A carved panel from ancient Mesopotamia depicts soldiers swimming across a riverImage credit: Alamy
Posted on 09/09/2025 10:00:39 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
This carved relief from Nimrud, a major city of the ancient Assyrian Empire in present-day Iraq, regularly drifts around the internet as purported evidence for scuba diving nearly 3,000 years ago. But the wall panel actually depicts an army crossing a river, and soldiers are navigating the waves with the help of ancient flotation devices.
The gypsum panel is one of several excavated in the 1840s from the Northwest Palace, which was built on the Tigris River around 865 B.C. on the orders of King Ashurnasirpal II. Originally located around the interior walls of the throne room and royal apartments, the carved panels depict the king leading a military campaign, engaging in rituals and hunting animals.
This panel fragment, which is in the collection of The British Museum, shows several men and horses crossing a river. The horses are swimming, pulled on leads by cavalry soldiers. One soldier is free-swimming, one is rowing a small boat, and two are using goat-skin bags that the soldiers are inflating to stay afloat.
A cuneiform inscription running across the top of the panel traces the king's lineage and describes his key accomplishments. The two-dimensionality of the perspective -- in which the figures appear complete and not half-submerged -- is typical in Assyrian art, according to The British Museum.
Animal skin or bladder floats appear several times in the Nimrud wall panels, and they were likely made from goats or pigs. The floats were used to help keep a soldier's weapons dry and to allow an army to sneak up on an enemy. Ashurnasirpal II was known for his military prowess as well as his brutality, and his innovative tactics -- including the goat-skin floats -- helped him expand his empire considerably in the ninth century B.C.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
A carved panel from ancient Mesopotamia depicts soldiers swimming across a riverImage credit: Alamy
Where did they find the inflatable goats?
Very cool.
Interesting to note, these folks were brilliant back then. Steve Jobs’ dad was Syrian.
So is that a sea horse?
Awesome images. Fascinating.
Very artistic bas relief.
Well within the biblical timeline too.
You’ve outdone yourself this time, SC!
The biggest guy in the relief does look like he is getting air from the goat bag thru a tube.
No bas relief of me on my Howdy Doody tube back in the 1950s. Sad.
In other news Hammurabi told his wife that he was running out to get a pack of ziggurats.
“ Where did they find the inflatable goats?”
They found them on Euphrates Prime.”
Amazon..........................
Syrians and Assyrians are not the same, although both are however Semitic. Ethnically Assyrian people still live in the Middle East.
Nothing new. I saw this decades ago in one of the science magazines. Some today try to make it look like early scuba diving. Is there a photo of the whole panel and not just a part?
That mall in New Jersey, right next to the Big Ball of Oil.
No bass relief of singing fish back then either.
😁
It was at that moment. 😊 Ancient roadways (pathways, mostly just pounded down by constant use, not paved) tended to follow the lay of the land, and would converge at and diverge from known fording points.
A former coworker was in the USN during the post-Korea 50s, and they were trained in how to tie various pieces of their uniforms with air captured inside to use as flotation, in case the ship was going down.
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