Chemical warfare has long been used in human conflict. Now researchers believe they have found the oldest archaeological evidence of the practice – from Roman times.
University of Leicester archaeologist Dr Simon James presented evidence to a meeting of the Archaeological institute of America that about 20 Roman soldiers, found in a tunnel at the city of Dura-Europos in Syria, were killed by a choking cloud of chemical smoke.
The soldiers died during an ultimately successful siege of the city about AD 256 by an army from the Sasanian Persian empire. They were in a counter-mine, dug to intercept Sasanian tunnels dug to breach the walls.
But James says it would have taken superhuman combat powers to kill that many soldiers in a space less than two metres high or wide and about 11 metres long. He says finds from the Roman tunnel revealed the Persians used bitumen and sulphur crystals to get it burning – materials that give off dense clouds of choking gases.
“The Persians will have heard the Romans tunnelling,” says James, “and prepared a nasty surprise for them. I think the Sasanians placed braziers and bellows in their gallery and when the Romans broke through, added the chemicals and pumped choking clouds into the Roman tunnel…
“Use of such smoke generators in siege-mines is actually mentioned in classical texts, and it is clear from the archaeological evidence at Dura that the Sasanian Persians were as knowledgeable in siege warfare as the Romans.”
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University of Leicester archaeologist Dr Simon James presented evidence to a meeting of the Archaeological institute of America that about 20 Roman soldiers, found in a tunnel at the city of Dura-Europos in Syria, were killed by a choking cloud of chemical smoke.
The soldiers died during an ultimately successful siege of the city about AD 256 by an army from the Sasanian Persian empire. They were in a counter-mine, dug to intercept Sasanian tunnels dug to breach the walls.
But James says it would have taken superhuman combat powers to kill that many soldiers in a space less than two metres high or wide and about 11 metres long. He says finds from the Roman tunnel revealed the Persians used bitumen and sulphur crystals to get it burning – materials that give off dense clouds of choking gases.
“The Persians will have heard the Romans tunnelling,” says James, “and prepared a nasty surprise for them. I think the Sasanians placed braziers and bellows in their gallery and when the Romans broke through, added the chemicals and pumped choking clouds into the Roman tunnel…
“Use of such smoke generators in siege-mines is actually mentioned in classical texts, and it is clear from the archaeological evidence at Dura that the Sasanian Persians were as knowledgeable in siege warfare as the Romans.”
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