Plagues of Egypt by Joseph Turner, 1800.
Researchers have found evidence of natural disasters that could have precipitated the Biblical10 plagues of Egypt. They claim the plagues ~ which led to Moses freeing the Israelites from slavery in the Book of Exodus ~ can be attributed to changes in the climate and environmental disasters that happened hundreds of miles away.
Archaeologists now say the plagues occurred at an ancient city of Pi-Rameses on the Nile Delta, the capital of Egypt during the reign of Rameses the Second, between 1279 BC and 1213 BC. The city was abandoned around 3,000 years ago.
Climatologists have discovered that a dramatic shift in the climate in the area occurred towards the end of Rameses the Second's reign, moving from a warm and wet climate to an extended dry period.
"Pharaoh Rameses II reigned during a very favourable climatic period,” says Augusto Magini, a paleoclimatologist at Heidelberg University. "There was plenty of rain and his country flourished. However, this wet period only lasted a few decades. After Rameses' reign, the climate curve goes sharply downwards. There is a dry period which would certainly have had serious consequences."
The scientists believe this switch in the climate was the trigger for the first of the plagues.
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