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

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: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 20 2017, @10:32PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 20 2017, @10:32PM (#585461)

    Ptolemy was a greek general under Alexander the Macendonian, not one of the ancient egyptian pharaonic dynasty.

    Rememeber, herodotus in his "history" claimed egyptians as the "oldest" people - i.e., much older than the greeks/helens, or even the persians.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Friday October 20 2017, @11:06PM (1 child)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday October 20 2017, @11:06PM (#585465) Journal

      The Ptolemaic dynasty /ˌtɒləˈmeɪ.ɪk/ (Ancient Greek: Πτολεμαῖοι, Ptolemaioi), sometimes also known as the Lagids /ˈlædʒɪdz/ or Lagidae /ˈlædʒɪˌdiː/ (Ancient Greek: Λαγίδαι, Lagidai, after Lagus, Ptolemy I's father), was a Macedonian Greek[1][2][3][4][5] royal family, which ruled the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt during the Hellenistic period. Their rule lasted for 275 years, from 305 to 30 BC.[6] They were the last dynasty of ancient Egypt.

      Take it up with Wikipedia.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:41AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:41AM (#585497)

      OP AC here. How is it a "troll" comment?!

      • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:47AM

        by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:47AM (#585503) Homepage

        Modded up interesting on account of "disagree" and not "troll."

        Unless somebody here knows that user personally and has a sense of humor.

  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 20 2017, @11:09PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 20 2017, @11:09PM (#585466)

    ... with a female CEO. Factually true (even if it doesn't fit the PC agenda) so fire me Google.

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by HiThere on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:08AM (5 children)

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:08AM (#585486) Journal

      Sorry, but the cause was because Cleopatra didn't want to marry her stupid brother. So she looked for an outside source of power. Call it discord in the executive suite if you want to, but the proximate cause wasn't bad management.

      Now as to whether volcano caused crop failures contributed, that's a reasonable possibility. But the level of local unrest wasn't (at that point) sufficient to topple the government.

      As to whether the Ptolemies count as Ancient Egyptians, that depends on how you define ancient. Roman times is old enough for me to consider them so, but there were certainly earlier dynasties. They weren't even the oldest non-native dynasty. That "honor" probably goes to the Hittites.

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      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:40AM (4 children)

        by frojack (1554) on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:40AM (#585496) Journal

        I'll join your chorus of singing bullshit.

        You miss a flood or even a couple years of flood isn't going to yield crop reductions. You need sustained periods of non-flooded fields to see soil depletion sufficient to affect crops. In that latitude even ash darkened skies and lower temps would not have that much affect on crops.

        But if your rulers claimed the equivalence of Gods, yet they couldn't manage a little ash cloud, well, maybe they weren't as powerful and divine as they claimed....

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        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday October 21 2017, @01:58AM

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday October 21 2017, @01:58AM (#585525)

          If the society had expanded to require the food capacity of "good" crop yield years, and a few consecutive bad years happened - the Nile is surrounded by desert, they can't just plant bigger fields.

          Hungry people are cranky, and bad for dynasties.

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        • (Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 21 2017, @02:33AM (1 child)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 21 2017, @02:33AM (#585536) Journal

          Maybe. I have read other articles which attribute dynastic changes to climate changes. China lead the list of dynasty changes during climate change, if I recall correctly.

          There may or may not be civil unrest before or even after a dynasty change, and there may or may not be valid reasons for unrest. But, when people start to go hungry, crazy stuff happens. If families start burying starved children, there are definitely changes in the wind.

          I haven't read TFA, maybe the authors know what they are talking about, maybe they don't. But two or more years of serious crop failure may easily lead to a dynasty change. Imagine the US if corn and wheat both failed two to ten years running. The place would be a madhouse, maybe worse than what we read of the Soviet Union. Maybe as bad as North Korea. Hungry people aren't necessarily reasonable people.

          • (Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Saturday October 21 2017, @03:37AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 21 2017, @03:37AM (#585550) Journal

            Imagine the US if corn and wheat both failed two to ten years running.

