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Assyrian soldier diving with an inflatable goatskin bag (ca. 865–860 BC)

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Re: Assyrian soldier diving with an inflatable goatskin bag (ca. 865–860 BC)

#11
post #2

He's swimming on the surface. That bag would be too buoyant for diving.

Why have an inflatable goatskin that you're inhaling from for swimming on the surface? Considering the fish next to him it seems more likely the artist left out the boring aspects of holding rocks or whatever to reduce buoyancy.

Who says he's breathing from it? More likely he's breathing into it (like bagpipes) to keep it inflated. It's not likely to be perfectly airtight.

Re: Assyrian soldier diving with an inflatable goatskin bag (ca. 865–860 BC)

#13
post #2

He's swimming on the surface. That bag would be too buoyant for diving.

Additionally, a bag of air of that volume would not give much time underwater - maybe an extra breath or two. The extra effort and drag of carrying the bag would make it less effective than just diving. A modern steel SCUBA tank is typically pressurized to 200 bar, or about 3000 psi, making it 200x more useful than a bag. An inflatable ball is only inflated to about 0.5 bar/8 psig, human lungs are only capable of abo…

It’s more complicated than that because the bag can be deflated unlike a scuba tank so you’re benefiting from normal atmospheric pressure. Assuming the scuba tank was filled with normal atmosphere and this bag was about the size of someone’s torso, it’s probably much closer than 200x.

First you don’t normally do ultra slow deep breathing with scuba gear which can increase the amount of oxygen extracted. Next the volume of scuba tanks isn’t that high normally and you lose reserve capacity. My guess is up to 5 minutes of air in a bag is probably possible which could be a quite a bit if their pearl diving or something.

On the other hand it could simple be an inflatable bag useful as a flotation device.

Re: Assyrian soldier diving with an inflatable goatskin bag (ca. 865–860 BC)

#14
post #2

He's swimming on the surface. That bag would be too buoyant for diving.

Additionally, a bag of air of that volume would not give much time underwater - maybe an extra breath or two. The extra effort and drag of carrying the bag would make it less effective than just diving. A modern steel SCUBA tank is typically pressurized to 200 bar, or about 3000 psi, making it 200x more useful than a bag. An inflatable ball is only inflated to about 0.5 bar/8 psig, human lungs are only capable of abo…

Swimming was quite common in ancient Mediterranean area societies. They even did a lot of breath hold free diving, hunting for sponges and shellfish.

Modern swimmers probably are better than anyone in history. An optimal front crawl stroke technique isn't intuitively obvious at all. There have been significant improvements just in the last few decades.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_crawl#History?wprov=sfla...

Re: Assyrian soldier diving with an inflatable goatskin bag (ca. 865–860 BC)

#15
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally, a bag of air of that volume would not give much time underwater - maybe an extra breath or two. The extra effort and drag of carrying the bag would make it less effective than just diving. A modern steel SCUBA tank is typically pressurized to 200 bar, or about 3000 psi, making it 200x more useful than a bag. An inflatable ball is only inflated to about 0.5 bar/8 psig, human lungs are only capable of abo…

It’s more complicated than that because the bag can be deflated unlike a scuba tank so you’re benefiting from normal atmospheric pressure. Assuming the scuba tank was filled with normal atmosphere and this bag was about the size of someone’s torso, it’s probably much closer than 200x. First you don’t normally do ultra slow deep breathing with scuba gear which can increase the amount of oxygen extracted. Next the volu…

None of that is even close to correct. Are you a scuba diver?

Re: Assyrian soldier diving with an inflatable goatskin bag (ca. 865–860 BC)

#16
Fascinating, the second image attached to https://twitter.com/FedeItaliano76/status/143532682797161267... is good too -- I'm not settled in that confirming the second hypothesis (surface use), as the Twitter user says, it seems to me to also give stronger weight to the first (under water use).

In this image the 'goatskin' users appear fully clothed in dresses (could they be scale armour or other weighted clothing), only one has a beard. A person without a goatskin appears "above" them (could be behind depending on perspective) and IMO appears to be getting shot with arrows. The "divers" aren't wearing onion-shaped helmets. The goatskins appear to be fixed to the belts on their waists.

One could interpret this as showing underwater swimming to avoid archers.

Perhaps it was an idea, rather than a practiced activity? Maybe the goatskin has rocks in it too, to balance buoyancy? Perhaps the carrying a rock bit was not shown for fear of letting enemies in on the idea!?!

[But yes, more probably a floatation device; fun to speculate though. Would particularly be interested to look at perspective in Assyrian bas reliefs]

Really interesting, would love to hear some Assyrian historians debate this.

Re: Assyrian soldier diving with an inflatable goatskin bag (ca. 865–860 BC)

#17
post #15
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s more complicated than that because the bag can be deflated unlike a scuba tank so you’re benefiting from normal atmospheric pressure. Assuming the scuba tank was filled with normal atmosphere and this bag was about the size of someone’s torso, it’s probably much closer than 200x. First you don’t normally do ultra slow deep breathing with scuba gear which can increase the amount of oxygen extracted. Next the volu…

None of that is even close to correct. Are you a scuba diver?

Not regularly and only very shallow so my recall of the details isn’t great. But I do recall asking about even slower breathing and the response was it extracted more oxygen but wasn’t recommended due to the risks of disorientation. I think the 2x was in relation to failing to do slow deep breathing though.

As a sanity check 6l of air per minute x 5minutes is 30l which is about the size of your torso. Assuming that bag started that size and got completely emptied it’s about right. The volume would decrease rapidly with depth but the available oxygen per breath would increase to compensate.

Unless you have something specific to correct?

Re: Assyrian soldier diving with an inflatable goatskin bag (ca. 865–860 BC)

#19
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally, a bag of air of that volume would not give much time underwater - maybe an extra breath or two. The extra effort and drag of carrying the bag would make it less effective than just diving. A modern steel SCUBA tank is typically pressurized to 200 bar, or about 3000 psi, making it 200x more useful than a bag. An inflatable ball is only inflated to about 0.5 bar/8 psig, human lungs are only capable of abo…

Swimming was quite common in ancient Mediterranean area societies. They even did a lot of breath hold free diving, hunting for sponges and shellfish. Modern swimmers probably are better than anyone in history. An optimal front crawl stroke technique isn't intuitively obvious at all. There have been significant improvements just in the last few decades. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_crawl#History?wprov=sfla...

Don’t know about “optimal”, but apparently the front crawl itself isn’t too novel.. from that wiki page:

> The "front crawl" style has been in use since ancient times. There is an Egyptian bas relief piece dating to 2000 BCE showing it in use.

Re: Assyrian soldier diving with an inflatable goatskin bag (ca. 865–860 BC)

#20
post #5
post #2

He's swimming on the surface. That bag would be too buoyant for diving.

Yep. One of the first issues you'll encounter when learning to dive is getting your body to sink (that's what all those lead weights are for). I also don't think an inflatable goatskin has enough air capacity to be relevant.

Did you see the second image -- how about if it was deflated and used as a re-breather and was principally to stop exhaled bubbles from giving your position away to archers as you crossed a river/moat?
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