Assyrian Military Secrets Revealed: Animal-Skin Diving Suits May Have Enabled Soldiers to Move Silently Beneath the River’s Surface
Nineveh, Iraq — A remarkable discovery in the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh has shed new light on the ingenuity of one of the world’s earliest empires. Archaeologists have uncovered a 9th-century B.C. stone relief that appears to depict Assyrian soldiers engaging in underwater movement using what may be the world’s oldest known diving apparatus. The image, now compared with a modern reconstruction, shows figures equipped with inflated goatskin suits, enabling them to float or possibly breathe while submerged. The scene, carved in extraordinary detail into the stone walls of a cave complex, portrays armed men seemingly moving through water….
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