William Deadman, a specialist in archaeological remote sensing at Durham University, told CNN that the discovery was part of a wider project aimed at mapping archaeological sites across the Middle East.

Initially, the team was mapping out the Darb Zubaydah pilgrimage route from Kufa in Iraq to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, using declassified spy satellite images from the 1970s and historical texts, when they realised they might also be able to use the same pieces of information to identify the site of the famous battle.

This satellite image shows the likely location of the battlefield.

As a first step, he plotted a series of circles on the map using distances mentioned in the historical accounts, before taking a closer look at the areas where they overlapped on the satellite images.

Deadman told CNN he was “gobsmacked” to find a fort and double wall feature mentioned in the accounts.

The team say the battle took place some 30 kilometres south of Kufa in the Najaf Governorate, with Deadman’s analysis supported by on-the-ground investigations by researchers in Iraq.