Posted on 11/29/2007 2:53:57 PM PST by blam
Sick Rams Used as Ancient Bioweapons
Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News
Once, a Weapon
Nov. 28, 2007 -- Infected rams and donkeys were the earliest bioweapons, according to a new study which dates the use of biological warfare back more than 3,300 years.
According to a review published in the Journal of Medical Hypotheses, two ancient populations, the Arzawans and the Hittites, engaged "in mutual use of contaminated animals" during the 1320-1318 B.C. Anatolian war.
"The animals were carriers of Francisella tularensis, the causative agent of tularemia," author Siro Trevisanato, a molecular biologist based in Oakville, Ontario, Canada told Discovery News.
Also known as "rabbit fever," tularemia is a devastating disease which even today can be fatal, if not treated with antibiotics. Its symptoms range from skin ulcers, swollen and painful lymph glands to pneumonia, fever, chills, progressive weakness and respiratory failure.
The disease affects animals such as rabbits, sheep and donkeys and it is passed on to humans through various routes, most commonly through the bite of infected ticks and deerflies.
First isolated in 1911, Francisella tularensis is highly infectious and is now considered one of the pathogens most likely to be used in bioterrorism attacks.
According to Trevisanato, the bacterium flourished in the Eastern Mediterranean toward the end of the 14th century B.C., when a long-lasting, deadly epidemic plagued most of the Middle East.
Known as the Hittite plague, the epidemic is clearly described in letters to the Egyptian king Akhenaten. A letter, dating around 1335 B.C., reports a pestilence in Simyra, a city near today’s border between Lebanon and Syria.
Despite efforts to contain the epidemic -- donkeys were banned from being used in caravans -- the disease contaminated an area stretching from Cyprus to Iraq and from Israel to Syria. Subsequently, wars spread the epidemic to central and Western Anatolia. Finally, Aegean soldiers fighting in western Anatolia returned home to their islands, further spreading the epidemic.
"A disease lasting 35-40 years, infecting humans and animals, causing fever, disabilities, and death, spreading via rodents aboard ships as well as donkeys, points to Francisella tularensis. Moreover, there is evidence that tularemia can be traced as far back as 2500 B.C. in the same area, implying that the region was endemic for the bacterium," Trevisanato said.
According to the researcher, the Hittites, whose empire stretched from modern-day Turkey to northern Syria, were severely hit by the disease after they attacked a weakened area around Simyra.
"The booty and prisoners of war left a contaminated trail," Trevisanato said.
Indeed, the plague spread in the Hittites homeland, and two kings died from it within a few years.
The weakened Hittite empire attracted the Arzawans from Western Anatolia and a new war, which lasted between 1320 and 1318 B.C., began. It was at this point that the Hittites used disease-ridden rams and donkeys with the purpose of infecting the enemy.
Records indicate that rams mysteriously began populating the roads in Arzawa. According to Trevisanato, they were sent off by the Hittites, who realized that the animals were involved with spreading the disease.
"The Hittites were weak when the Arzawans attacked them, yet they smashed the enemy within two years. Which kind of secret weapon did they know of to do this Bronze Age blitzkrieg, given their weakened troops and political mess?" posed Trevisanato.
To support the bioweapon theory, tablets dating to the 14-13th century B.C., describe how a ram and a woman attending the animal were sent on the road, spreading the disease along the way.
"The country that finds them shall take over this evil pestilence," the tablet said.
The practice was soon understood by the Arzawans who also reacted by sending their own infected rams on the road in the direction of the enemy troops.
"I agree that infected rams or donkeys driven into enemy territory by the Hittites may well have been the earliest documented biological weapon in the Near East," classical folklorist Adrienne Mayor, the author of "Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Weapons in the Ancient World," told Discovery News.
"Even older evidence for ancient understanding of contagion comes from Sumer (modern Syria). Archaeologists have found several royal letters on cuneiform tablets from the archives of Mari, a town on the Euphrates River.
The letters, dating to 1770 B.C., forbid people from plague-ridden towns to travel to healthy towns, and warn people not to touch or use the personal belongings of infected victims," Mayor said.
