Archaeologists Use Spy Satellite Images to Spot Location of Famous Ancient Battle 

Imagine uncovering the determination of a historical conflict hiding successful plain sight. Sounds similar a movie, right? Well, successful this case, it would beryllium a spy movie—because an planetary squad of archaeologists claims to person done precisely that by studying declassified spy outer images.

Archaeologists from Durham University and the University of Al-Qadisiyah successful Iraq assertion to person discovered the tract of the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah, a hugely important aboriginal Islamic struggle that changed the people of Persian history. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the squad identified the determination successful Iraq by cross-referencing humanities texts, modern aerial photos, on-the-ground evidence, and declassified 1970s American spy outer imagery. Their findings were published successful a survey connected November 12 successful the diary Antiquity.

“This find provides a geographical determination and discourse for a conflict that is 1 of the founding stories of the enlargement of Islam into modern time Iraq, Iran and beyond,” Durham University’s William Deadman said successful the university’s statement.

The Battle of al-Qadisiyyah took spot betwixt Arab Muslims and the Iranian Sasanian Empire successful the 630s CE. The Arab Muslims were victorious, and their occurrence would pave the mode for the Islamic conquest of Mesopotamia, Persia, and beyond, according to the study. Until recently, however, the nonstop determination of this important conflict was a mystery.

The archaeologists discovered the battle’s presumed determination portion conducting a distant survey of the Darb Zubaydah, a humanities pilgrimage roadworthy betwixt Kufa successful Iraq and Mecca successful Saudi Arabia. Aerial imagery from Google Earth and Bing Maps revealed a 6.2-mile (10-kilometer) treble partition diagnostic betwixt a quadrate fortress connected the godforsaken fringe and a ample colony connected the borderline of the confederate Mesopotamian floodplain. The team, led by Deadman, past got ahold of U.S. declassified spy outer images of the aforesaid area, confirming the features.

“Captured successful 1973, these images amusement the country anterior to overmuch modern cultivation and municipality development,” the researchers wrote successful the study. In different words, the sites were adjacent clearer successful the aged outer images. The archaeologists from the University of Al-Qadisiyah successful Iraq besides carried retired an on-the-ground survey to papers the findings directly.

Equipped with this data, the researchers past compared the archaeological observations to descriptions successful 9th, 10th and 14th-century CE sources astir the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah. They concluded that the fortress and colony whitethorn beryllium 2 antecedently unidentified waystations on the Darb Zubaydah, called al-’Udhayb and al-Qadisiyyah, respectively.

“The statement betwixt textual references to the locations of al-Qadisiyyah and [al-’Udhayb] and the archaeological grounds [from the] aerial images is remarkable,” the researchers noted successful the study.

In fact, 1 of the aforementioned 10th-century texts besides provides a seemingly reliable statement of the determination of the celebrated conflict itself, allowing the archaeologists to tentatively spot its determination betwixt a trench and an past now-dry stream successful the vicinity of the colony of the aforesaid name—18.6 miles (30 kilometers) southbound of Kufa.

The survey goes to amusement that sometimes the champion mode to uncover what hides beneath our precise feet is by getting a bird’s oculus view—or, successful this case, a spy satellite’s view.