A three-year drought may have brought down the ancient Hittite empire

Wood from a burial chamber in trendy Turkey reveals there was a sudden extreme drought across the time Hittite cities have been deserted 3000 years in the past

By Clare Wilson

A 3-year-drought could have led to the autumn of the Hittite empire within the Middle East 3000 years in the past.

The discovering comes from analysing timber used to make the burial chamber of a later ruler, who could have been the daddy of King Midas, referred to in Greek legends.

The sudden drought “would have undoubtedly caused mass problems with food provision. That would have affected the tax base of the empire pretty dramatically,” says Sturt Manning at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

The Hittite empire, which encompassed most of what’s now Turkey and lasted practically 5 centuries, was one of many main geopolitical forces of the traditional world, with a mastery of ironwork, a cuneiform writing system and a military that would tackle neighbouring Egypt.

Ancient texts and archaeological discoveries recommend that round 1200 BC, cities started being deserted and the empire splintered into impartial states that have been later overwhelmed by Assyrians from the east.

Several causes have been proposed, together with illness, famine, a centuries-long shift to a drier local weather, in addition to earlier invasions by mysterious teams named “Sea Peoples” in Egyptian texts.

Now, Manning’s staff has discovered proof of a pointy and extreme drought from an enormous chamber tomb constructed within the metropolis of Gordion in 748 BC. As the tomb’s mound is far greater than others close by, and was made in regards to the time the native King Midas took the throne, some archaeologists say it may have been made for Midas’s father, the earlier ruler – though nothing to determine the occupant stays.

Clues to the autumn of the Hittites, centuries earlier, come from the juniper logs making up the burial chamber. The logs have been taken from 18 timber, which have been rising from the interval 1775 to 748 BC.

Less rainfall means much less tree progress, which exhibits up as narrower gaps between tree rings. The logs present there have been 80 situations of two or extra consecutive years with low rainfall, and considered one of these was the three years from 1198 to 1196 BC – simply when Hittite cities began being deserted.

This was supported by one other sort of take a look at, measuring the ratio of various types of carbon from samples of the wooden. This exhibits progressively growing dryness of the environment between 1300 and 1200 BC, then spikes of dryness from 1222 to 1195 BC.

“Most traditional societies had some storage that would have helped them through one bad harvest,” says Manning. “By the time you get to a third one in a row, it’s become a crisis.”

Alan Greaves on the University of Liverpool within the UK, who wasn’t concerned within the analysis, says the outcomes shed new gentle on the local weather modifications on the time. “How do you pay for soldiers, how do you pay for artisans to make things?” he says. “A short, sharp drought would be enough to topple a very centralised state based heavily on grain and the gathering in and distribution of agricultural goods.”