Decline and fall of Assyrian Empire a timely warning

The powerful and scientifically literate western world had better heed the warning signals of climate change lest our civilisation goes the way of the ancient Assyrian Empire.

Research published today suggests that droughts and a population boom helped bring about its collapse by triggering civil wars and political unrest.

The researchers did not attempt to establish whether anti-water charges campaigners were agitating at the time, but a combination of water suppy and dissent sounds all too familiar.

The environmental problems of climate change and overpopulation are highlighted as contributory factors in the empire’s demise, as published today in the Springer journal Climatic Change.

It describes how the empire, based in what is now northern Iraq, began a relentless expansion, taking over much of the near east by the early seventh century BC. Yet by the end of that same century the empire was falling asunder, hastened by civil wars, political unrest and sacking of the Assyrian capital Nineveh in 612 BC.

Adam Schneider of the University of California-San Diego and Selim Adali of the Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations in Turkey decided to look for other causes and believe they found them by looking at archaeological, historical and paleoclimatic evidence.

Assyria was an apparently unassailable military superpower of the age. It took over one country after another and Nineveh – the world’s largest city at this time – saw its population rocket.

The climate shifted, however, and severe droughts hit the region including a bad one in 657 BC. This left the empire less able to meet demand for food and water, the authors argue. It only took another five years for the political and economic stability of the empire to start to unravel and subsequently to go under in a series of civil wars.

The authors draw parallels with what is going on in the region today with the advance of Islamic State and the threat of climate change. Modern societies should take note of what happens when short-term economic and political policies are pursued rather than long-term stability and economic security, say the authors.