The Biblical plagues that devastated Ancient Egypt in the
Old Testament were the result of global warming and a volcanic eruption,
scientists have claimed.
Researchers believe they have found evidence of real natural
disasters on which the ten plagues of Egypt, which led to Moses freeing the
Israelites from slavery in the Book of Exodus in the Bible, were based.
But rather than explaining them as the wrathful act of a
vengeful God, the scientists claim the plagues can be attributed to a chain of
natural phenomena triggered by changes in the climate and environmental disasters
that happened hundreds of miles away.
They have compiled compelling evidence that offers new
explanations for the Biblical plagues, which will be outlined in a new series
to be broadcast on the National Geographical Channel on Easter Sunday.
Archaeologists now widely believe the plagues occurred at an
ancient city of Pi-Rameses on the Nile Delta, which was the capital of Egypt
during the reign of Pharaoh Rameses the Second, who ruled between 1279BC and
1213BC.
The city appears to have been abandoned around 3,000 years
ago and scientists claim the plagues could offer an explanation.
Climatologists studying the ancient climate at the time have
discovered a dramatic shift in the climate in the area occurred towards the end
of Rameses the Second's reign.
By studying stalagmites in Egyptian caves they have been
able to rebuild a record of the weather patterns using traces of radioactive
elements contained within the rock.
They found that Rameses reign coincided with a warm, wet
climate, but then the climate switched to a dry period.
Professor Augusto Magini, a paleoclimatologist at Heidelberg
University's institute for environmental physics, said: "Pharaoh Rameses
II reigned during a very favourable climatic period.
"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.
The rising temperatures could have caused the river Nile to
dry up, turning the fast flowing river that was Egypt's lifeline into a slow
moving and muddy watercourse.
These conditions would have been perfect for the arrival of
the first plague, which in the Bible is described as the Nile turning to blood.
Dr Stephan Pflugmacher, a biologist at the Leibniz Institute
for Water Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin, believes this description
could have been the result of a toxic fresh water algae.
He said the bacterium, known as Burgundy Blood algae or
Oscillatoria rubescens, is known to have existed 3,000 years ago and still
causes similar effects today.
He said: "It multiplies massively in slow-moving warm
waters with high levels of nutrition. And as it dies, it stains the water
red."
The scientists also claim the arrival of this algae set in
motion the events that led to the second, third and forth plagues – frogs, lice
and flies.
Frogs development from tadpoles into fully formed adults is
governed by hormones that can speed up their development in times of stress.
The arrival of the toxic algae would have triggered such a
transformation and forced the frogs to leave the water where they lived.
But as the frogs died, it would have meant that mosquitoes,
flies and other insects would have flourished without the predators to keep
their numbers under control.
This, according to the scientists, could have led in turn to
the fifth and sixth plagues – diseased livestock and boils
Professor Werner Kloas, a biologist at the Leibniz
Institute, said: "We know insects often carry diseases like malaria, so
the next step in the chain reaction is the outbreak of epidemics, causing the
human population to fall ill."
Another major natural disaster more than 400 miles away is
now also thought to be responsible for triggering the seventh, eighth and ninth
plagues that bring hail, locusts and darkness to Egypt.
One of the biggest volcanic eruptions in human history
occurred when Thera, a volcano that was part of the Mediterranean islands of
Santorini, just north of Crete, exploded around 3,500 year ago, spewing
billions of tons of volcanic ash into the atmosphere.
Nadine von Blohm, from the Institute for Atmospheric Physics
in Germany, has been conducting experiments on how hailstorms form and believes
that the volcanic ash could have clashed with thunderstorms above Egypt to
produce dramatic hail storms.
Dr Siro Trevisanato, a Canadian biologist who has written a
book about the plagues, said the locusts could also be explained by the
volcanic fall out from the ash.
He said: "The ash fall out caused weather anomalies,
which translates into higher precipitations, higher humidity. And that's
exactly what fosters the presence of the locusts."
The volcanic ash could also have blocked out the sunlight
causing the stories of a plague of darkness.
Scientists have found pumice, stone made from cooled
volcanic lava, during excavations of Egyptian ruins despite there not being any
volcanoes in Egypt.
Analysis of the rock shows that it came from the Santorini
volcano, providing physical evidence that the ash fallout from the eruption at
Santorini reached Egyptian shores.
The cause of the final plague, the death of the first borns
of Egypt, has been suggested as being caused by a fungus that may have poisoned
the grain supplies, of which male first born would have had first pickings and
so been first to fall victim.
But Dr Robert Miller, associate professor of the Old
Testament, from the Catholic University of America, said: "I'm reluctant
to come up with natural causes for all of the plagues.
The problem with the naturalistic explanations, is that they
lose the whole point.
"And the whole point was that you didn't come out of
Egypt by natural causes, you came out by the hand of God."
The Ten Plagues of the Bible will be shown at 7pm on Sunday
4 April on the National Geographic Channel
