Volcanoes, Floods and Social Unrest: the Theban Revolts in their Social and Climatic Context

This lecture highlights the speaker’s ongoing collaborative work that seeks to understand the societal impacts of explosive volcanism on the Nile watershed. The key insight from which his project got its start is the observation that explosive volcanic eruptions can be linked (“teleconnected”) to the reduction in global precipitation. This is particularly dramatic in the case of the East African Monsoon (EAM) that drove the annual flood of the Nile. By exploring the many new techniques that integrate climate proxy with historical data to understand a new dimension of historical dynamics, including patterns of social unrest, the project’s aim is to establish a new historical ontology for pre-industrial Egypt by describing, for the first time, a detailed coupled natural-human system. This also has wider implications for the entire pre-industrial world.

Welcome
Tonio Sebastian Richter
Member of the Academy BBAW
Freie Universität Berlin

Introduction
Ralph Birk
Einstein Center "Chronoi"
Freie Universität Berlin

Volcanoes, Floods and Social Unrest: the Theban Revolts in their Social and Climatic Context
Joseph G. Manning
Yale University, New Haven