The Assyrian Army

Assyrian army pioneered the use of a large engineering component to its fighting force. Soldiers could build bridges and dig tunnels, construct fortifications and siege engines as well as maintain supply lines needed to keep an army going. Carvings show remarkably detailed scenes of the army crossing one of the land's great rivers - something they must have had to do multiple times a year. We see assyrian men blowing into tied up sheepskins to inflate them and use as buoyancy aids. Chariots dismantled and turned into boats, rafts constructed to transport supplies and equipment. Army engineers could even cut paths through the treacherous mountains, as this inscription written by the late assyrian king