Tamerlane's Captive Engineers Building the Siege Engines of an Empire

Tamerlane: The Conqueror Who Tried to Rebuild the Mongol Legacy — Fexingo History · Jun 9, 2026 · 7m · transcript

In Episode 87 of our Tamerlane series, we look at the engineers and craftsmen who built the siege weapons that crushed cities from Damascus to Delhi. Lucas and Luna discuss the massive trebuchets (manjaniq) used at the Battle of Balkh and the Siege of Aleppo, the role of captive engineers from Persia and Syria, and how Tamerlane's army integrated these specialists into a mobile siege train. We also explore the logistics of transporting heavy engines across the steppe, the use of incendiary devices, and the legacy of Timurid siegecraft on later gunpowder sieges. This episode focuses on…