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Declassified undercover agent image of Iraq have helped archaeologists recover a historic Islamic battlefield .
Upon analyzing the images , which were taken in 1973 by a U.S. orbiter system of rules namedKH-9 ( Hexagon ) , the squad found remnants of a 1,400 - year - sometime settlement . This helped them match the situation to the fall behind fix of the Battle of al - Qadisiyyah , the researchers reported in a study publish Nov. 12 in the journalAntiquity .
Satellite images from 1974 of Iraq, later found as the location of the al-Qadisiyyah battle site
The Battle of al - Qadisiyyah engage plaza in A.D. 636 or 637 between the Arab Muslim regular army and the Sasanian Empire , which ruled the area that is now Iran between A.D. 224 and 651 . According toEncyclopedia Britannica , the battle was a consequential triumph for the Muslim army and the rootage of the eventual Islamic conquest of Persia .
ButWilliam Deadman , an archaeologist at Durham University in the U.K. and the lead author of the subject field , and colleagues had not originally place out to feel the lost fight land site . Using the 1973 planet imagery , they were essay the Hajj pilgrimage route of Darb Zubaydah as part of its consideration as a UNESCO World Heritage Site . allot toUNESCO , Darb Zubaydah connect the city of Kufa , Iraq , to Mecca , Saudi Arabia , and was the most crucial Hajj route between A.D. 750 and 850 , during the Abbasid Caliphate , a aureate long time of Islamic civilization .
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As the researchers looked over the newly declassified look-alike , they realise they might have the chance to find the confused battlefield of al - Qadisiyyah , according to a Durham Universitystatement . Records of the struggle had commit cue to its location . For exercise , they mentioned there was a 6 - mile - long ( 10 kilometer ) wall that link al - Qadisiyyah to a neighboring town and that the town was " south of a dead body of pee , between [ a ] fosse and a bridged stream , " the paper remark . Using these clew , Deadman located a modernistic - day agricultural field that matched the verbal description .
An on - the - ground survey confirmed the find . research worker identified the 6 - mile - retentive rampart and the fosse north of the town note in historic texts .
" This discovery provides a geographical location and context for a engagement that is one of the founding stories of the enlargement of Islam into modern day Iraq , Iran and beyond , " Deadman said in the statement .
