A Sixth Century Chronicle Records the Sun Darkening, the Ocean Churning, and Birds Dying in the Snow

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The geological and dendrochronological evidence for the 536 AD event is compelling on its own terms. What makes it viscerally real is the contemporary human record. Randall Carlson reads from a chronicle that describes the experience of living through it - the earth shaking, the sun darkening by day and the moon by night, the ocean churning with spray. The account runs from the 24th of March through to the 24th of June of the following year - more than a year of sustained atmospheric disruption recorded in real time by someone living through it.
In Mesopotamia, the winter that followed was severe beyond anything in living memory. Snow fell in quantities so large and so prolonged that birds perished in it. The phrase the chronicler reaches for is plain and devastating in its simplicity - there was distress among men from these evil things. Behind the formal language is the reality of famine, crop failure, livestock death, and the collapse of everything a settled agricultural society depends on to survive a winter.

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