Ancient Near Eastern Military History

General

ANE [Ancient Near East]: Assyria, Babylonia, and Sumer, [comp. by] N.S. Gill (About.com & The History Net)

http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/assyria

Interestingly, the subtitle reverses the order in which the civilizations appeared, and these were not the only ones to appear.

A Brief Political History of Mesopotamia, by Gary Webb (Geocities.com)

http://www.geocities.com/garyweb65/history.html

Main sections: Antediluvian Period. -- Early Dynastic I & II Periods (c. 3000-2440). -- Old Assyrian Period (c. 2500-1392). -- Early Dynastic III Period (c. 2440--2334). -- Akkadian Empire(2334-2193). -- Gutian Period (2193-2123). -- Ur III Dynasty (2113-2004). -- Isin /Larsa Period (2004-1763). -- Old Babylonian Period (1894-1595). -- Kassite Period (1595-1155). -- Middle Assyrian Period (1392-1180). -- Neo-Assyrian Empire (1180-609). -- Middle Babylonian Period (1155-627). -- Neo-Babylonian [Chaldean] Empire (625-539). -- Persian Period (539-330).

Mesopotamia, by Paul Halsall (Fordham University. Internet Ancient History

Sourcebook) http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/asbook03.html

A fine source for the general cultural contexts of ancient military history in this region, as well as including material dealing with aspects of military history, often buried among the sources, but worth unearthing.

Warfare -- Ancient Middle East, by Col. Rose Mary Sheldon (Virginia Military Institute. Department of History)

http://academics.vmi.edu/history_rms/ancient4.htm

A classified bibliography.

Sumer

History of Sumer (Wikipedia)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Sumer

Sumerian King List: Translation (Oxford University. Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature)

http://www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk/section2/tr211.htm

A classic of historical literature. (Passages are numbered, e.g., Clicking on them takes you to an English-language transliteration, for a sense of how the lines may have sounded, in the original, as well as technical notes.)

Isin-Larsa Period (2004-1763 [BCE]) (Geocities.com. GaryWeb65)

http://www.geocities.com/garyweb65/isin.html

These were two of the more militarily and politically successful Sumerian city-states. The site outlines the rise and fall of each, with links to several small color maps, depicting some of their chief competitors.

Lagash (Wikipedia)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/lagash

Rulers of Lagash (Piney.com)

http://www.piney.com/BabRulLagash.html

Lagash was one of the leading cities of Sumer, which periodically controlled other city-states, and significant portions of Sumer.

Gudea of Lagash (Detroit Institute of Arts. DIA Galleries. Ancient Art. Mesopotamia)

http://www.dia.org/collections/ancient/mesopotamia/82.64A.html

Sumerian Inscription: Umma and Lagash (Earth's Ancient History)

http://www.earth-history.com/Sumer/sumer-iinscription-umma-lagash.htm

3 documents (in English translation) record a long-standing border dispute between the two major Sumerian city-states of ca. 2500 BCE. The balance of power passed back and forth. The first part of Document II is one of the earliest descriptions of a battle, at Gu-edin.

Stele of Vultures (Wikipedia)

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stele_of_Vultures

Lugal-Zage-Si (Answers.com)

http://www.answers.com/topic/lugal-zage-si

Ruler of the Sumerian city-state of Umma, who built a short-lived Sumerian empire, before being defeated by Sargon of Akkad.

The Armies of Sumer and Akkad, 3500-2200 BC, by Maj. Gen. William A. Stofft, et al. (U.S. Army. War College.

Strategic Studies Institute. A Short History of War: Chapter 2 -- The World's First Armies)

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/gabrmetz/gabr0004.htm

Akkad

Sargon - Founder of Akkad (Cornellia.fws1.com)

http://cornellia.fws1.com/sargon.htm

Sargon is often referred to as the first great military captain, his empire as the first in history, actually there were some smaller Sumerian ones earlier.

Sargon of Agade (Answers.com)

http://www.answers.com/topic/sargon-of-agade

Climate Change and the Collapse of the Akkadian Empire: Evidence from the Deep Sea, by H.M. Cullen, P.B.

de Menocal, et al. (Geological Society of America. GeoScienceWorld. Geology)

http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/28/4/379

Guti

Guti (Mesopotamia) (Wikipedia)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutian_period

Babylon

The Amorites, 1800-1530 BC: Old Babylonian Period (Washington State University)

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/AMORITES.HTM

Describes Amorite and early Babylonian history in brief, with links to the legal Code of Hammurabi (from which we derive "an eye for an eye and an ear for an ear") and Epic of Gilgamesh, which is of Sumerian origin, and may reflect an historical king, and, in part, his campaigns, elevated to mythic proportions.

Hammurabi's Babylon (World History @ FSmitha.com)

http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch03-ham.htm

A good overview of the Amorite kingdom of Babylon, its culture, military expansion, and demise.

Assyria

The Assyrian Empire (All Empires)

http://www.allempires.com/empires/assyria/assyria1.htm

Assyria (Wikipedia)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyria#Second_Assyrian_Empire

Assyria Revised (Assyrian International News Agency)

http://www.aina.org/articles/assyria.htm

Assyrian Military Facts (Assyrian Times.com; drawn from Gabriel, Richard A. and Karen S. Metz. From Sumer to

Rome: The Military Capabilities of Ancient Armies)

http://assyriatimes.com/engine/modules/news/article.php?storyid=71

The Assyrian Turtan [Army commander], by Damien MacKey (California Institute for Ancient Studies. CIAS Original

Historical Documents)http://www.specialtyinterests.net/turtan.html

Links to a number of other topics other. Site may be read in English or German.