Climatic Events that Changed the World

The 3.2k yr BP Event

The 3.2k yr BP event induced a rapid drop in rainfall over parts of the eastern Mediterranean for a period of up to 300 years either side of 1200 BC causing a megadrought in some regions.

By Nick Nutter | Last Updated 2024-02-20 | Climatic Events that Changed the World

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Lebanon Landscape after 1200 BC

Evidence for a Climatic Event in 1200 BC

In the last twenty years, palynologists (people that study pollen in plants and in fossilised form) working in Syria, Israel, Egypt, Cyprus, speleologists (people that study growth rings in stalagmites and stalactites, amongst other karstic features) working in Greece and Israel, and paleolimnologists (people who reconstruct the history of lakes from their deposits) working in Turkey, Syria and Iran, have produced an enormous corpus of material to indicate that the eastern Mediterranean region was hit by a megadrought about 1200 BC.

A separate study, looking at sea surface temperatures, indicated a sharp increase in atmospheric temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere just before 1225 BC followed by a sharp decrease in temperatures and a decline in the surface temperature of the Mediterranean Sea before 1190 BC.

The combined research indicates that the drought, probably over dramatically labelled a megadrought, lasted for between 150 and 300 years.

This event is becoming known as the 3.2k yr BP event. Some of these studies indicate that the drought happened in two stages, a drought between 1250 and 1150 BC, followed by a return to normal precipitation for 50 years and then another drought between 1100 and 950 (possibly continuing to 850) BC.

The 3.2k yr BP event also coincides with the date for the collapse of the bronze age civilisations in the Near East. A connection between the two was first proposed by archaeologists in the late 19th century AD, and the recent preoccupation with climate change in the late 20th and 21st centuries AD, is encouraging people to look at the 3.2k yr BP event as the sole or primary reason for that collapse, or at least the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’.

This series of articles only looks at what happened at or near a climatic event to try to determine what, if any, was the human response. Consequently, this article will not try to judge whether or not the 3.2k yr BP event was a major, minor, or inconsequential element in the collapse of the bronze age civilisations.

What Caused the Megadrought?

3.2k yr BP event

As to what caused the megadrought, the jury is still out. There are several, not necessarily incompatible, suggestions.

One group, from Italy, look at the volcanic eruption of Mount Etna in about 1300 BC as triggering the climate change.

Another suggestion is that there may have been a decline in solar output about this time to a ‘solar minimum.’ This would obviously have affected the entire world rather than just the eastern Mediterranean region. This is backed up by research that has revealed that air pollution restricted the amount of sunlight reaching the earth’s surface for a period of about twenty years, until 1140 BC. Tree ring growth globally was arrested, and agricultural production must have suffered. The air pollution was probably caused by a volcanic eruption but which volcano and exactly when it erupted is disputed.

Another theory is that ice-rafted debris in the North Atlantic increased, penetrated further south and west than normal, resulting in a decline in ocean surface temperatures and a related decrease in precipitation (cooler sea, less evaporation, less rainfall). This sequence of events is known as a Bond Event, and they occur roughly every 1,500 years.

Finally, there are Rapid Climate Changes that also occur, approximately, every 1,450 years. These are caused by frigid, Arctic air, coming into the Aegean region. The result is a drop in sea surface temperatures of 2 or 3 degrees in the southeastern Aegean area creating arid conditions around the Aegean itself. There was one such event between 1100 and 900 BC.

Written Evidence of Drought

Kingdom of Mitanni at its height about 1490 BC

Before we look at what happened in the Mediterranean basin around 1200 BC, it may be worth looking at the written evidence of drought induced famine in the eastern Mediterranean. Fortunately, all of the civilisations in the Near East produced written records and corresponded with each other. Many of those records have been found in the Levant, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Egypt and have been translated.

Between 1279 and 1213 BC, a Hittite queen called Puduhepa, wrote to the Egyptian pharaoh, Ramesses II stating; ‘I have no grains in my lands’. A trade embassy was sent to Egypt to procure barley and wheat.

Between 1213 and 1203 BC, Pharaoh Merneptah states that he had; ‘caused grain to be taken in ships, to keep alive this land of Hatti’, the first evidence in the world of what we would call today, famine relief.

In a letter sent to the king of Ugarit (on the Syrian coast) from the king of the Hittites sometime during the 13th century BC, the Hittite king enquires after a shipment of two thousand units of grain (up to 450 tons) being sent from Ugarit to Hattusi. He ends his letter rather dramatically, ‘It is a matter of life or death.’

