WVIncagold

proof? without a navy your siege is ineffective. You can not stretch a military action to every port. as long as the people can go off shore and wave at you all day your army is as effective as mens nipples of conquering those people.

WVIncagold

Quite right and to further the point the reasons cities popped up was usually due to there being plenty of fresh water. This enabled the city to support its citizens.

WVIncagold

it would need fresh water to support its population.

arnoldo

Furthermore, if the mighty island tyre was a commericial superpower would they store there goods out in open on the mainland or would they make a strongly fortefied city in order to keep their import/exports safe?

spin

True, but it rained, say, three times a year in this area. On the mainland there were complex catchment systems. Tyre would obviously have caught what it could, but it got its water from the mainland when necessary, as the Amarna letters have shown.

People made money moving water. There were water sellers when necessary in Jerusalem according to Josephus (BJ 5.410). You might think it strange, but it was done.

Water is only a problem under certain circumstances, such as the siege under Nebuchadrezzar. Otherwise the secure location of the island makes up for the problems with water. Who would normally have the resources that Nebuchadrezzar had to maintain a blockade on the city for 13 years? (Nebuchadrezzar functionally won out in the resolution that came out of the siege, as can be seen by the exile of most of the royal family and the demotion of the king to a functionary of Babylon.)


spin

WVIncagold

I don't know do we have any records on proper storage of Tyre Perishables available? why would they need to store them on the mainland? And if they did have this magical never before documented mainland Tyre that they were storing there goods it matters little as its back would be ...you guessed it to the water pointing to the island. Once again regardless without a navy any siege is an exercise in futility. Unless of course you want to sugest that somehow they built a underground subway system to back an forth between mainland Tyre and Island Tyre. might as well since we are making shit up.

Jack the Bodiless

They HAD a strongly-fortified city.

On the ISLAND.

...Still waiting for an answer to my question, arnoldo.

If they were holed-up in the "strongly-fortified mainland city" (that never actually existed) for 13 years...

...WHAT DID THEY EAT?

Gullwind

Really? Who ever made that claim? I've followed many Tyre threads and you're the first I've ever heard say that. I'm pretty sure no skeptics think that Nebby was attacking and holding ports all over the place just to stop Tyre from getting supplies. He wasn't, and they were, which is why the city held out for 13 years.

arnoldo

Apparently you are denying that a strongly fortified (and supplied) city was unable to survive a siege for long amounts of time (Jerusalem apparently lasted an 18 month siege by Nebby). What did the people on the Island eat for 13 years since Nebby was blockading ships up and down the coast from bringing supplies to it? Also you neglect that a steady supply of freshwater is necessary to survive a long siege. Where did the Island get it's freshwater for 13 years?

Also you are implying that a commercial island superpower would merely dump it's export/imports on the mainland which is absurd. You do realize that people also would travel by land to pick up and drop off supplies on the mainland, right?

spin

I think it's sort of something I wrote. It should be obvious that if Nebuchadrezzar laid siege to Tyre it meant blockading access to towns under Babylon's control, which functionally meant all the levantine coast. No town would aid Tyre and incur a similar fate. Cyprus was a few days away from Tyre by ship and there were Tyrian colonies on the island, so there was the opportunity of supplies coming from there. The constant strain after 13 years of having to live by procuring necessities this was would have ruined the city.


spin