Disaster That Struck The Ancients

BBC ^ | 7-26-2001 | Fekri Hassan

[blam]

Thursday, 26 July, 2001, 12:12 GMT 13:12 UK

Disaster that struck the ancients

The pharaohs of the Egyptian Old Kingdom had built the mightiest legacy of the ancient world - the pyramids at Giza. But after nearly a thousand years of stability, central authority disintegrated and the country collapsed into chaos for more than a 100 years.

What happened, and why, has remained a huge controversy. But Professor Fekri Hassan, from University College London, UK, wanted to solve the mystery, by gathering together scientific clues.

His inspiration was the little known tomb in southern Egypt of a regional governor, Ankhtifi. The hieroglyphs there reported "all of Upper Egypt was dying of hunger to such a degree that everyone had come to eating their children".

Dismissed as exaggeration and fantasy by most other Egyptologists, Fekri was determined to prove the writings were true and accurate. He also had to find a culprit capable of producing such misery.

Stalactites and stalagmites

"My hunch from the beginning was that it had to do with the environment in which the Egyptians lived." Fekri felt sure the Nile, the river that has always been at the heart of Egyptian life, was implicated.

He studied the meticulous records, kept since the 7th Century, of Nile floods. He was amazed to see that there was a huge variation in the size of the annual Nile floods - the floods that were vital for irrigating the land.

But no records existed for 2,200BC. Then came a breakthrough - a new discovery in the hills of neighbouring Israel. Mira Bar-Matthews of the Geological Survey of Israel had found a unique record of past climates, locked in the stalactites and stalagmites of a cave near Tel Aviv.

What they show is a sudden and dramatic drop in rainfall, by 20%. It is the largest climate event in 5,000 years. And the date? 2,200 BC.
As Israel and Egypt are in different weather systems, Fekri needed evidence of some worldwide climate event to link this to the collapse of the Old Kingdom. And the evidence came out of the blue.

Geologist Gerard Bond, of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, US, looks for climate evidence in the icebergs of Iceland. As they melt on their journey south, they leave shards of volcanic ash on the ocean floor.

Dry lake

How far they travelled before melting tells him how cold it was. Cores of mud from the ocean floor revealed to him regular periods of extreme cold - mini ice ages - in Europe every 1,500 years, and lasting 200 years. And one mini ice age occurred at 2,200 BC.

Fekri Hassan: Looked at lake-bed cores

Gerard's colleague, Peter deMenocal, looked at climate records for the rest of the world at exactly the same time. From pollen records to sand, the story was the same - a dramatic climate change from Indonesia to the Mediterranean, Greenland to North America.

Scientists were confirming everything Fekri believed - severe climate change causing widespread human misery 4,200 years ago, misery we are only now learning about for the first time.

Back in Egypt, Fekri wanted to put the last piece of the puzzle in place. He wanted direct evidence of this severe climate change in the Nile. And he found it drilling cores in a large lake that had been fed by a tributary of the Nile in ancient times.

He discovered in the critical period, as the Old Kingdom collapsed, the lake had dried up completely - the only time in the whole history of this lake that this had happened. At last, Fekri felt he had proved that the writings on Ankhtifi's tomb were really true. It was nature that had driven people to desperation.

[sheik yerbouty]

I think it may have been.

[Simcha7]

Mr. or Ms. gcruse,

WHY?...

May I ask, that You have the need to be so...Snotty?

Are You a BIBLICAL or Egyptian Archaeologist?....if Not then...Plueeze Zip the TUDE.

Thank You.

[Unassuaged]

Yeah, They only had , what, 1000 years of stability, only to be wiped out by mother nature. I hope you keep your comments from reaching young, impressionable ears, or your ignorance might stand as a monument to speaking with authority, from ignorance.

[lentulusgracchus]

Hi, vannrox, thanx for the posts.

The current Milankovich Cycle ends in about 800-1200 years, by which time we'll have had about 10-11,000 years of reliably warm climate. This change should be followed immediately by a pleniglacial stage, in which students of these big climatic breaks tell us we'll go from near-full interglacial conditions, and warm temps, to full-glacial conditions in about 20 years.

Your point about CO2 and other greenhouse gases is well taken. When this interglacial ends, we'll be burning every chunk of coal in China just to put more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

[ValerieUSA]

No! Not a NUCLEAR WINTER!

[William Terrell]

There are a lot of posts deleted on this thread. The replys indicate some were harmless and by more than one person. Why were they deleted?

[JasonC]

Too many explanations chase way too many events. Name a 500 year period when an ancient civilization *didn't* decline. (One or another). Civilizational decline is a normal and recurring process, not an accidental one. Most of the reasons for them are historical, roughly divided between external politics aka changes in empire, military, etc, and internal difficulties aka governance, order, etc.

Imagine infatuated future historians looking back at the 20th century. Hear all that global warming talk, those graphs of CO2 spikes around mid century? Obviously the cause of the fall of German civilization... (sic)

[Cronos]

tHE LOST TRIBES CAME WAAAAAAAAAAAY after this. the old Kingdom ended in 2200 B.C., Solomon was ruler around 900 B.C. and the tribes of Israel were booted out by the Assyrians around 700 B.C., that's quite a lot of time difference.

[Cronos]

The Celts are not Israelites. They are indo-Europeans and were of the same stock as the Hittites etc. They came on the world stage before 722 B.C. Celts and their cousins the Germanics are not related to the Semites.

[Cronos]

Hebrews or Hebaru (wanderers) were uniquely descendents of Abraham. He was Semitic as were the Assyrians and Babylonians. The Sumerians were not SEmites (not really sure WHAT they were. Hence, there were NOT different tribes of Hebrews BEFORE Abraham (kind of like saying that there were different Christian groups in 100 B.C.)

