English summary: Marco Bonechi - Strife in Early Bronze Syria. Lexical, prosopographical, and historical notes on the Ebla texts (p. 17-54). The article focuses on the military personnel qualified as aga-us and zag-us in the third millennium BCE. Ebla cuneiform texts. It includes a lexical discussion, a prosopographical analysis and a survey of the historical contexts, leading to some conjectures on events of the last years of Ebla.
Bertrand Lafont - New data on the military organization of the kings of Ur from the archives of Garsana and Irisagrig (p. 55-67).
In 2008, it was proposed a synthetical article on the textual evidence for the military institutions of the Neo-Sumerian period (ca. 2100-2000 BC.). It can now be supplemented by some unpublished information provided by two large batches of Sumerian archival texts recently brought to the attention of historians interested in that period. These are the Garsana archives on the one hand, where a large royal garrison was located in the heart of the kingdom, and the Irisagrig archives in the second hand, a site where the kings of Ur often seem to have resided, together with a large number of their generals and soldiers. It is now proposed a quick overview of some new information that can be drawn from these new archival data.
Philippe Abrahami - Aspects of warfare in the divinatory texts of Mesopotamia (p. 69-85). The present paper considers the divinatory texts (oracular questions, collections of oracles) and the report sent to the king by the diviners in the Mari letters. Based on this documentation, it focuses on some aspects of warfare such as the monitoring of military operations on a large scale as well as the process of siege warfare. Other issues which are addressed in the scope of the present study deal with the arrangement of units in the course of pitched battles and the oracular treatment related to the engagement of allied troops.
Pierre Villard - Some Aspects of the Military Intelligence in the Neo-Assyrian Empire (p. 87-97). One of the main strengths of the Assyrian army layed in the efficiency of the military intelligence. In the absence of an autonomous department, the army had a body of specialized servicemen, the daialu, acting sometimes as scouts preceding the main part of the troop and sometimes as spies asked to make missions of infiltration on enemy territory. They operated frequently from small forts established along sensitive borders, as the northern mountains or Arab-Syrian desert. The documentation also shows that they were very active in vassal States, where they reported their activities to the qepu appointed by the Assyrian king. Besides, the help brought to notables of nearby countries plotting against the ruling powers offered another precious information source, sometimes authorizing operations of destabilization and disinformation.
Philippe Clancier - War in the Suhu area during the Neo-Assyrian period (p. 99-114). The Suhu, in the Middle Euphrates area, from Hindanu to Rapiqu, was during the 9th and 8th centuries claimed by the Assyrian kings as being part of their dominion. However, even if Suhu was at times tributary of Assur, at least one state maintained itself until Teglat-pileser III. From at least 878 onwards, Suhu was divided between two main areas, one in the west from Hindanu to Anat, the other up to Babylonia. This small state was led by monarchs bearing the title of saknu, i.e. "governors", most probably inherited from the Medio-Assyrian period. The saknus developed a military system able to protect their state from foreign aggressions, like raids led by Aramean tribes. To do so, they built an army around a palatial core. In case of major risk, this army was supplemented by levees of part of the population. To ensure control o
