Timur Sacks Sivas and Aleppo

1400

The Turco-Mongol conqueror, now in his mid-sixties, swept into Anatolia and Syria with an army that left pyramids of skulls outside each city's gates. Sivas surrendered on promise of no bloodshed; Timur buried its defenders alive instead. Aleppo's scholars were spared only to be deported to Samarkand. The campaign left the Mamluk frontier in ruins and demonstrated no eastern Mediterranean power could resist Timurid fury.