breadth what the height may have been in any particular case. The former, according to the authority just quoted, had for reasons of stability to be from one-third to two-thirds of the height. From the

FORTIFICATION AND SIEGECRAFT

numerous representations of city walls on the Assyrian sculptures, and from other sources, we know that the walls were furnished with a breastwork or battlements, generally crenellated — probably the pinnacles of Is 64i2 RV. The towers in particular were provided with pro-jecting battlements supported on corbels springing from the wall.

When the site was strongly protected by nature, a single wall sufficed; otherwise it was necessary to have an outer wall, which was of less height than the main wall. This is the cMl frequently mentioned in OT, generally rendered rampart (1 K 212^) or bulwark) la 26'). At Tell Sandahannah — probably the ancient Mareshah — were found two walls of the same period, the outer being in some places 15 feet in advance of the inner (BM. Exc. 54). It was on a similar outer wall (cftsi) that the 'wise woman of Abel of Beth-maacah' held parley with Joab (2 S 20"; for the reading see Cent. Bible, in loc). Jerusalem, as is well known, was latterly 'fenced' on the N. and N.W. by three independent walls (see Jerusalem).

4. In addition to Its walls, every ancient city of Im-portance possessed a strongly fortified place, corre-sponding to the acropolis of Greek cities, which served as a refuge from, and a last defence against, the enemy when the city Itself had been stormed (cf. Jg 9"). Such was the 'strong tower' of Thebez (Jg. loc. cit.), the castle in Tirzah (1 K 16" RV), and the tower of Jezreel (2 K 9"). The most frequent designation in EV, however, is hold or strong hold, as the 'strong hold' of Zion (2 S 5'), the acropolis of the Jebusite city, which AV in v.' terms 'the fort,' and in 1 Ch 11» 'the castle of Zion.' In the later struggles with the Syrians and Romans, respectively, two Jerusalem forts played an important part: the citadel (RV) of 1 Mac 1" 3« etc. (in the original the Acra, built by Antiochus iv.) ; and the cattle of Antonia, on the site of the earUer 'castle' of Neheraiah's day (Neh 2» 7^ RV), and Itself the 'castle' of Ac 21" 22^ etc.

Apart from these citadels there is frequent mention In OT of fortresses in the modern sense of the word, — that is, strong places specially designed to protect the frontier, and to command the roads and passes by which the country might be invaded. Such were most of the places built, i.e. fortified, by Solomon (1 K 9«- "' ), the 'strong holds' fortified and provisioned by Rehoboam (2 Ch 11»), the ' castles and towers ' built by Jotham (27*), and many more. A smaller isolated fort was named ' the tower of the watchmen' (2 K 17* 18*). Among the more famous fortresses of later times may be named as types: the Idumaean fortress of Bethsura, conspicuous in the Maccabsean struggle; Jotapata, the fortress in Galilee associated with the name of the historian Josephus; Machaerus, said by Pliny to have been the strongest place in Palestine, next to Jerusalem ; and Masada, the scene of the Jews' last stand against the Romans.

While there is Egyptian evidence for the existence of fortresses in Southern Palestine or the neighbourhood as early as B.C. 3600, and while a statue of Gudea (cir. B.C. 3000), with the tracing of an elaborate fortress, shows that the early Babylonians were expert fortress builders, the oldest actual remains of a Canaanite fortress are those discovered by Schumacher on the site of Megiddo in 1904, and dated by him between B.C. 2500 and 2000. Its most interesting feature is a fosse 8 ft. wide and from 6 to 10 ft. deep, with a counter-scarp lined with stone. At the neighbouring Taanach Dr. SelUn laid bare several forts, among them the now famous 'castle of Ishtar-Waslishur,' in which was found 'the first Palestinian library yet discovered,' in the shape of a series of cuneiform tablets containing this prince's correspondence with neighbouring chiefs.

It is impossible within the limits of this article to give details of those interestingbuildings. Thestudentis referred to Sellin's Tell Ta'anek in vol. 50 (1904), and his Nachlese in vol . 52( 1906) ,of the Denkschriften of the Vienna Academy.

271