Guest drive-by by David Middleton
Megadrought Helped Topple the Assyrian Empire
Paleoclimate records shed light on the ancient civilization’s meteoric rise and catastrophic collapse.By Mary Caperton Morton 15 January 2020
Around 2,700 years ago in what is now northern Iraq, the Assyrian Empire was at its zenith, dominating the cultural and political landscape of the Fertile Crescent. But within a few years, the empire collapsed, leaving the once thriving capital of Nineveh abandoned for nearly 200 years. The cause of this catastrophe is an enduring mystery, but a climate record preserved in a cave formation now is revealing that the timing of the empire’s rise and fall coincided with a wet period followed by a 125-year-long megadrought.
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The new study relies on a limestone stalagmite called a speleothem recovered from the Kuna Ba cave in northeastern Iraq, about 300 kilometers southeast of the modern city of Mosul, just across the Tigris River from the ruins of Nineveh. By tracking the ratios of oxygen and uranium isotopes, which are sensitive to variations in precipitation and temperature, the team was able to reconstruct a high-resolution record of nearly 4,000 years of paleoclimate history for the region.
Researchers then aligned the precipitation records with archaeological and written cuneiform records and found a remarkable correlation: The rise and zenith of the Assyrian Empire, from 920 to 730 BCE, occurred during a period of higher-than-average rainfall, deemed the Assyrian megapluvial, that lasted from 925 to 725 BCE. And the fall of the empire, between 660 and 600 BCE, falls within the peak drought period that lasted from 675 to 550 BCE. This 125-year megadrought helps explain why Nineveh was not resettled for over a century after its abandonment, Weiss said.
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Relevance to Modern Drought Cycles
The severity of the Assyrian megadrought also helps add some perspective on modern drought cycles in the Middle and Near East, Kelley said. “This study is really valuable for putting what’s happening today in this region in proper context. The past shows us what’s possible: How dry can it get [and] for how long?”
Over the past 100 years, the Middle East has experienced at least four severe multiyear droughts. “These seem to be happening with greater frequency and severity, which is in line with what we expect with climate change: Dry places are getting drier,” Kelley said. “How this contributes to political unrest in this region is very complicated, but it’s clear that climate change and drought are major factors that should not be underestimated, in the past or in the future.”
The new study was published in Science Advances in November 2019.
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Citation: Morton, M. C. (2020), Megadrought helped topple the Assyrian Empire, Eos, 101, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EO138560. Published on 15 January 2020.
Eos
Is anyone else bugged by the phrase “meteoric rise”? Meteors don’t rise. Meteoric water falls from the sky.
Clearly the droughts of today in the desert are much worse than the 125 year civilization destroying megadrought… Because climate change.
“These seem to be happening with greater frequency and severity, which is in line with what we expect with climate change: Dry places are getting drier,” Kelley said. “How this contributes to political unrest in this region is very complicated, but it’s clear that climate change and drought are major factors that should not be underestimated, in the past or in the future.”
Easy fix… Send them U-Hauls…
If the Assyrian empire had been able to use fossil fuels, it might have been able to survive the drought.
The whole point of this article is that climate can change naturally, without any human influence. If the Assyrians had the needed technology, they could have tried building dams across the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to conserve water during the droughts, and irrigating their crops.
It’s also interesting that this drought (around 650 BC) in what is now northern Iraq corresponds closely with the rise of the Babylonian empire (now southern Iraq) which conquered Israel and Judea, as recorded in the Bible (particularly the books of Jeremiah and Lamentations). Could this drought have not affected Babylon, and allowed Babylon to expand militarily against both Assyria and Israel?
It is also interesting to note that many of the great palaces and pyramids in Egypt were built on what is now desert, far to the west of the Nile River. It may be possible that Egypt had a much wetter climate during the time of the Pharaohs, and they were able to farm and live on land that is now too dry, and a later drought forced the population to move to the Nile delta.
Climate change is a natural occurrence, and has been occurring for thousands of years, so that affected people have the option of adapting to the new climate or moving to a more favorable location. If drought is a problem, people have the option of transporting water from where it is abundant to where it is needed (via reservoirs, dams, aqueducts, or canals) or moving to a wetter climate. Such adaptations were made by the Romans around the Mediterranean, and also by the early settlers of Utah and California.
If flooding by the sea is a problem, adaptation can take the form of building dikes or sea walls to prevent flooding, as has been practiced by the Dutch over several centuries. In either case, fossil fuels can be useful in powering the required earth-moving equipment.
” It may be possible that Egypt had a much wetter climate during the time of the Pharaohs”
It was wetter, yes, particularly during the Old Empire before “the 4.2 KA event”, but not much wetter, and the “the red land” (as the egyptians called the desert) could not be farmed in contrast to “the black land”, the Nile Valley.
The climate shift that drove people out of the Sahara and into the Nile Valley was much earlier, about 6,000 years ago. Before that the valley oddly enough seems to have been almost unpopulated since the end of the last ice age.
“Climate can change naturally”, therefore humans cannot change the climate.
Et tu Steve?
Denied. Climate models are generally awful wrt general parameters, but even worse about weather changes in specific regions. The practitioner-priests admit as much. Frankly, what is reportedly “expected” from climate change seems to go up and down rather more frequently than the Assyrian Empire and a whore’s drawers put together.
People talking about what is expected from climate change are usually not just ignorant or lying, but both.
There was an even worse megadrought about 4200 years ago (“the 4.2 KA event”).
That one destroyed the Egyptian Old Empire, Eblaite civilization, the Akkadian empire, the Indus civilization and a whole slew of minor cultures from Spain to China. It even killed off a lot of Dodos down on Mauritius.
That time too, it took several centuries before the abandoned towns in northern Mesopotamia were repopulated.
And incidentally it is the GSSP defining the boundary between the Meghalayan and the Northgrippian stages.
Most people ignore the very long and colorful history and organization of the Assyrian Empire over the more recent Roman Empire. Assyria was a miracle in organisation, smarts, and stamina. They built an empire-wide road system when Rome was still a village on the Tiber river. Many fascinating cultures are thought to have fallen due to Climate Change. The first real empire, the Akkadian Empire fell due to climate change. Egypt’s old empire, some pre-Columbian civilisations and the Western Roman Empire plus many more. Climate Change has been with us since the dawn of time.
Hi David,
Thanks for pointing out ‘meteoric rise’: I’d never noticed the oxymoronisity of it.
The entire title is a bit florid:
“Megadrought Helped Topple the Assyrian Empire
Paleoclimate records shed light on the ancient civilization’s meteoric rise and catastrophic collapse.”
Quite the helpful drought, light-shedding records (on fire?), and then the Assyrian brief flash of brilliance.
‘Meteoric rise’ seems especially silly for an empire that existed for millennia in one form or another. Anyway, the origin of the phrase is discussed here:
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-met1.htm
I didn’t really mean for that to be the focus of the post. “Meteoric rise” is just a pet peeve, like “organic food” and “irregardless”.
The paleoclimatology stuff is pretty cool… But anyone who’s spent any time looking at history and paleoclimatology already knew that most of history’s civilization disrupting climate change involved droughts, usually associated with the millennial scale climate cycle.
“I didn’t really mean for that to be the focus of the post. “Meteoric rise” is just a pet peeve, like “organic food” and “irregardless”.”
Whenever I go to the grocery store, my inner gremlin is tempted to ask a store clerk where the inorganic produce is.
Salt, Diet Coke and Velveeta
I was thinking more like bananas, carrots, etc.
Climate apart, Nineveh was destroyed by the Babylonians.