An Assyrian "scuba diver" swims across the river. Bas-relief of the 9th century BC/British library
There is an Assyrian bas-relief on display at the British Museum which is at least 3,000 years old. It was found during the excavations of a palace belonging to Ashurnasirpal II in Nimrud in Iraq. Depicted on the stone slab is a person swimming underwater, clinging to a twig sticking out of a goat skin filled with air. There are many articles about the ‘first scuba diver’ in the media, but experts insist that this person is not a diver but a swimmer crossing the river using an ancient type of flotation ring. Ancient divers, collectors of sponges and corals, are well described by their contemporaries. They did not take any air-filled skins along as those would interfere with immersion. A heavy rock was useful, and a piece of rope by which you would be pulled out was also important. But one could not dive with an air-filled skin as it would simply push one out of the water. Incidentally, the same palace had another bas-relief with the same theme, and this one is very clear in its depiction of soldiers crossing the water using skins as swimming aids.