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Instead of the Trojan Horse...The Hittite Goat.
Thanks US007. GGG, among other things. :’)
The Tragic End of the Bronze Age:
A Virus Makes History
by Tom Slattery
Is that a good book. I’m looking for some books to buy...I’m out of (good) reading material.
What makes this a particularly interesting study of warfare is the identity of the Arzawa. They were a confederation of related peoples in what later became Lydia in western Asia Minor. The northernmost kingdom of the Arzawans was Wilusa, located neat the Hellespont. At that time Greek still used the letter ‘W’, later dropped. There is a famous story about fighting in Wilusa, or Ilusa, It is remembered as ‘The Iliad’, and Wilusa was located on the Troad, who’s only big city in ancient times is now known as Troy.
Ewe got that right.
LOL
Well, it’s difficult for me to say. I knew Slattery online for a while, on the About History forum. He didn’t seem to have any real evidence for his central thesis, which is that smallpox was the culprit. I have the book, and made an earnest effort to read it, and probably will someday read it, but couldn’t get into it. A search on Amazon used to turn up a dozen or so vanity-published titles by Tom, a variety of subjects.
Emil Forrer was correct. I was first turned onto this (I guess) by Michael Wood, who discusses Forrer and the Hattusas archive in his In Search of the Trojan War.ANE Digest Number 357There is an Akagamunas (Akaiamunas?), apparently the Achaian king, appearing in the hethite correspondence. He was tentatively equivalated, I think by Forrer, with the homeric Agamemnon. Most of Forrers equation are today in low esteem, even if his name is still among the leader hethitologists. There are no objective grounds against this very equation but only natural skepsis. Should one hold his equation, one gets Akaiamunas/Akaiamenon >> Agamemnon. This as Idomeneos and Menelaos (variant of the lawagetas) would thus be just titles, no personal names.
From: Banyai Michael Leonberg
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1998
"These vague resemblances do not look like mere chance; Achaiwoi/Ahhiyawa; Alaksandus/Alexandros [Paris]; Wilusa/Wilios; Taruisa/Troia: each in isolation presents problems, but four resemblances is pressing coincidence too far." (p 207, italics in original)Wood also mentions Tawagalawas which IMHO could be Achilles (Ta-Agalawas) and Etewokleweios which IMHO could be Eteocles.
Mycenaean and Hittite Diplomatic Correspondence: Fact and Fiction [ PDF file ]
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | circa 2004 | H. Craig Melchert
Posted on 05/03/2007 1:59:47 PM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1827901/posts
In Ruin, Symbols on a Stone Hint at a Lost Asian Culture
Source: The New York Times
Published: May 13, 2001 Author: JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Posted on 05/12/2001 11:44:35 PDT by sarcasm
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3afd84936a40.htm
7 Posted on 05/12/2001 13:05:10 PDT by blam
http://www.FreeRepublic.com/forum/a3afd84936a40.htm#7
Was There a Trojan War?
Archaeology | May/June 2004 | Manfred Korfmann
Posted on 07/30/2004 2:43:38 AM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1181498/posts
Arzawa
The House of David (not the vanished religious sect by that name) | circa 2002 | David R Ross
Posted on 11/26/2004 10:32:25 PM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1289143/posts
...Zangger identifies the “Ekwesh” or “Aqaiwasha” with the Achaeans... and the “Denyen” with the Danaoi... alternate names for the Hellenes familiar from Homer, with the further suggestion that the term “Achaeans” derives from a hypothesized ancient Pelasgian word “*acha”, which would mean water. This theory implies that the Philistines were part of this Greek-speaking confederacy.
http://www.halfvalue.com/wiki.jsp?topic=Sea_Peoples
Knowing a little about the Mid Easterner’s love of his sheep, I wonder if you’d class these as deep penetration agents.
No doubt the purpose was to pull the wool over their eyes.
Was this the plague that killed two Hittite kings, Suppiluliumas I and his son Arnuwandas III?
Dangit, nully, there you go again...glad I read down the thread this time. Can we airdrop ‘em?
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