Winter winds associated with dust storms are said to have contributed to the collapse of the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia.
Imprint of the cylinder seal of Ibni-sharrum, scribe of Shar-kali-sharri, masterpiece of Akkadian glyptics (Louvre Museum)
Between the 24th and 22nd centuries BCE, the Akkadian Empire dominated Mesopotamia under the influence of its first king Sargon of Akkad and his successors who carried out vast conquests while preserving their territory. The empire suddenly collapsed around the year -2200 and the great city-states of the region remained deserted for almost three centuries before being reoccupied. The reasons for this decline were both social and climatic, according to archaeologists who have just seen their theory supported by the examination of fossilized corals.
The weather in the corals
Researchers from several Japanese universities have made paleoclimate reconstructions of temperature and hydrological changes in areas around the archaeological site of Tell Leilan, in the Khabur Valley in the center of the former Akkadian Empire. For this, they analyzed fossilized corals 4,100 years old collected in the Gulf of Oman. The data from the coral analysis was then matched against climate models and other measurements from corals in other regions and younger.
Red stars indicate where fossil corals were collected. © Watanabe T.K. et al, The Geological Society of America. September 2, 2019
The results, published in the journal Geology , indicate that the region experienced at that time several episodes of extreme drought with, during the winter, violent winds or "Shamal" accompanied by sand and dust storms. These weather events are said to have caused severe food shortages that led to famine and social unrest. These troubles contributed to the decline of the Akkadian empire, which also suffered invasions that gradually eroded its territory.
Fossil coral from the Gulf of Oman. © Hokkaido University.
The climatic event of 4200
The data from the corals therefore reveal the existence of a period of intense drought. It was not confined to Mesopotamia, but it affected the whole of the Earth and is known to geologists as the "Climate Event of 4200". It is one of the most important droughts of the last 10,000 years and besides the fall of the Akkadian Empire, it led to the end of several other civilizations. It probably participated in the weakening of the Ancient Egyptian Empire as well as the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization and the Neolithic cultures of central China.