Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and
Speaker 1: this is the Artifact. A short form series from Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, focusing in on particular objects, ideas,
Speaker 1: and moments in time. There's nothing quite like a good
Speaker 1: siege sequence in a fantasy or historic motion picture. As
Speaker 1: those within a castle or walled city defend themselves against
Speaker 1: incursion from the army encamped just beyond their fortifications, each
Speaker 1: side employs various tactics, clever and cruel, to turn the
Speaker 1: tide of battle. These include the use of fantastic siege
Speaker 1: engines and siege towers on the part of the besiegers,
Speaker 1: while the besieged have the benefit of their existing fortification.
Speaker 1: One of the key advantages of the besieged is that
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have to waste arrows on enemy soldiers trying
Speaker 1: to batter down the door. You wouldn't even need to
Speaker 1: mess with burning oil, as military historian Dr bred C.
Speaker 1: Devereaux points out in his excellent blog A Collection of
Speaker 1: Unmitigated Pedantry in a critique of the Siege of Gondor.
Speaker 1: In two thousand threes, film adaptation of the Return of
Speaker 1: the King. Burning oil was used historically, but boiled water
Speaker 1: and sand were cheaper choices, and nothing lands quite as
Speaker 1: well as a rock turned via gravity into a murderous weapon.
Speaker 1: Fortresses were even designed with special apertures through which to
Speaker 1: drop such objects on the enemy. The mertry air or
Speaker 1: murder hole was found in the ceiling of a fortress's
Speaker 1: gateway or passageway. He created a psychological threat to any
Speaker 1: enemy that might pass underneath it, as well as a
Speaker 1: very real means of dropping things on the enemy. Fortress
Speaker 1: walls featured similar apertures. Maticulations looked roughly like stone cabinets
Speaker 1: affixed to the outside of a fortress, and they gave
Speaker 1: defenders a protected place from which to drop all manner
Speaker 1: of terrifying and deadly things on the besiegers. For attackers,
Speaker 1: these holes were quite difficult to fire arrows into, but
Speaker 1: as renaer ats Back points out in the legend of
Speaker 1: hot tar or pitch as a defensive weapon, the use
Speaker 1: of both sorts of murder hole declined during the fifteenth
Speaker 1: and sixteenth century parallel to the spread of hand firearms.
Speaker 1: It simply became all too easy for the besiegers to
Speaker 1: swiftly and more accurately fire back up. The whole Xbox
Speaker 1: chiefly discusses the use of boiling tar, however, and concludes
Speaker 1: the high temperature and the production of non porable pitch
Speaker 1: in the heating process would have made its use quite difficult,
Speaker 1: and they conclude that the rise of tar and feathering
Speaker 1: as a means of public torture and punishment may have
Speaker 1: fostered the legend of its use as a widespread defensive weapon.
Speaker 1: Far better and simpler to simply drop rocks through your
Speaker 1: murder hole. Again, gravity is generally on the side of
Speaker 1: whoever holds the high ground in a siege, a situation
Speaker 1: quite similar to the idea of orbital superiority in interplanetary war.
Speaker 1: If one were to besiege an entire planet, the gravity
Speaker 1: advantage would be reversed. An orbital attacker wouldn't have to
Speaker 1: rain nuclear weapons down on the enemy planet. All they
Speaker 1: need is mass telephone pole size tungsten rods, captured asteroids,
Speaker 1: or even spare ship parts could be dropped in a
Speaker 1: kinetic bombardment. Such tactics would create nuclear weapons style impacts.
Speaker 1: Without nuclear weapons style fallout, high ground may be difficult
Speaker 1: to overcome, but as Devereaux points out sieges were ultimately
Speaker 1: a contest of collective will quote. Far more cities and
Speaker 1: castles were taken by surrender or else by betrayal than
Speaker 1: were ever taken by storm. Tune into additional editions of
Speaker 1: the artifact each week. As always, you can email us
Speaker 1: at contact it's stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of I
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