Reply To: Archeologists confirm near-legendary tale of crusaders’ siege of Jerusalem

[elessar2590 18207xp 1]

That’s a very cool piece of History.

It’s amazing that we’re still finding very important historical artifacts and clues that verify stories that people seem to quickly write off as inventions. It’s also great to be able to tell the story of those guys taking cover in a ruined building with some loot.

The articles a tad bias/over-dramatic though isn’t it?

“On the north, the crusaders would eventually breach the walls and perpetrate a slaughter that still echoes across the centuries”

Not really. most estimates put it at 3,000 out of 30,000 people living in Jerusalem at the time were killed. Massacre’s were pretty common especially after a hard fought siege (Generally the rule even up until the Napoleonic Wars was that if you forced an escalation you got massacred/sacked) against such a foreign foe and 10% is not overly high for the period.

For Context at the prior siege of Jerusalem the Romans are said to have killed over One Million People (Bit dubious but 500,000 is widely accepted it was Passover so many Jews were in the city) and sold almost 100,000 more into slavery. In fact any ancient siege would be far more brutal and bloody than Jerusalem hardly something to “Echo through the ages”.