Bajazet, the Turkish
emperor of Anatolia, had recently terminated an unavailing siege of
seven years. Timur took the city in fourteen days, December,
1402;[51] had every man, woman, and child that he found in it
murdered; and caused some of the heads of the Christians to be thrown
by his balistas or catapultas into the ships that had come from
different European nations to their succour. All other Christian
communities found within the wide range of this dreadful tempest were
swept off in the same manner, nor did Muhammadan communities fare
better. After the taking of Baghdad, every Tartar soldier was ordered
to cut off and bring away the head of one or more prisoners, because
some of the Tartar soldiers had been killed in the attack; 'and they
spared', says the historian, 'neither old men of fourscore, nor young
children of eight years of age; no quarter was given either to rich
or poor, and the number of dead was so great that they could not be
counted; towers were made of their heads to serve as an example to
posterity.' Ninety thousand were murdered in cold blood, and one
hundred and twenty pyramids were made of the heads for trophies.
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