Declassified US Spy Satellite Images Reveal Ancient Battle Site

Researchers have identified a “hugely significant” ancient battle site with the help of declassified U.S. spy satellite images.

A team of archaeologists from the U.K.’s Durham University and Iraq’s University of al-Qadisiyah have identified what they believe to be the location of the battle, which played an important role in Islamic and world history.

The team places the likely location of the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah, which took place in roughly A.D. 636/7, around 19 miles south of Kufa, a city in Iraq’s Najaf governorate, a study published in the journal Antiquity reports.

The battle saw the Arab Muslim forces of the Rashidun Caliphate decisively defeat the Sasanian Empire of ancient Persia. The early Arab conquests in the seventh and eighth centuries rapidly expanded Islamic rule across the Middle East and North Africa, as well as parts of Central Asia and Europe. Arab armies defeated the weakened Byzantine and Sasanian empires, bringing vast territories under the control of the Rashidun Caliphate and later the Umayyad Caliphate.

“The Battle of al-Qadisiyyah has strong cultural significance to the Islamic, particularly the Arab Muslim, world,” study author William Deadman of Durham University’s Department of Archaeology told Newsweek. “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.”

However, despite the battle’s significance in Islamic and world history, its exact location has been “lost”—until now.

Because of detailed descriptions in historical texts, the general location of the battle was already known, but only roughly. Previous maps that identified the location only placed it within a radius of 10-20 kilometers (6.2-12.4 miles)—a “huge” margin of error, according to Deadman.

The researcher said the exact location of the battlefield had been tied down “quite precisely” to within perhaps 1 kilometer (0.62 miles).

“I was amazed by how well the archaeology tied in with the historical narrative,” Deadman said.

The battle site was identified during a remote sensing survey to map out the Darb Zubaydah, a Hajj pilgrimage route constructed more than 1,000 years ago that runs from Kufa to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.The Hajj is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca that every Muslim must perform at least once in a lifetime if physically and financially able.

As part of their survey, researchers examined declassified U.S. spy satellite imagery from the 1970s, which is now in the public domain, and compared the visual data to modern-day photography and historical texts to understand the stopping points along the Hajj pilgrimage route.

“Along with most archaeologists, we used [U.S. spy satellite imagery] as it predates much of the agricultural and urban expansion that has occurred in the Middle East over the last 50 years—it winds the clock back and allows us to see the archaeological landscape as it would have been for most of the last century, which itself is closer to how it would have been when these sites were occupied,” Deadman said.

“As you would expect from previously top-secret American spy imagery—the resolution is absolutely amazing—it is like having Google Earth, but from the 1970s.”

While conducting the survey, the team realized it could use sites and structures described in historical texts, which also appeared in 20th-century satellite images, to pinpoint the exact location of the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah.

“I have been working on a comprehensive database of Iraqi sites for several years. Because of this, I knew that al-Qadisiyyah was hugely culturally significant, but also that it had, intriguingly, been ‘lost.’ So, I’ve had it in the back of my mind for a few years,” Deadman said.

“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,” Deadman said in a press release. “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 was able to confidently identify the locations of two stopping points along the Darb Zubaydah: al-Qadisiyyah and al-‘Udhayb.

“To be able to use our survey work to not only identify a key historical battle site, but also the locations of two key settlements along the Darb Zubaydah, is hugely exciting,” Deadman said.

Ground surveys carried out by Iraqi researchers also uncovered physical evidence that supports the findings.

“As the initial work was carried out using satellite imagery, you can never be 100 percent sure of what you are looking at until you visit it on the ground. Our Iraqi colleagues’ work was absolutely pivotal in confirming what we had found remotely,” Deadman told Newsweek.

“Not only were they able to confirm that our remote interpretation of the satellite imagery was accurate, but they were also able to find additional supporting evidence. All the main features they visited had pottery from the right period on the surface, which provides further confirmation of our findings.”

The researchers now hope that a full field investigation can be undertaken to provide further insights into the latest study’s findings.

“With detailed archaeological survey in the future, we hope to also pinpoint and map the battlefield in detail, if it still survives,” Deadman told Newsweek.

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