Just before its destruction in 1185 BC, a letter from Emar in Syria was sent to Ugarit. In it the writer says: ‘There is famine in our house, we will all die of hunger. If you do not quickly arrive here, we ourselves will die of hunger. You will not see a living soul from your land.

Even in Ugarit there was famine. Pharaoh Merneptah wrote a reply to a letter from the king of Ugarit; ‘So you had written to me…, in the land of Ugarit there is severe hunger. May my lord save the land of Ugarit and may the king give grain to save my life and to save the citizens of the land of Ugarit.’

It is known that food was rationed in the last years of Ramesses III’s reign (1184 to 1155 BC) because that year saw the world’s first recorded labour strike. At that time, around the period of solar minimum mentioned above, it is recorded that the food rations for Egypt's favoured and elite royal tomb-builders and artisans in the village of Deir el Medina could not be provisioned. It does make one wonder how the lower echelons faired during this period.

The Ancient Near East c 1300 BC

The Ancient Near East about 1300 BC

In the relatively brief period from 2200 BC, the time of the 4.2k yr BP event, to 1300 BC, the societies, or at least the populations remaining after the event, recovered in a spectacular fashion.

By 1300 BC, the ancient Near East had coalesced into six empires, kingdoms, or civilisations: the Mycenaean Civilisation, the Hittite Empire, the Middle Assyrian Kingdom, the Middle Babylonian Kingdom, the Middle Elamite Kingdom, and the Egyptian New Kingdom. For over two hundred years, the Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians and Elemites vied with each other for territory. It was a time of great flux. Further west, societies in Spain, France, Italy, and the major Mediterranean islands had also evolved during this period.

As discussed in the previous chapter dealing with the 4.2k yr BP event, a rapid recovery was helped by the knowledge and technical achievements of the past. In other words, those people were not starting from a clean slate. In addition to the advancements in the previous ‘between events’ period, the chariot appeared in the Middle East about 2000 BC, glass manufacturing began in Egypt around 1500 BC, at the same time as the seed drill was invented in Mesopotamia. On a more mundane level, concrete was invented in Mycenaean Greece after 1400 BC.

The Mycenaean Civilisation

By about 1300 BC, the Mycenaean Civilisation consisted of southern Greece, the islands in the south of the Aegean Sea, Crete, and a small area in the southwest of Anatolia.

It is in the area occupied by the Mycenaean Civilisation that we see the greatest disruption on either side of 1200 BC. In about 1250 BC, the mainland city of Thebes was burned to the ground. The destruction of Thebes seems to be the precursor for an attack on Gla that, in turn, sparked an abandonment of nearby Orchomenos. Gla incidentally was ten times the size of the more famous contemporary Athens or Tiryns. Mycenae itself was attacked. As a result, the Greeks started a programme of defensive fortifications at Athens, Tiryns, Midea and Mycenae, the so called ‘Cyclopean Walls.’ Mycenae suffered another bout of destruction about 1190 BC, and it was this event that marked the end of the Mycenaean Civilisation.

A significant part of the population, up to 50%, migrated to Cyprus and the Levantine coast.

However, parts of the former Mycenaean Civilisation recovered quickly. Athens was never destroyed or abandoned whilst Tiryns expanded during the 11th century BC but, over most of the former Mycenaean territory and the Aegean, the remaining population, dispersed into clusters of thatched houses scattered across the landscape.

On Crete, the Minoan palaces at Malia, Phaestos, and Zakros were destroyed about 1450 BC, leaving Knossos as the sole surviving palace on the island. The Mycenaeans took advantage of these destructions and imposed their own administration on the Cretans. The palace at Knossos was destroyed about 1350 BC and not rebuilt although the town continued to be occupied and even saw a resurgence after 1200 BC.

What is clear is that the fluctuations of the climate had little to do with the fall of the Minoan or Mycenaean civilisations. There is no evidence of palatial overexploitation of the landscape. The downfall began and ended with human actions.

The Hittite Empire 13th century BC

The Hittite Empire in the 13th century BC

The Hittite Empire and its vassal cities occupied Anatolia and the western part of what is now Syria, effectively the northern Levantine coast and Cyprus. In the northern Levant area, during the 13th century BC, previously the home of the Mitanni Kingdom, they were constantly vying with the Middle Assyrian Empire for territorial gain.

In Anatolia, the Hittite empire fell apart with Hattusa falling in 1190 BC to the Kaskas tribe who inhabited the northern part of Anatolia, towards the Black Sea.

Several other Anatolian cities were destroyed about the same time; Karaoglan, Alaca Hoyuk, Alishar, Masat Hoyuk, Mersin and Tarsus.

