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Volcanic Eruptions Linked to the Downfall of the Last Ancient Egyptian Dynasty

posted by martyb on Friday October 20 2017, @09:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-thought-it-was-an-asp dept.

takyon writes:

Climate change caused by volcanic eruptions has been linked to the downfall of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire in 30 BC:

A series of volcanic eruptions may have helped bring about the downfall of the last Egyptian dynasty 2,000 years ago.

By suppressing the monsoons that swelled the Nile River each summer, triggering flooding that supported the region's agriculture, the eruptions probably helped usher in an era of periodic revolts [open, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-00957-y] [DX], researchers report online October 17 in Nature Communications. That upheaval ultimately doomed the dynasty that ruled Egypt's Ptolemaic Kingdom for nearly 300 years until the death of Cleopatra.

[...] Manning and colleagues pored over historical texts from Ptolemaic Egypt, comparing periods of unrest with the volcanic record in the ice cores. Eruptions coincided with the onset of many recorded revolts. Political instability, famine and drought may have come to a head around 44 B.C., when Italy's Mount Etna erupted explosively. The Ptolemaic dynasty soon came to a close in 30 B.C. with Cleopatra's suicide.

Also at Live Science and The Washington Post (archive).

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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 23 2017, @12:59AM (2 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday October 23 2017, @12:59AM (#586106)

    http://lmgtfy.com/?q=yellowstone+rises+10+inches [lmgtfy.com]

    10 inches, in places. Other articles mention it year over year sustaining 10 inches, again - in places I'm sure. If you're talking about the whole basin, it's much more sedate.

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday October 23 2017, @01:50AM (1 child)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 23 2017, @01:50AM (#586124) Journal

    10 inches, in places.

    Between 2004 and 2011. 25/8 is a little over 3 cm a year.

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 23 2017, @03:13AM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday October 23 2017, @03:13AM (#586149)

      You're right, I was misled by this crap summary:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFMOxE99_Os [youtube.com]

      "Breaking News: Land is rising in Yellowstone every year of at least 10 inches due to the under ground magma pushing up to the surface."

      coupled with a non-critical reading of the National Geographic article that _seemed_ to say the same thing when skimmed quickly - National Geographic being associated with the information bumped up its reliability factor in my head, even though I was reading Nat Geo wrong.

      Thanks for keeping after me.

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