The scientists said that could be the cause of the decline of the civilization of Ancient Egypt

2017-10-19 06:07

The scientists said that could be the cause of the decline of the civilization of Ancient Egypt
Volcanoes undermined agriculture and the economy of the state.

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The reason for the decline of the Greeks, the Egyptian civilization, Ptolemaic Egypt was not a slave revolt, and volcanic eruptions that destroyed the agriculture and economy of the state, reports Rus.Media. To such conclusion scientists have come.

The last independent ruler of Ancient Egypt, according to the legends of antiquity, was the famous Queen Cleopatra, after whose death in 30 BC Rome had eliminated all remnants of the independent power and made Egypt one province of the Empire.

However, actually, according to the researchers, the decline of Egypt began much earlier, around the middle of the III century BC, when Egypt waged constant war with the other Hellenic “superpower” of the time, the Seleucid state.

First, the Empire of the Ptolemies won this fight – 245 to the Pharaoh Ptolemy III managed to defeat most of the army of the Seleucids and approached the walls of Babylon, but for unknown reasons he refused to complete defeat and captivity of Seleucus II, the killers of his daughter and her children, and turned their armies in Egypt and Syria.

The unexpected retreat of the Egyptian army, as today, historians believe, was the beginning of the end for Egypt as the Empire of the Ptolemies then struck a dynastic crisis and a series of rebellions of the Egyptians against the “Greek occupation”. Literally 50 years after the triumph of Ptolemy III, the rulers of Egypt were forced to become actual vassals of Rome in order to protect yourself from the attacks of the Seleucids and their Macedonian allies.

Now, researchers have discovered a possible cause of this situation, studied the records of ancient Egyptian nomerov – special officials, who monitored the water level in the Nile during the floods, and comparing them with how the climate was changing in the North-East of Africa at that time as a whole.

Comparing all these data, the scientists noticed one interesting thing. A mass uprising forced Ptolemy III to return from a trip, actually began at the same time two other events – the water level in the Nile was very low for several years, and in Ethiopia at this time there was a mass eruption of volcanoes.

Getting help from climatologists, historians tried to find out, could the eruption of volcanoes and associated climate change affect the nature of the movement of water in the Nile or cause crop failures in some other way.

As shown by calculations of the climate, volcanoes in the middle of the III century BC had to throw away huge amounts of oxides of sulfur in the air over Ethiopia to reduce its temperature and changed the nature of the work monsoon the Eastern coast of Africa. As a result, summer rains filled the water sources of the Nile in the mountains of Ethiopia and forced it to get out of its banks in the lower reaches of the river, almost completely stopped for several years.

The decrease in the level of the Nile for a few tens of centimeters in the first two years after the eruption, according to historians, led to the fact that the harvest has decreased several times and there was a famine. This, according to the Chronicles, took advantage of the priests, traditionalists and nobles who did not recognize the Greek “invaders” and constantly urged the people to rebel against the authority of the Greeks, spoke and wrote in ancient Egyptian language.