Checks and balances. Assessing the impact of climate change-induced Nile level fluctuations on social transformation in Ancient Egypt at the end of the New Kingdom

E. LANGE-ATHINODOROU, V. APPEL, S.C. DIRKSEN, "Checks and balances. Assessing the impact of climate change-induced Nile level fluctuations on social transformation in Ancient Egypt at the end of the New Kingdom", in L. PLEUGER (ed.), « Du Nil à la mer. L'Égypte au fil de l'eau – From the Nile to the Sea. Egypt along the Water » (CEA, 24), Brussels, 2024.

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Ancient Egypt has been a prominent example in the debate concerning the so-called ‘4.2 ka event’, a period of intraregional climate change, resulting in decreased flood levels of the river Nile and its possible defragmenting effects with regards to the centralized state of the Old Kingdom (around 2200 BCE). However, recent studies in the field of geoarchaeology and palaeoclimatology have generated new proxy data that indicate the existence of further drought events in later periods of Egyptian history. The end of the New Kingdom in Egypt coincided with a time of climatic change in the wider Mediterranean around 1200 BCE, which is also referred to as the Late Bronze Age Collapse or ‘3.2 ka event’, comparable to the drier climatic conditions at the end of the Old Kingdom. Nevertheless, studies thoroughly integrating the rising amount of geoarchaeological proxy data into the Egyptological debate are still underrepresented and tend to be brushed off as “climate-determinism”. By cross-checking the new climatological data with information from archaeological and textual sources coming from the same period, we attempt to assess the impact of climate and environmental factors on societal change in Egypt.

 

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