The proto-Celts were in Europe around 1000 B.C. And are quite distinct from the Semitics.

[gcruse]

That was two years ago. Good grief. But in rereading the post I responded to, I still see the ignorance of any sort of historical knowledge on the part of the poster. Better to google a little and learn something, then post. As for your defense of same, I'll put you in the 'easily offended' colulmn.

[gitmo]

Milankovich Theory is the only believable model I've seen for climate cycles. I do think CO2 has had a tremendous impact on climate, but that was Cambrian climates.

[Simcha7]

Oh..Contrair (Sp?),

I am Shielded By The Whole Armor Of GOD and I got a really thick Hyde.

Have to have these if you are going to be a FReeper!

I was trying to be Snotty myself...Oy Vey it backfired : )

Shalom & Blessings to You!

[Cronos]

If they did not make these monuments which show us the level of sophistication possible in those days what would they have done? Farmed some more? Made some more beer and bread?

The Pyramids and the Sphinx are monuments of Egypt, structures to which the Egyptians could point at, with pride for 4000 years.

Similarly you would say that the cathedrals of ancient Europe were a wase, the cathedrals at notre Dame, Westminister Abbey etc. a colossal waste. They should have been building paved roads. Well, ancient folks did not think purely of doing such things, building monuments such as these expand the culture.

[Cronos]

furthermore, the 10/9 northern tribes were kicked out by the Assyrians. It was Assyrian practise to smash opposing nations and shift them to opposite ends of their empires. Hence they would have shifted the Israelis to land bordering the Medes, in iraq or to Anatolia. Many of the so called lost tribes would have merged with the locals -- so many Arabs may be descendents of the same. Quite a few did return, but evidently so chastised that they would join with the Judaens and become known as Jews.

The story linking Celts as the lost tribe is fable, the feeble attempts at aggrandisement by a people who had lost out to the Germanics and had been pushed to the fringes (Scotland, Ireland, BRittany).kind of like native American tribes protesting their greatness. A similar trick was the story of the Welsh American indians, the Welsh king who supposedly came to North America centuries before Colombus. This was nice justification to the Brits for their God given rights to Empire and lead to legends of Blue-eyee dInjuns. The strange thing is that the blue-eyed Injuns were always a few km West of the furthest the tale-teller had ever been.

[jpsb]

I don't know much about Egyptian history, but obviously it was doomed to failure from the getgo.

FYI, the ancient Egyptian civilization was arguably one of, if not the most successful civilization of all time. It began 3,000 or so B.C. And lasted until Alexander the Great conquered it in 400 B.C. or depending on your view of history, until the death of Cleopatra about 400 years later. It's contribution to math and the science was as great as the Greeks. It buildings still stand today after 4,000 years. And we still don't know how they did it.

You might try reading about the ancients, they were remarkable peoples.

[razorbak]

Genesis 41:15 And Pharaoh said to Joseph, "I have had a dream, and there is no one who can interpret it. But I have heard it said of you that you can understand a dream, to interpret it."
16 So Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, "It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace."
17 Then Pharaoh said to Joseph: "Behold, in my dream I stood on the bank of the river.
18 "Suddenly seven cows came up out of the river, fine looking and fat; and they fed in the meadow.
19 "Then behold, seven other cows came up after them, poor and very ugly and gaunt, such ugliness as I have never seen in all the land of Egypt.
20 "And the gaunt and ugly cows ate up the first seven, the fat cows.
21 "When they had eaten them up, no one would have known that they had eaten them, for they were just as ugly as at the beginning. So I awoke.
22 "Also I saw in my dream, and suddenly seven heads came up on one stalk, full and good.
23 "Then behold, seven heads, withered, thin, and blighted by the east wind, sprang up after them.
24 "And the thin heads devoured the seven good heads. So I told this to the magicians, but there was no one who could explain it to me."
25 Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, "The dreams of Pharaoh are one; God has shown Pharaoh what He is about to do:
26 "The seven good cows are seven years, and the seven good heads are seven years; the dreams are one.
27 "And the seven thin and ugly cows which came up after them are seven years, and the seven empty heads blighted by the east wind are seven years of famine.
28 "This is the thing which I have spoken to Pharaoh. God has shown Pharaoh what He is about to do.
29 "Indeed seven years of great plenty will come throughout all the land of Egypt;
30 "but after them seven years of famine will arise, and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine will deplete the land.
31 "So the plenty will not be known in the land because of the famine following, for it will be very severe.
32 "And the dream was repeated to Pharaoh twice because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass.
33 "Now therefore, let Pharaoh select a discerning and wise man, and set him over the land of Egypt.
34 "Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint officers over the land, to collect one-fifth of the produce of the land of Egypt in the seven plentiful years.
35 "And let them gather all the food of those good years that are coming, and store up grain under the authority of Pharaoh, and let them keep food in the cities.
36 "Then that food shall be as a reserve for the land for the seven years of famine which shall be in the land of Egypt, that the land may not perish during the famine."..................55 So when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread. Then Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, "Go to Joseph; whatever he says to you, do."
56 The famine was over all the face of the earth, and Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold to the Egyptians. And the famine became severe in the land of Egypt.
57 So all countries came to Joseph in Egypt to buy grain, because the famine was severe in all lands.

[Hank Rearden]

I do know that a hell of a lot of lives and resources were wasted in the building of some of the most wasteful structures in human history.

I assume you refer to that colossal monument to parasites: Washington D.C.?

[blam]

When was the time of Joseph?

On another note: Abraham was from the sea side town or Ur...Ur is almost 100 miles in-land today.

[technochick99]

Over 2 years later, and people are still ragging at you for something you typed. LOL.