🕌 1258 | The Mongol Siege of Baghdad What you’re seeing: A reconstruction of the Mongol siege and sack of Baghdad in 1258. The sequence shows a high city reveal, mounted troops near the walls, a siege engine in position, and a library scene with manuscripts and scrolls burning. Baghdad’s libraries and book collections did suffer major loss during the conquest, but specific popular details about a single famous library being destroyed in one definitive moment are debated and vary across accounts