State pigeon post
Correo estatal de palomas mensajeras
- Date
- 1171 · confidence medium
- Place
- Damascus, Syria
- Credited to
- Nur al-Din Zangi; expanded by the Mamluks
- Field
- Communication
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Official network of dovecotes with trained pigeons and relay stations that carried coded messages between Damascus, Cairo, Baghdad and the frontiers within hours. The Mamluks turned it into a military intelligence service.
Messenger pigeons had been used since antiquity (Egypt, Persia, Rome); the novelty is the organised state network, described by Abu Shama and al-Qalqashandi.
What it led to
- early warning against Crusaders and Mongols
- Mamluk barid
- military carrier pigeons in Europe