The Black Death Was History's Most Lethal Plague. Now Scientists Say They Know Where It Started

CBC ^ | Sep 23, 2023 | Isabelle Gallant

[nickcarraway]

The headstone of the believer Sanmaq, from a graveyard in the Lake Issyk-Kul region of present-day Kyrgyzstan. The epitaph on his headstone, written in Syriac, reads: 'In the Year 1649 (AD 1337–8), died of pestilence (mawtānā).' This photo was taken during the original excavations in the late 19th century. (A.S. Leybin)

In the late 19th century, archeologists excavated this cemetery in the Chu-Valley of Kyrgyzstan within the foothills of the Tian Shan mountains. (A.S. Leybin)

A gravestone from the medieval cemetery in Kyrgyzstan. Researchers found stones like this with engravings identifying victims of 'pestilence' from 1338 and 1339. (Pier-Giorgio Borbone)

The medieval bubonic plague outbreak known as the Black Death may have killed up to 200 million people. This miniature by Pierart dou Tielt (c. 1353) illustrates the people of Tournai in Belgium burying plague victims. (Pierart dou Tielt )

[CatOwner]

Wuhan?

[Migraine]

Great post; thanks for the pics!

[MIchaelTArchangel]

I suppose Issyk was not a Kul a place as the Kyrgyzstanis thought it was.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

With the CDC? Did they start mail-in voting and mask wearing? Did they try to flatten the curve?

[butlerweave]

The Climate Cult is the Plague of today

[null and void]

Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan? Not Wuhan?

[nickcarraway]

YW

[aculeus]

“the Black Death may have killed up to 200 million people”

Good grief!

[Fiji Hill]

"Those gravestones...stated very precisely that the cause of the death of those individuals was 'pestilence."

"Pestilence" was the term used at the time. The term "black death" was coined in the eighteenth century.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

The [Kyrgyzstan] graveyard had clearly marked and dated gravestones that showed an unusually high number of burials in the years 1338 and 1339.

Their gravestones are legible after almost 700 years? How come most gravestones in the US before the mid 1800s are illegible?

"It was really bound to start with local marmots, because the marmot is the most prevalent type of plague-carrying rodent in that region." Salvin said

"Marmots? You ain't pinning that on us, bub!! No way, Jose. We've been here quietly minding our own business. Go see what those Chinese fellas have to say."

(I spotted these guys way up high on Blackcomb Mountain in Whistler, BC a couple weeks ago).

[Fiji Hill]

It was really bound to start with local marmots, because the marmot is the most prevalent type of plague-carrying rodent in that region.

In this country, marmots are also known as groundhogs or woodchucks.

[mass55th]

It was carried by body lice too, which was very prevalent in those days, even during the London plague of 1665.

[j.havenfarm]

Damned marmots. I always suspected those guys

[oldvirginian]

I’ve never bought into the flea bite theory.
It’s more likely that Y Pestis made the jump from animal to human due to human consumption of marmots and other carriers of the disease.
In the time period and place in question it was common for the poorest of the poor to subsist on poor diets with marmot making up the bulk of their meat.

Because their diets were poor those people had compromised immune systems. What does a disease do when it meets a compromised immune system for long periods of time? It gets stronger until it can overcome even healthy immune systems, just like ailments today are becoming drug resistant versions of the original.

Even today marmots are considered a delicacy among the poor in the steppes of Eurasia. As a boy the youth who would become Genghis Khan had to hunt marmots to see that his mother and siblings were fed.

[Rural_Michigan]

Nice marmot

[Carriage Hill]

1st & 3rd rock carvings look like Templar Crosses:

[nagant]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050325234239.htm

~~~~~
Biologists at the University of Liverpool have discovered how the plagues of the Middle Ages have made around 10% of Europeans resistant to HIV.
~~~~~

[Right Brother]

Like Covid, the black death came from China. Sorry to say, but China is a cesspool of filth. Always has been.

[ckilmer]

One thing about the black death of the middle ages is that it killed a smaller percentage of the population of europe than the diseases of europe and africa kill the populations of the americas. The black death killed maybe 60% of the population of Europe where as the 95@% of the population of the new world was killed by european and african diseases.

that suggested that europe already had some immunity to the plague. how did that happen. Scientists got their answer in the last couple years. Somewhere around 2800 bc the first black death visited europe. It also came from central asia. It wiped out large sections of the european population which was a combination of western hunter gatherers and anatolian farmers. Right after that steppe herders from modern ukraine moved in and over a 1000 years replaced all the men of europe. so that male with european ancestry traces his lineage back to these people.