Geary

3,800 years ago, an Egyptian described the complete collapse of civilization. The details are disturbing. There's an ancient Egyptian document that reads like someone describing the aftermath of a civilization falling apart. It's called The Admonitions of Ipuwer, and the surviving papyrus is roughly 3,200 years old, although the composition itself is believed to be considerably older. It describes the Nile is filled with blood. Bodies are thrown into the river. People are starving. Children are dying. Wealthy families have lost everything, while servants have taken possession of their masters' property. Government buildings have been broken into. Official records are destroyed. Scribes are murdered. Laws are discarded, and the authority of the king has effectively collapsed. Even international trade has stopped. The text complains that ships are no longer travelling to Byblos to obtain the cedarwood Egypt depended upon. Agricultural production is disrupted. Granaries are empty. People are turning against one another. This is an extraordinarily detailed description of what happens when an entire civilization stops functioning. And then there's one particular line that caught my attention. "Indeed, the river is blood, yet people drink from it." Sound familiar? The biblical account of Exodus describes the Nile turning to blood during the plagues of Egypt. Around 2200 BCE, Egypt experienced a major period of political fragmentation following the collapse of centralized Old Kingdom authority. There is also evidence of climatic disruption around this period, commonly associated with the 4.2-kiloyear event, which may have affected Nile flooding and agricultural production. Most Egyptologists favour the literary interpretation. Fair enough. But that doesn't mean the author couldn't have drawn upon real experiences of famine, violence, and political collapse. Ipuwer doesn't blame humanity. He questions why the divine or royal authority responsible for maintaining order has allowed everything to fall apart. Thousands of years ago, an Egyptian writer was already describing a society losing faith in its institutions, its leaders, and the powers supposedly protecting it. We've discussed ancient traditions describing gods destroying humanity through floods and other catastrophes. Here we see a description of civilization collapsing from within. No supernatural monsters required. No divine army descending from heaven. Just famine, violence, corruption, political breakdown, and the destruction of everything holding society together. Was this ancient literature warning future generations what could happen? Or was it preserving memories of what had already happened?