Death of the Nile

 

Our planet is a very complex place. It has many cycles of weather we have little understanding of at the moment. However, one of history’s greatest mysteries has been found to relate to our planets many climate cycles.

Egyptologist Professor Fekri Hassan research for over 30 years the catastrophic that was inflicted on Egypt over 4000 years ago. In the space of 100 years a third of the population of Egypt was dead. Many theories have been put forward but none up until Professor Fekri Hassan have been proven to be correct. So, what was it that kill a third of the country.

Land of the Pharaohs

The Old Kingdom. Dynasty III began in 2686 B.C. Egypt had a strong central government at this time. The next 500 years of great stability became known for the construction of Egypt’s gigantic pyramids. The period is called the Old Kingdom or the Pyramid Age of Egypt. The first of these pyramids was built by King Zoser at Saqqarah in about 2650 B.C. this was not a true Pyramid but a stepped pyramid. During Dynasty IV the great Pyramid was built for King Khufu. Other massive pyramids were built nearby on the Giza plateau shortly after the great Pyramid.

This was a golden age within Egypt. The country produced enough food to feed all its people and also a surplus which could feed the thousands of men and their families who were working on the pyramids. This means for a very long time in Egypt they had a very stable and predictable environment. Each year without fail the Nile River would flood and in doing so, lay a thick carpet of mud across the fields making them fertile for that year’s harvest.

By the time Dynasty five came along at the end of the old Kingdom, some 4000 years ago. The king’s power had diminished and Egypt entered a period of civil strife. This period lasted for several generations before normality once more came to the Egyptian civilisation.

What could cause such a stable civilisation as this, who had stood for a thousand years to crumble into anarchy so quickly? The answer to this has been worrying Egyptologists for the last century and now we have the answer.

Climate change!

Through scientific detective work it has been found that the culprit for the Egyptian breakup of society at the end of the old Kingdom is related to world weather patterns and their ability to chang at a rate faster than ever before felt possible.

What is the evidence for this? Well we have evidence from the old Kingdom itself. From writings in Egyptian tomb statements have been found of mass starvation. Of people resorting to cannibalism and to even eating children!

For many years Egyptologists put down this period of unrest to political upheaval. But this would mean that people would have fought each other for generation after generation. There is little evidence of such a long term conflict. The other main theory for the collapse of civilisation at this time is that the annual Nile floods just stopped for many generations. This would mean the crops would fail year in, year out.

Where is the evidence

for this?

Well, to start with we have Professor Fekri Hassan hieroglyphic writings found in one of the tombs of a local government official. Also, Professor Fekri Hassan as supporting evidence from other archaeologists. Archaeological digs have been undertaken at sites which were abandoned around this time. Evidence of people being murdered and their bodies just left where they fell has been found. In a civilisation which respected the dead more than the living to leave these bodies without proper burial is something under normal circumstances would never be tolerated. Also the Professor as taken bore samples from the bottom of a lake in Egypt which the Nile during its yearly flooding would have left mud layers on its bottom. At the end of the old Kingdom 4000 years ago now mud was found therefore it must be concluded that this lake at this time completely dried up. In other words, the Nile was that low it could not feed any water into the lake.

Outside of Egypt other evidence has been found. Scientists studying icebergs in the north Atlantic have found at the time of the old Kingdom icebergs were travelling much closer to the equator than they are today. Icebergs are not clear pieces of ice they are part of a giant ice sheet which has layers of dirt, dust and rock in it. This might come from volcanic eruptions as the snow layers form. These dirty icebergs float away from the Greenland ice sheet out into the Atlantic Ocean and when they melt the dirt and debris they are carrying falls to the ocean floor. Drilling the ocean floor for samples allows the scientists to see how far south the icebergs travel before they melt. At the time of the old Kingdom icebergs in the Atlantic were travelling far south of the range they travelled to today. This in effect means that the Atlantic Ocean was much colder than today allowing the icebergs to travel farther. Also, evidence has been found that the icefields radiating out from the North Pole covered much of northern Europe and Canada reaching as far south as the northern states of America during the winters.

What does this mean

for the old Kingdom?

With the world becoming a colder place it also becomes a drier place. Seasonal rainfall will change. The heavy rains that fed the Nile River didn’t come. So, the Nile River didn’t flood, this meant that the fields were not fertilised with its rich mud and therefore crops began to fail. This catastrophe lasted for about 100 years before the weather patterns began to normalise and the annual floods came back to the Nile. Within roughly a generation of the floods returning Egypt was back to near normal.

What does this mean

for us to day?

We are in an ice age at the moment. The poles of our planet are covered in ice sheets and there have been for a long time. But, this has not always been so. There have been periods in the past when we had no icefields at the poles at all. During an ice age, the ice does not stand still, it expands and contracts in cycles.

Scientists have established that the cycle than affected the old Kingdom is a phenomena that happens on a cycle of roughly 1500 years. The evidence for this as come from the core samples taken from the Atlantic Ocean showing when and how far south icebergs travels in different periods of Earth’s history. This has shown that this cycle has happened many times in the past. It is then logical to assume that it will happen again in the future. We can make ourselves ready to cope with our planet natural cycles or we can just go on ignoring our world and we will suffer the consequences. Our fate is in our hands.

” The further back you

 

can look,

 

the farther forward

 

you are likely to see”

 

 

 

Winston Churchill