Dura-Europos Tunnel Chemical Attack

In 256 AD, about 20 Roman soldiers died while trying to defend an underground tunnel during the siege of Dura-Europos after attackers launched a chemical attack using a sulfur-based concoction. Sasanian Persian miners set a fire in the tunnel that produced choking fumes, and the Romans collapsed where they stood as they tried to hold the passage. When archaeologists excavated the site in the 1930s, they discovered the scene effectively sealed and intact, with bodies still piled in the tunnel. Researchers have pointed to that find as the earliest known physical evidence of chemical warfare.

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