As a first step, we need to collect and study the available historical evidence as the basis for any of our new and improved interpretations. The evidence falls into the categories of: Any available text (which might be mostly ritualized, possibly with little about warcraft), Art (the most productive because a picture is worth several thousand hieroglyphs, 3), Fortifications (especially where there have been recent well-documented excavations), and of course any identifiable battle sites that still have some traces of the battle, and Weapons (and any related military paraphernalia)

However, even the Art of the time is open to some interpretation. For example, does a specific scene depict “actual” events, or kingly propaganda? Is it a record of what happened or of what “ideally” would happen? Or does it show symbolic weapons that might not even be used any more? Akin to Buckingham Palace’s Horse Guards which still use their ceremonial breastplates and sabers. In many primitive civilizations, using lances, arrows, and stones was far more common than all-out violent hand-to-hand fight-to-the-death. And in some senses, the art we see reflects this “bluster” --- here is my King-God, trampling all comers [see History of Warfare, John Keegan].

For the Sumerian heavy infantry, we are blessed with fairly accurate engravings of the soldiers (with their weapons) that took part in the Sumerian City-state wars, and that’s a good start (4). With Sumerians for example, there are a number of well-known engravings of heavily-armed foot-infantry attacking in a sort of phalanx-like formation (5). There are also texts mentioning war banners that were put-up in temples, so we might (by extension) assume these were also available in the field (although they must have been small enough that the artists of the time didn’t seem to think them important enough to put into the sandstone engravings; the Standard of Ur shows the king’s spear bound up with a “duster” ornament near the top, perhaps made of feathers or possibly tails?). However we also need to consider that the Sumerian formation of blocks of foot soldiers of that time were probably NOT like later Greek phalanxes, bravely advancing into (and defeating) anything (either man or mounted) that was thrown their way.

The Larsa heavy foot were likely made up of a small “professional” core (that did most of the fighting away from home, raids or frontier aggression). The core professionals were probably the only ones who had the guts to advance on command against the enemy line; most of the conscripts and home defense types would probably balk, without someone pushing them. This professional core might have been up to 5000 men, but was probably only rarely larger than that. This “core” was augmented with the conscript army, really intended to man the walls as the home defensive during a siege (or to help move the earth for siege ramps when on the offense). There is no record of training to suggest that the Sumerian phalanx was up to the steely rigors of going out and dicing it up in the thick of battle, dressing the line, and maintaining tight discipline. They probably had the best of metal weapons (bronze spears and swords), but likely still used the less-expensive copper or stone materials for arrowheads, where they might get “lost”. While this Larsa army composition (even the home defense conscripts) might have been really quite effective in battle against any technologically inferior tribes (such as the Elamites or perhaps the Amorites), still they were probably not really up to having a heavy infantry set-to, slogging it out in the open field in face-to-face battle lines, against other city-states who would have been equipped and armed more or less in the same manner as they were. And that’s possibly why there are no engravings or written descriptions of such large battles, with one line of phalanxes hitting a line of enemy phalanxes. There must have been something different (and possibly more confusing) going on.