Notes sur certains sapeurs néo-assyriens

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The goal of this paper is to provide the reader with some clues about a specific kind of soldier usually represented on the neo-assyrian visual documents in the depictions of siege-combats. As one might see further in these pages, the repeated illustrations of a dagger used by some warriors as a wall-drilling device is sometimes surprising, but finds its counterpart in the textual evidences of the Old Babylonian period. The author will explain some neo-assyrian methods designed to enter a city in special conditions and trace the general evolution of these practices as represented on and in the available documents. Finally, the paper will come to an end with a new perception of the depictions of sapper yielding a dagger to cut through a wall during a siege.