In the northern Levantine coast, there are signs that cities were destroyed either side of 1200 BC, including Ugarit in about 1182 BC. However, the causes of that destruction cannot be attributed directly to any climatic change. Most of the destroyed cities recovered fairly quickly.

On Cyprus, non-palatial urbanism, with its imposing houses and rich tombs, reached its peak during the 13th and 12th centuries BC. Like the north Levant, the island’s cities, and towns experienced destruction around 1200 BC. Again, the destruction cannot be directly attributed to a climatic event.

The empire disintegrated into several independent city states that were eventually taken over by the Assyrians who built an empire known as the Middle Assyrian Empire. Just how much of this disintegration can be put down to a climatic event is debateable.

We have seen that the Hittites were asking for grain to alleviate famine between 1279 and 1203 BC. A prolonged famine would undoubtedly create social unrest and a weakening of the constitutional monarchy that exercised control over the empire. It is possible that the Kaskas took advantage of this to expand their own territories.

We cannot leave the Hittites without mentioning Troy, then called Walusa on the Aegean coast in northwestern Anatolia. Excavations at Troy have revealed no less than ten occupation levels since it was first settled around 3600 BC. The epic tales of the Trojan Wars were inspired by one of the many episodes of destruction suffered by the city. Without becoming part of the ongoing debate as to whether the Trojan Wars occurred or not, a destruction layer dated to 1180 BC shows some evidence of an attack and is the most likely candidate for the origin of the stories later created by Greek writers. Who the attackers were, Mycenaean or someone else, is another matter.

The Middle Assyrian Empire 1365

The Middle Assyrian Empite and Middle Babylonian Territory 1365 - 1000 BC

The Middle Assyrian Empire occupied the northeastern part of what is now Syria and northern Iraq.

From its heartland in northern Iraq, the Middle Assyrian Empire expanded into northern Syria during the late 13th and early 12th centuries BC.

At the height of their powers, in the last quarter of the 13th century BC, Babylonia was an Assyrian vassal state.

The 12th century BC saw the first signs of trouble. Weak or short-lived reigns, like those of Tukulti-Ninurta I and Enlil-kudurri-usur, hampered imperial stability. Local rebellions arose, and Assyria lost control of some conquered territories. However, there is to date no evidence to suggest that any major destructions took place in any of the main cities within the empire.

The Middle Assyrian Empire appears largely untouched by the 3.2k yr BP event.

The Middle Babylonian Period

The Middle Babylonian territory was situated between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris from the head of the Persian Gulf, through eastern Iraq, a strip along the Euphrates River through what is now Syria, and a good part of western Iran.

Babylon during the late 13th, early 12th century BC was ruled by the Kassites, a military aristocracy that probably hailed from the Zagros mountains in northwestern Iran. To the east of Babylonia, was the, to date, minor kingdom of Elami.

In 1158 BC, Elamites invaded and destroyed the city of Babylon. The attack was motivated by Shutruk-Nahhunte, king of the Elamites, who also thought he had a claim to the Kassite throne. His son and grandsons continued campaigning in Mesopotamia. There is no evidence to suggest that the climate motivated any of the actors over this period.

The Egyptian New Kingdom

The New Kingdo of Egypt about 1250 BC

The Egyptian New Kingdom included the Nile Delta, and the Nile valley as far south as present-day Aswan. Its vassal city states spread across northern Sinai, what is now Israel, part of west Jordan and Lebanon, in effect the south and central Levantine coast.

In the last chapter, we left Egypt entering the First Intermediate Period, with according to an exaggerated account by an early nomarch of Hierakonpolis, Ankhtifi, the population starving. By 2055 BC, Egypt had been reunited in a period known as the Middle Kingdom, the second of its ‘Golden Ages’. By 1650 BC however, the Middle Kingdom had splintered and the northern part, Lower Egypt, was ruled by the Hyksos, from the fabulous city of Avaris, and the southern part, Upper Egypt, was known as the Kingdom of Kush. In the mid-16th century BC, Ahmose I threw the Hyksos out of Lower Egypt and reunited the country in what was to be the third and last Golden Age, the New Kingdom.

The New Kingdom lasted from 1550 BC until about 1069 BC and it is during this period that Egypt reached its peak of power. Following the death of Ramesses II (the Great) in 1213 BC the New Kingdom entered a period of decline with foreign invaders nibbling at the edges of the Kingdom and a succession of ineffective pharaohs.

