The lower half of this image shows a carved relief from the palace of King Ashurbanipal in Nineveh (modern-day Iraq), dating to around the 7th century BCE. It depicts ᴀssyrian soldiers crossing a river using inflated animal skins as flotation devices while breathing through them—an early and ingenious military technique for aquatic stealth.
The top image is a modern reconstruction that visually reimagines this technique. The diver uses a goat- or sheep-skin bladder for buoyancy, possibly also to breathe from intermittently. Scholars have debated whether the skin bag acted as a breathing apparatus or simply as a float, but the consistency of these depictions across ᴀssyrian art confirms their practical application during military campaigns, especially in riverine environments like the Tigris or Euphrates.
These scenes blur the line between myth and method, reminding us that innovation is no modern invention. In the ripple of carved stone and the stillness of living flesh, past and present swim together—proof that even empires waged war not only with swords, but with strategy, craft, and breath held beneath the surface.
