00:00A lone isle seems to be destabilising Egypt, but were these extended periods of drought
00:09a black swan event, a one-off that no one could see coming, or were they part of a bigger
00:16pattern?
00:18Ancient records hold evidence of similar events in Egypt a thousand years before Ramses.
00:264,200 years ago, the so-called 4.2KA event, there was a major documented drought recorded
00:36in Egypt and this records major changes in flow and actually one of the stories which
00:43is told is that people could actually walk across the Nile because it had dried up.
00:49This previous drought could have spelled the end of the line for the era of the pyramid
00:55building kings of Old Kingdom Egypt. Research by Mark and other scientists is revealing
01:01more of these rapid climate change events. Although thousands of years apart, they coincide
01:09with major shifts in human history.
01:13Rapid climate change events last for several centuries and they tend to be characterised
01:18by colder periods of the poles and greater aridity in the equator and there are a number
01:25of these.
01:28Mark estimates that the climate change event that impacted Ramses could have lasted almost
01:33500 years and it was driven by forces no pharaoh had the power to control.
01:41The major primary control of climate during these periods appears to be weakening in the
01:46strength of the sun, but also there may have been changes in volcanic activity which could
01:52have been important as well.
01:57These planetary cycles can not only change rainfall across the Mediterranean, they're
02:02powerful enough to impact the African monsoon on which the Nile itself depends.
02:11Ramses III's reign is challenged both by nature and the human consequences of these events.
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