Climate of Egypt Between Dryness and Torrential Rainfall: Patterns of Climate Variability

Natural disasters have often shaped human history, sometimes opening new perspectives, in other cases blocking the development of the society or driving important changes. From this point of view it is important the knowledge of the past in order not only to understand the evolution of the human history, but also to contribute to understand the present evolution and to possibly contribute to the solution of current problems related to changes of natural environmental conditions, including climate. In the framework of the ISMA - CNR Project "Plagues of Egypt", a complex and multidisciplinary study is being conducted on the natural disasters in ancient Egypt, including eruptions, earthquakes, floods and wars, famines and epidemics, analysing a series of different sources including, among others, archaeological data and ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. A database has been compiled containing details of several heavy rain events occurred in ancient Egypt at Thebes (the actual Luxor), and will be presented, together with the discussion of the atmospheric conditions leading to heavy rainfall in an arid context such as the Theban region.