Ramesses III briefly restored Egypt’s prestige in the eastern Mediterranean, defeating the ‘Sea People’ twice and defending the country from two incursions by the Libyans. Ramesses III died in 1155 BC, leaving Egypt in the hands of bickering heirs who oversaw the crumbling of the Egyptian Empire into a once again divided Egypt of the Third Intermediate Period.

Iberian Peninsula

In the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula, the El Argar society emerged on the heels of the disappearance of the Los Millares society about 2200 BC. The Argarians spread rapidly from a central zone on the border between present day Murcia and Almeria from where they would expand to the bordering regions, covering the territory currently occupied by the centre and east of Granada province, as well as some areas of Jaén, Alicante and Ciudad Real. El Argar was a strictly hierarchical society with the elites controlling the distribution of grain and metals from their lofty, although unfortified, settlements. Many, if not all, of the Argar settlements incorporated cisterns in their town planning, a response to the increasing aridity of the region. Each El Argar settlement was surrounded by a number of what may best be described as farmsteads over which it exercised control. Analysis of the bones of some of those buried beneath the floor of the dwellings indicates a diet based on barley and, in the case of the lower social orders, malnutrition from birth. The El Argar society disappears from the archaeological record about 1500 BC.

Similarly, the Motilla settlements in La Mancha that started tp appear after 2200 BC, fell into disuse about the same time, as did the huge, ditched enclosure site in the fertile Guadalquivir valley at Valentina de la Concepcion. The megalithic dolmens in Huelva province and those in the Gor valley in Granada province, likewise, became obsolete.

It appears people from nucleated settlements dispersed into the wider landscape, possibly due to shortages caused by increased aridification and a break down in central control. However, the early date for such dispersals is three hundred years before the 3.2k yr BP event so are more probably down to gradually increased aridity caused by the continued southerly drift of the tropical rain belt rather than a later, sudden, event.

Southern France

Populations on the Mediterranean coast of France seem to have been hardly bothered by any of the climatic events so far discussed. The way of life in the scattered settlements was equally divided between farming and hunting. The only exception found to date is Camp de Laure near the mouth of the river Rhone. This is a fortified settlement, further protected by cliffs to the north, east and south. It is in an advantageous position, a convergence of routes from the interior of France and the short distance routes, still traversed by canoe, along the coast. Camp de Laure was established about 1650 BC.

Although more work is needed to properly establish the dates to which the site was occupied, it seems as though it, and the small, scattered farmsteads, survived beyond 1200 BC with no discernible changes.

Corsica and Sardinia

On Sardinia, large towers, called nuraghi were being built slightly before 1800 BC. After that date and for two hundred years, their numbers and size increased exponentially. Over eight thousand conical stone towers topped with a balcony, each up to twenty metres tall, suddenly sprouted up across the island. At the same time, megalithic burial mounds adopted an elongated shape with a ceremonial forecourt, the so called ‘Giants Tombs.’ In some areas the nuraghi averaged one per square kilometre, far too many to be symbols of elitism.

Construction of nuraghi ceased about 1150 BC, in fact some were already dismantled by then. The collective burials in the Giants Tombs also ended about the same time to be replaced by individual tombs. Some writers are inclined towards the idea that separate ‘parliaments’ evolved at village level at which village elders discussed the most important issues.

On nearby Corsica to the north, about 1800 BC, the bronze age communities started to build torri, or towers, which gave the name to the culture, Torrean. The average Corsican torri is somewhat smaller than its Sardinian cousin although the cultural similarity is unmistakeable. There was no discontinuity between the previous megalithic culture, probably inherited from Iberia or southern France, and the Torrean.

After 1150 BC, a new society evolved on both islands as depicted on statue menhirs; warriors wearing horned helmets carrying round shields and Mycenaean style daggers and swords. Intriguing signs of the connection between the central Mediterranean and the east but probably more a reaction to the increasing instability and conflict amongst the eastern Mediterranean civilisations than due to the climate.

Apennine Peninsula

In northern Italy, a society had developed on the Po delta and plain after 1700 BC. It was called the Terramare culture. The area they occupied, prior to the 4.2k yr BP event, had been marshland. The increasing aridity in the region partially dried the marsh, creating fertile growing land. The Terramares were hunters who also had domesticated animals. They were also agriculturists who cultivated beans, grapes, wheat, and flax. They lived in some sixty villages, each no larger than two hectares. The villages were roughly square shaped with streets arranged in a quadrangular pattern. The village was surrounded by an earth bank outside of which was a water filled moat.

Archaeologically, it appears as though the population grew to something like 200,000, a number that could not be supported after a series of droughts between 1300 and 1200 BC.