            Yea, we'd be whining about how we had to pay more for Ukrainian wheat or whatever. Developed world has this stuff covered. It's places like Africa and Asia that would have the real problems with a global famine.

        • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday October 21 2017, @05:06PM

          by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 21 2017, @05:06PM (#585701) Journal

          That's not what I mean. There *may* have been crop failures and famines due to the volcano. But there are good historic records for that period, and the military invasion of the Romans was inspired because Egypt was the area's predominant exporter of grain. I didn't run across any mention of massive civil unrest, what I ran across was that Cleopatra disliked her brother and didn't want to marry him, so she was looking for some way out. She had to sneak out to meet with Caesar to enlist his support. She thought a military conquest by a foreign power was better than marrying her brother . (At least as long as she got to keep her throne. I doubt that she counted on a parade in chains through the streets of Rome.)

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:07AM (21 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:07AM (#585485)

    Asking for a friend.

    • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:10AM

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:10AM (#585488) Journal

      You should be asking as an interested bystander. If Yellowstone goes there will probably be severe crop failures all over the world (at least the Northern hemisphere, and probably further) for a decade or so.

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    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:13AM (3 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:13AM (#585489) Journal
      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:43AM (2 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:43AM (#585501) Journal

        The Wyoming U.S. Attorney’s Office argued that the federal government should keep the money since the men had planned to use it to buy marijuana in Oregon to sell in Illinois.

        The men failed to file a claim to recover the money before the deadline this week and were informed that the government would be keeping the cash on Wednesday.

        Civil asset forfeiture strikes again.

        • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:58AM (1 child)

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:58AM (#585510) Journal

          No other profession can get away with as much theft, rape, domestic abuse, and murder.

          Not that it matters. The American Empire could be coming to an end soon.

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          • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 21 2017, @03:11AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 21 2017, @03:11AM (#585546)

            "The American Empire could be coming to an end soon."

            There's even a conveniently timed climate change future historians can (rightfully or not) blame it on :D

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:40AM (13 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:40AM (#585495) Journal
      It's not doing much at present. Last volcanic activity was about 72,000 year ago with the Pitchstone Plateau eruptions [harvard.edu] (70 cubic km of high silica/low water lava). Not explosive, but it should have generated an observable climate effect due to outgassing of the lava. Since there, there probably have been hundreds to thousands of magnitude 7-8 earthquakes in the area and a similar number [harvard.edu] of large steam explosions without triggering a volcanic eruption.
      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:53AM (3 children)

        by frojack (1554) on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:53AM (#585506) Journal

        Are geologists and vulcanologists still in agreement that a constant pitter patter of small and large eruptions forestall the big blowouts?
        Or has that theory been revised and discredited?

        “It’s one thing to think about this slow gradual buildup — it’s another thing to think about how you mobilize 1,000 cubic kilometers of magma in a decade,” she said. [nytimes.com]

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        • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:59AM (1 child)

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:59AM (#585512) Journal
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 21 2017, @11:44PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 21 2017, @11:44PM (#585821)

            Here's the part of that I liked especially:

            the scientists are proposing to use the heated water as a source of geothermal energy, potentially powering the entire Yellowstone region with heat from the volcano

            -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 21 2017, @01:23AM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 21 2017, @01:23AM (#585513) Journal
          I believe so. But there has to be enough such activity to drain off both energy and volatiles (which can turn a large eruption into a supervolcano blowout, if dissolved gases of an enormous volume of magma - think hundreds of cubic kilometers - come out of solution all at once). Doesn't really look like that's happening for the Yellowstone caldera.
      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday October 21 2017, @01:56AM (8 children)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday October 21 2017, @01:56AM (#585524)

        10 inches of surface uplift:

        https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/01/110119-yellowstone-park-supervolcano-eruption-magma-science/ [nationalgeographic.com]

        pretty much every year, lately:

