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Weather and Farming in Mamluk Egypt
Abstract
Weather events and phenomena – whether regular or exceptional – had a direct and critical impact on agriculture and were some of the most direct experiences with which individuals interacted with the natural world around them. Even as many elements of Egypt’s natural and environmental history remain to be studied, weather is among the least understood. Using contemporary chronicles and other annalistic sources, this paper will examine the reportage of weather events during the Mamluk period, especially those having an effect on farming and rural life. While river conditions — i.e. the success or failure of the annual Nile inundation — have been the key focus of climate-related discussions of agriculture in Egypt, this paper will look at other events that are frequently mentioned but less studied, such as wind, hail, ice, and extremes in heat or cold. Furthermore, the paper will analyze these descriptions with an eye towards recreating the worldview by which the Mamluk period contemporaries understood the natural world around themselves. This will include making connections into the religious sciences, astrology, and Galenic medicine among other subjects. Until now, the majority of environmental histories of Mamluk Egypt have focused on the technicalities of agriculture and its relationship to taxation; this paper will help to expand the subject into a new area.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Egypt
Sub Area
None