Declassified Spy Satellite Images Revealed An Ancient Battle Site Located In Iraq
With the help of declassified spy satellite images from the United States, a team of archaeologists from the United Kingdom’s Durham University and Iraq’s University of al-Qadisiyah have identified the location of an ancient battle site.
The Battle of al-Qadisiyyah took place in roughly A.D. 636 or 637, around 19 miles south of the city of Kufa in Iraq’s Najaf governorate.
Arab Muslim forces of the Rashidun Caliphate defeated the Sasanian Empire of ancient Persia. Their victory played a key role in Islamic and world history.
“The Battle of al-Qadisiyyah has strong cultural significance to the Islamic, particularly the Arab Muslim world,” said William Deadman, a co-author of the study from Durham University’s Department of Archaeology.
“It is celebrated as a crucial moment in the expansion of Islam beyond Arabia that led to the conversion of modern-day Iraq and Iran, and then into the rest of the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.”
Even though the battle was a significant one, its exact location had been lost for centuries. The general area was already roughly known due to detailed descriptions in historical documents.
But these maps placed the location within a radius of 6.2 to 12.4 miles, which was a large margin of error. Now, the precise location of the battlefield has been narrowed down to about 0.62 miles.
The battle site was revealed during a remote sensing survey to delineate the Darb Zubaydah, a Hajj pilgrimage route constructed over 1,000 years ago. The route runs from Kufa to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
Every Muslim must make the journey through the Hajj to Mecca at least once in a lifetime if they have the financial means and the physical ability to do so.
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As part of their survey, the research team analyzed declassified U.S. spy satellite imagery from the 1970s. They compared the data to modern-day photography and historical texts to determine the stopping points along the Hajj pilgrimage route.
The satellite imagery predates much of the urban and agricultural development that has occurred over the last 50 years in the Middle East. It allowed the archaeologists to see what the landscape would have looked like for most of the last century.
“During our survey work, we were able to identify a six-mile-long double wall feature linking a military complex on the desert fringe and a large settlement on the edge of the southern Mesopotamian floodplain,” said Deadman.
“This corresponded remarkably well to details within the rich body of historical sources relevant to the battle of al-Qadisiyyah and the stopping points along the Darb Zubaydah.”
The team pinpointed the locations of two rest stops along the Darb Zubaydah: al-Qadisiyyah and al-‘Udhayb. Iraqi researchers carried out ground surveys and uncovered pottery from the right period, further supporting the findings. In the future, they hope to map out the battlefield in detail.
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