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

        The three most recent eruptions occurred 2 million, 1.3 million, and 640,000 years ago. Cyclic volcanic eruptions like this over "hot spots" are what has formed the Hawaiian island chain, the Galapagos, and many other similar formation around the globe. They can run for many millions of years, and they can eventually stop. Maybe Yellowstone has stopped. Maybe. "Experts" like the following really have zero track record when it comes to predictions of events like Yellowstone eruptions:

        https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=130898 [nsf.gov]

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        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 21 2017, @03:51AM (7 children)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 21 2017, @03:51AM (#585551) Journal
          Yellowstone hot spot is still active. Last eruption was only 72k years ago; there's still massive amounts of heat powering the geyser systems in the park; and there's that uplift (which is more like 100 meters of uplift since the end of the last glacial period 12-14k years ago).
          • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday October 21 2017, @11:56AM (6 children)

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday October 21 2017, @11:56AM (#585637)

            ~300 feet of uplift in the last ~13K years, just under 1 foot of uplift per year, lately.

            So, it oscillates, with an overall upward trend, that has turned sharply upwards since late 2004:

            https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/yellowstone/yellowstone_monitoring_51.html [usgs.gov]

            Nothing to worry about, like an asteroid strike - what could people possibly accomplish by worrying?

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            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday October 22 2017, @04:03AM (5 children)

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 22 2017, @04:03AM (#585862) Journal

              just under 1 foot of uplift per year, lately.

              1 centimeter per year.

              • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday October 22 2017, @02:46PM (4 children)

                by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday October 22 2017, @02:46PM (#585956)

                Articles quoted a couple of layers above were saying 10 inches per year.

                Anyway, my limited understanding of large-scale vulcanology would suggest that as long as the ground above Yellowstone appears pliable, moving up and down in response to changes below, that's probably a good sign for continued life as we know it. If the hotspot drifts under a "solid" slab of crust that can hold fast against bigger pressure changes (presumably such a crust would deform less...) then the movement could be much more dramatic when it does happen.

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                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday October 22 2017, @10:31PM (3 children)

                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 22 2017, @10:31PM (#586077) Journal

                  Articles quoted a couple of layers above were saying 10 inches per year.

                  Eh, not the USGS one. That one showed a 12.5 cm of uplift centered on a roughly 5 km radius area top of a 20 km radius truncated cone, over a five year period (1996-2000). If instead over that period, it had been 25 cm per year (a full ten times higher rate of uplift), it'd be a full 1.25 meters higher in five years. The volume of that is roughly 0.7 cubic km, meaning it would only take about 7,000 years (rather than 70,000 years) like that to equal the volume of the first, largest caldera eruption.

                  There are a lot of changes that can be seen over the course of a human lifespan due to the ongoing caldera uplift. But a factor of ten higher rate of uplift over centuries, would be very noticeable.

                  • (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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    • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:48AM

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday October 21 2017, @12:48AM (#585504) Homepage

      Yogi Bear? Is that you?

    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday October 21 2017, @09:37AM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Saturday October 21 2017, @09:37AM (#585611) Homepage
      Slight woo-woo warning, but ask this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyiPYozB5YU
      --
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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 21 2017, @02:43AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 21 2017, @02:43AM (#585539)

    As usual, the Washington Post reports like the propaganda arm of the greens.

    It is a lesson contemporary leaders may find both instructive and alarming as they increasingly cope with one freakish weather event after another, from devastating hurricanes to wildfires.

    Hurricanes frequency has not increased, and wildfires in California are normal.

    It shows there are real political and societal consequences to environmental changes like global warming...

    Volcanoes strongly disrupt climate from one year to the next. Global warming is a gradual change over decades. These are not equivalent.

  • (Score: 1) by j-beda on Saturday October 21 2017, @03:28AM (1 child)

    by j-beda (6342) on Saturday October 21 2017, @03:28AM (#585549) Homepage

    When I first read the headline I thought "How the heck could the Egyptians caused the volcanos to blow?"

  • (Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday October 21 2017, @04:42AM (1 child)

    by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Saturday October 21 2017, @04:42AM (#585560) Homepage Journal

    Ben Carson, who runs my HHS, says the Egyptians stored grain in the Pyramids. They should have built them bigger!

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