Posted on 11/16/2003 11:05:23 AM PST by blam
Drought that destroyed a civilisation
MARTIN WILLIAMS November 11 2003
IT is one of history's biggest mysteries and has confounded experts for hundreds of years. But a team of scientists believe they have discovered why the world's first great civilisation, established in Egypt nearly 5000 years ago, crumbled and plunged into a dark age that lasted for more than 1000 years.
The researchers, including one academic from St Andrews University, have produced new evidence linking the demise of the Egyptian Old Kingdom with decades of drought after a study of layers of sediment at the source of the Blue Nile at Lake Tana in northern Ethiopia.
The Sphinx and the pyramids at Giza are among the only remaining legacies of the Old Kingdom, which lasted from 2575 to 2150 BC, before the time of Tutankhamen, Ramses, and Queen Nefertiti. The destruction of the pharaohs' power and the collapse of central government had followed 1000 years of cultural advancement, with its characteristic architecture, literature, and art.
The famine that followed the drought was so severe that there is evidence people violated the royal dead and that some were forced to eat their own children. Some of the theories for the collapse of the world's greatest dynasties have included political conflict and an invasion from Asia.
But most historians believe the initial breakdown was prompted by significant drops, over two or three decades, in the level of the Nile, whose annual floods were crucial for the irrigation of crops. Texts from the period say that the famine was brought about by the failure of the floods, but there has been little scientific proof of this. Other scientific studies have shown a short-lived but pronounced decline in rainfall and reduced water-flow around 2150 BC over an area that extended from Tibet to Italy.
Researchers now believe they have proof that the downfall of the kingdom was triggered by a drought caused by a shift in climate and resulting in a decrease in the Nile floods.
One of the team, Dr Richard Bates, of St Andrews University's school of geography and geosciences, said sediment samples from the lake bed during the three-week climate-change study showed that drought conditions existed in the lake at the relevant time.
After making 12-metre bore holes in the lake bed, the team discovered that lake sediments had given way to drier soils 4.5 metres down, showing that the lake, usually around 14 metres deep, was at best shallow and at worst completely dried out.
As sediment is estimated to fill lakes at an average of 1mm a year, the team said the drought conditions discovered coincided with the end of the Old Kingdom era, approximately 4500 years ago.
Dr Bates, who carried out the research with Dr Henry Lamb, a scientist from the Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth, said yesterday: "The indications are that we have found drought periods and a significant change in climate and lake levels at about the right time frame.
"It tells us that the lake has certainly been a heck of a lot shallower than it is today and potentially it has dried out, or parts of it have dried out. "What we did was log the sediment through the base of the lake, which is the ground truth in terms of telling what the environmental conditions were like. "As you go deeper into the sediment you go back in time into the age of the lake and one of the primary goals for this first trip was to see if we can get back sediments as far back as 4500 years ago which marked the end of the Old Kingdom."
The group also hopes to use the data to establish whether the same – or worse – could happen today, by uncovering the secrets of climatic change. They believe it will help governments to prepare for future extreme weather conditions.
The team is now preparing to radiocarbon date the samples at a laboratory in Florida for final confirmation of their age and plans to carry out further seismic studies next year.
IT is one of history's biggest mysteries and has confounded experts for hundreds of years.
But a team of scientists believe they have discovered why the world's first great civilisation, established in Egypt nearly 5000 years ago, crumbled and plunged into a dark age that lasted for more than 1000 years. The researchers, including one academic from St Andrews University, have produced new evidence linking the demise of the Egyptian Old Kingdom with decades of drought after a study of layers of sediment at the source of the Blue Nile at Lake Tana in northern Ethiopia.
The Sphinx and the pyramids at Giza are among the only remaining legacies of the Old Kingdom, which lasted from 2575 to 2150 BC, before the time of Tutankhamen, Ramses, and Queen Nefertiti.
The destruction of the pharaohs' power and the collapse of central government had followed 1000 years of cultural advancement, with its characteristic architecture, literature, and art.
The famine that followed the drought was so severe that there is evidence people violated the royal dead and that some were forced to eat their own children. Some of the theories for the collapse of the world's greatest dynasties have included political conflict and an invasion from Asia.
But most historians believe the initial breakdown was prompted by significant drops, over two or three decades, in the level of the Nile, whose annual floods were crucial for the irrigation of crops. Texts from the period say that the famine was brought about by the failure of the floods, but there has been little scientific proof of this. Other scientific studies have shown a short-lived but pronounced decline in rainfall and reduced water-flow around 2150 BC over an area that extended from Tibet to Italy. Researchers now believe they have proof that the downfall of the kingdom was triggered by a drought caused by a shift in climate and resulting in a decrease in the Nile floods.
One of the team, Dr Richard Bates, of St Andrews University's school of geography and geosciences, said sediment samples from the lake bed during the three-week climate-change study showed that drought conditions existed in the lake at the relevant time.
After making 12-metre bore holes in the lake bed, the team discovered that lake sediments had given way to drier soils 4.5 metres down, showing that the lake, usually around 14 metres deep, was at best shallow and at worst completely dried out.
As sediment is estimated to fill lakes at an average of 1mm a year, the team said the drought conditions discovered coincided with the end of the Old Kingdom era, approximately 4500 years ago.
Dr Bates, who carried out the research with Dr Henry Lamb, a scientist from the Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth, said yesterday: "The indications are that we have found drought periods and a significant change in climate and lake levels at about the right time frame.
"It tells us that the lake has certainly been a heck of a lot shallower than it is today and potentially it has dried out, or parts of it have dried out. "What we did was log the sediment through the base of the lake, which is the ground truth in terms of telling what the environmental conditions were like. "As you go deeper into the sediment you go back in time into the age of the lake and one of the primary goals for this first trip was to see if we can get back sediments as far back as 4500 years ago which marked the end of the Old Kingdom."
The group also hopes to use the data to establish whether the same – or worse – could happen today, by uncovering the secrets of climatic change. They believe it will help governments to prepare for future extreme weather conditions.
The team is now preparing to radiocarbon date the samples at a laboratory in Florida for final confirmation of their age and plans to carry out further seismic studies next year.
I also believe the celestial event is recorded in the Soddom & Gomorra story and provides the imagery for Revelations.
But seriously, your theory sounds completely plausible, blam.
No, no, no. It was the vast right wing conspiracy...out to destroy people of color.
That, and of course it is all Bush's fault!
Nah. It's my theory that the early Egyptians and Sumerians (as well as the Caucasian mummies found in China) were all refugees from the Black Sea flood (Noah's Flood?) in 5,600BC. Archaeological evidence from the Anatolian Plateau 'hints' at this possibility.
Nah, this was about 500 years before Moses and the Exodus.
I would not be so sure of that. These folks were likely to be the refugees from the Black Sea flood in 5,600BC. Probably some mixture though.
I don't think there is any basis for that conclusion. Some Israelites (David, for example) are described in the Bible as "ruddy and fair", and they lived in these same areas.
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