There is evidence of social unrest and internal dispute or raiding parties from neighbouring villages; skeletons with axe wounds, swords, and arrowheads in abandoned villages, which could have been precipitated by a final drought about 1200 BC. By 1150 BC, all the villages had been abandoned and the population dispersed to southern Italy, Sicily, and the Aegean.

Conclusion

Can any of the rise and fall of these comparatively advanced civilisations be directly attributed to the 3.2k yr BP event?

In the central Levantine coastal area, recent excavations have revealed no discontinuity of occupation at major sites such as Sidon, Tyre, Arwad and Byblos between the 13th and 11th centuries BC. Clearly the 3.2k yr BP event had negligible impact there.

In the Mycenaean arena, some of the population dispersed although it is unclear whether that was due to climate change, drougt, or human factors

Egypt’s control of the southern Levant started to slip during the 12th century BC and by 1140 BC, Egypt had lost its outposts, governor’s residences and temples that had been built at key points in the area. There are signs of destruction throughout the period but none directly attributable to climatic events, more to Hittite expansion.

As we have seen, the Assyrian Middle Kingdom initially managed to expand over the period of the drought, although it started to lose territory towards the end.

The Hittite Empire, contrastingly, fell apart. If the pleading letters of drought are legitimate, then yes, the 3.2k yr BP event, in this case could be a contributing factor to the empire's downfall. However it must also be stressed that the Hittites were beset by competitors on all sides.

Only in the Apennine Peninsula have we any evidence of violence and total dispersal that could be a direct result of the 3.2k yr BP event. On Corsica and Sardinia, the reaction is to stop building towers and the emergence of a warrior society, although who the enemy was is not known.

The 3.2k yr BP event was a glitch in the Mediterranean weather patterns that had re-established themselves after the 4.2k yr BP event. Over that period, a thousand years, there had been periodic droughts and a general trend towards aridity caused by the continuing retreat of the summer monsoon. This could be seen as normal weather behaviour in the Mediterranean. We still see periods of drought followed by periods of above average precipitation, unevenly distributed around the Mediterranean Basin.

Throughout the thousand-year period following the 4.2k yr BP event, civilisations throughout the Mediterranean had learned to deal with periodic droughts. Following the recovery of civilisations after the ‘collapse of the bronze age,’ societies again dealt with periodic droughts. There is no reason to cite the 3.2k yr BP event as anything more than a contributory factor in the general collapse that will be dealt with in a separate set of articles.

Whatever the reason for the sudden increase in aridity shortly before and after 1200 BC, it can only be seen as the culmination of an increasingly stressful millennium in terms of weather behaviour, and hardly the sudden, apocalyptic event portrayed by some historians.

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Image Credits

Image 3:. The Ancient Near East c 1300 BC. A map illustrating the changing balance of power in the Ancient Near East in the 13th century BCE resulting from the expansion of the Hittite and Assyrian empires and the collapse of the Mittani kingdom.
Uploaded by Simeon Netchev, published on 15 November 2021.
Image 4: The Hittite Empire 13th century BC. A map illustrating the rise and expansion (c. 1750 - 1200 BCE) of the Hittites, ancient Anatolian people who spoke an Indo-European language. At its height around the mid-14th century BCE, the Hittite empire ruled most of Asia Minor from the northern Levant to Upper Mesopotamia. After c. 1180 BCE, during the Bronze Age Collapse, with increased pressure from the Kaska tribes and the arrival of the Sea Peoples, the empire came to a sudden violent end. It splintered into independent “Neo-Hittite” city-states, some of which survived well into the 8th century BCE.
Uploaded by Simeon Netchev, published on 06 July 2022.
Image 5: The Middle Assyrian Empire 1365. A map illustrating the political situation in the Ancient Near East around the first half of the second millennium BCE as Assyria reestablished its independence and broke Mitanni power in conjunction with the Hittites. Moreover, the Assyrians expanded their territories across Mesopotamia and established an empire reaching the Euphrates in the west and Babylonia in the south.
Uploaded by Simeon Netchev, published on 20 January 2022
Image 6: The Egyptian New Kingdom. A map illustrating the state of Egypt at its height during the New Kingdom (c. 1570 - c. 1069 BCE). Also known as the Egyptian Empire, this period began with the reunification of Egypt under Ahmose I (around 1550 BCE) and ended c. 1070 BCE with the gradual dissolution of the state and increased Libyan infiltration. Spanning more than 500 years and well beyond Egypt's core territory, the New Kingdom saw the most powerful (and famous today) pharaohs, such as Ramses II, Thutmose III, Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, and Tutankhamun.
Uploaded by Simeon Netchev, published on 12 December 2022
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