Fire and the Sword: the Technique of Destruction

Extract

In the course of excavation, diggers at many sites come upon a layer in the accumulated debris having such a considerable ash content as to convince them that the settlement occupying the site at that particular period had been destroyed by fire; and this supposition is of course strengthened if the ceramic forms or other cultural objects contained in the mound change at this point. While in very many instances these deductions are probably correct, it is the purpose of this paper to examine what destruction by fire entails in the way of preparation, how it is affected by the style of structures involved and whether the total destruction of villages by fire or their inhabitants by the sword is as simple a procedure as would sometimes appear to be imagined. Having taken part in the destruction by fire of a number of villages of the type that obtains, and must have obtained for centuries past, in the Indo-Afghan borderlands, I have learned by experience that the casual application of a torch will not necessarily set fire to anything.