Over 3,000 years ago the Assyrians developed a remarkably advanced underwater technique, as illustrated in this ancient relief. It shows Assyrian soldiers using goatskin bags filled with air to breath
Yup It makes no sense from a materials perspective. How would they handcraft an air and water tight goat skin bag with a tube coming out of it? And what's the tube made of? And all this effort for what, 3 lungfuls of air.
"It shows ancient Assyrians using skins, presumably of goats, as swimming floats 3000 years ago Figure 2). Such bladders and inflated skins are known to have been used as swimming equipment in many parts of the world."
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You can't breathe when you are too deep. The outside water pressure is too great for your diaphragm muscles to overcome. I remember a Bill Nye Science Guy video from middle school where he tried to use a garden hose as a snorkel. The further down you go, the less you can breathe.
Also, wouldn't a big-ass bag of air be crazy difficult to keep under water? Try keeping a beach ball under water...
The garden hose as a snorkel is completely different. The air pressure is at above sea-level pressure, while your lungs are compressed by the weight of the ocean - so depending on your depth.
These bags, as depicted, are also under pressure at roughly the same depth as your lungs. So you can easily breath. It's just that the volume of the air gets smaller as you press the bag under water.
To overcome the force pushing the bag upwards, you can use stones or lead, like scuba divers do. It might be less flexible as the volume of the bag changes with depth in contrary to modern scuba diving equipment. So surely depth will be limited, but it's not as bad as you depict it.
No depth of 2m, at all. No enemies no approaching no stealth. It would be lovely if we all spend the 20sec to verify a tiny bit. I read a total phantom discussion trusting you guys :)
Plus, have people never tried to push floaties or balloons underwater? It's not even a matter of strength, you can't really fight buoyancy. Even a large heavy adult would only be able to force a very small air bladder under long enough to actually swim.
Seems implausible, one breath takes close to 500 mililitres of air when resting, these bags even if they work as intended can prolong underwater stay for a minute or two at most.
But if you're trained it's different. I agree there was not enough air to last for long, but supposing they were trained divers it could have made a differwnce that was worth it to them.
I think that whole exercise is pointless, why would a polity 3000 years ago need an underwater insertion(?) training? Especially if they are lanlocked without any big bodies of water in vicinity. I don't think that most modern armies have more then a handful of people trained for such things and modern armies are infinitely better equipped, trained, and numerous.