ikinci selcuk imparatoru KILIC ASLANIN MEZARI BULUNDU

[Kayaalp Buyukataman]

Warfare

Physical evidence of long-ago clashes is plentiful in the archaeological record, running the gamut from an iron dagger used by warriors during India’s ancient Sangam period to a trove of Roman weapons buried in Spain around 100 B.C.E. to the remains of Nazi massacre victims in Poland.

2021 also saw an array of finds linked to the Crusades, a series of religious wars fought by Muslim and Christian armies between 1095 and 1291. (“Crusader,” for what it’s worth, is an “anachronistic term [often used] to lump disparate medieval conflicts into an overarching battle between good and evil, Christianity and Islam, civilization and barbarism,” as historians David M. Perry and Matthew Gabriele wrote for Smithsonian in November.) At the beginning of the year, archaeologists in Turkey discovered the grave of Kilij Arslan I, second sultan of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rüm. The Muslim ruler’s forces won a decisive victory at the 1096 Battle of Civetot, killing thousands of Crusaders and bringing the so-called People’s Crusade to an abrupt close. The team also found the grave of Kilij Arslan’s daughter.

A Crusader coin found at the excavation site bears the name of Baldwin III, who served as king of Jerusalem from 1143 to 1163. Clara Amit / Israel Antiquities Authority

South of Turkey, in Lebanon, excavations revealed two mass graves of 13th-century Crusaders. The remains belonged to 25 young men and teenage boys whose bones bore signs of brutal fighting, including stabbing, slicing and blunt force trauma. Most of the injuries were confined to the soldiers’ backs, suggesting they may have been killed while fleeing from their enemies. “So many thousands of people died on all sides during the Crusades, but it is incredibly rare for archaeologists to find the soldiers killed in these famous battles,” said biological anthropologist Piers Mitchell. “The wounds that covered their bodies allow us to start to understand the horrific reality of medieval warfare.”

Other medieval warfare discoveries made this year include the remnants of an encampment where Frankish knights stayed before their defeat by Saladin’s Muslim armies at the 1187 Battle of Hattin and a four-foot-long sword perhaps misleadingly identified as the property of a Crusader.

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Dr. Kayaalp Buyukataman