Fortification strategies of Middle Bronze Age: Levant, Egypt, Mesopotamia

AMMAN — During the Middle Bronze Age, Levant was squeezed between Egypt and Mesopotamian political centres. 

In the neighbourhood of Levant, the earliest Greek fortifications attested are those at Late Bronze Age Mycenae. On the island of Cyprus, where evidence regarding Middle Bronze Age fortifications has been examined by Michel Fortin, no relationship with Levantine fortifications is evident there, either, nor has any connection ever been supported, said Professor Aaron Burke.

"During the Late Bronze Age, however, it may have been the case that the Hittites co-opted earlier Levantine fortification traditions since they would have been familiar with them in the northern Levant and southern Anatolia," said Burke.

The professor added that there also is no basis for seeking Egyptian influence in the development of Levantine fortification strategies during the Middle Bronze Age, Middle Kingdom fortresses in Upper Egypt do provide a useful source for comparative data regarding the construction of massive mud brick fortifications.

Although no attempts have been made to compare these Egyptian fortresses with Middle Bronze Age settlements in the Levant, Barry Kemp identifies two distinct fortification strategies in Egypt that are methodologically relevant to the present study, Burke underlined.

He added that these two strategies correspond with the two main phases of Egyptian expansion into Nubia during the Middle Kingdom. 

"Kemp observes that an earlier set of forts, which were built during the reign of Sesostris I [1,953–1,908 BC], were established on the plain along the Nile with regular plans and therefore featured a unique combination of defensive features surrounding each fort on all sides," Burke explained.

The professor noted that these features included a fosse, low parapet walls with apsidal towers and loopholes, and thick fortification walls with towers and bastions.

Furthermore, the initial plans of these settlements were rather regular, modifications, maintenance, and improvements during the Middle Kingdom resulted in a variety of final plans at these forts. Among the initial settlements were Ikkur, Kubban, Aniba, Buhen, and perhaps slightly later, Mirgissa. 

In addition to the “plain type” of forts, as Kemp identifies them, a second group were constructed during the reign of Sesostris III (1,872–1,853 BC). 

Kemp said that these fortifications were irregular in plan since they were usually built very close to the shores of the Nile or even upon islands in the Nile. 

They included the fortified sites along the Semna gorge: Semna, Kumma, the Semna south fort, Uronarti, Serra, Shalfak, and Askut, Burke continued, adding that while Kemp’s typology serves as an excellent example of the possibility of observing a diachronic development among Middle Bronze Age fortifications, of particular interest to Levantine archaeologists is the exceptional state of preservation of these fortresses. 

Mesopotamia had different type of fortifications.

"Although excavation in eastern Syria has provided a wealth of information in recent decades concerning fortified sites in northern Mesopotamia during the third millennium, evidence from contemporaneous sites in southern Mesopotamia during both the third and second millennia is sparse," he said.

Sites where outer walls of these early periods have been explored only include, for example, Larsa, Nippur, Sippar and Tell ed-Der, Burke elaborated.

Limited exploration of Old Babylonian fortifications is the result of several factors, however, some of which have already been noted by Ruth Opificius.

First, despite interest in the rise of urbanism in southern Mesopotamia, few research projects have expressly focused upon the exploration of defensive systems. Instead, focus has often been on other monumental features such as temples, palaces, canals and irrigation systems, which certainly played an important part in the evolution of urbanism, Burke pointed out.

 Second, widely held assumptions regarding Mesopotamian fortifications appear to be largely the result of intensive but limited exploration of the rampart-like embankments at both Sippar and Tell ed-Der. However, only limited evidence of an original fortification wall at the base of the embankment at Tell ed-Der was encountered. 

"Nevertheless, the excavators of the site confidently concluded that their embankments were first and foremost 'raised in order to protect the living site from the increasing ravages of fluviatile waters'," Burke explained

The professor added that it is probably because these particular results have gone unchallenged, despite their having been obtained at only one site, that there has been little impetus for further exploration of comparable features at other southern Mesopotamian settlements. 

According to Burke, the third reason for such limited evidence is that fortifications in this region have been either heavily damaged or gradually buried as a result of the meandering of and alleviation from the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, and finally, the lack of information for fortifications in this region is also, undoubtedly, related to the modern political circumstances.