Teh One Who Knocks
06-19-2014, 11:52 AM
By Tom Rawle - The Daily Star
http://i.imgur.com/6fABjAK.jpg
Evidence of the pandemic has been found in Egypt where writers and researchers have linked the contagious disease to the apocalypse.
During one epidemic around 250AD, it was said the plague almost wiped out entire Roman Empire, killing 5,000 people a day in the Italian capital.
Lead researcher of the recent discovery, Francesco Tiradritti, explained that the disease was so dangerous that is has kept the area untouched where it was found in in the ancient city of Thebes.
He said the disease "doomed it to centuries of oblivion" because of its high death rate.
Tiradritti and his team from the Italian Archaeological Mission to Luxor (MAIL) found incinerated bodies covered in lime who were thrown into the depths of the valleys in attempt to rid the plague from Egypt.
The plague, known as the Plague of Cyprian, was most dangerous from 250AD to 300AD.
It killed millions around the globe and even claimed the life of Roman emperor Claudius II.
Saint Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, Tunisia, was an early Christian writer and linked it to the end of the world as he heard stories of it spreading from country to country.
He wrote: "The kingdom of God, beloved brethren, is beginning to be at hand."
Describing the symptoms of the smallpox-like illness, he said: "Their intestines are shaken with a continual vomiting, [and] the eyes are on fire with the injected blood.
"In some cases the feet or some parts of the limbs are taken off by the contagion."
Pontius the deacon, who served under Cyprian, wrote of the plague: "All were shuddering, fleeing, shunning the contagion, impiously exposing their own friends, as if with the exclusion of the person who was sure to die of the plague, one could exclude death itself also."
The discovery team's research was published in the journal Egyptian Archaeology as they still continue to dig for more evidence.
Yet Tiradritti said extracting the DNA from the dead bodies would be impossible.
He said: "In a climate like Egypt, the DNA is completely destroyed."
Researchers are now hoping to find live samples of the disease elsewhere around the globe.
But warn that it would have to be carefully contained to avoid a new epidemic.
http://i.imgur.com/6fABjAK.jpg
Evidence of the pandemic has been found in Egypt where writers and researchers have linked the contagious disease to the apocalypse.
During one epidemic around 250AD, it was said the plague almost wiped out entire Roman Empire, killing 5,000 people a day in the Italian capital.
Lead researcher of the recent discovery, Francesco Tiradritti, explained that the disease was so dangerous that is has kept the area untouched where it was found in in the ancient city of Thebes.
He said the disease "doomed it to centuries of oblivion" because of its high death rate.
Tiradritti and his team from the Italian Archaeological Mission to Luxor (MAIL) found incinerated bodies covered in lime who were thrown into the depths of the valleys in attempt to rid the plague from Egypt.
The plague, known as the Plague of Cyprian, was most dangerous from 250AD to 300AD.
It killed millions around the globe and even claimed the life of Roman emperor Claudius II.
Saint Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, Tunisia, was an early Christian writer and linked it to the end of the world as he heard stories of it spreading from country to country.
He wrote: "The kingdom of God, beloved brethren, is beginning to be at hand."
Describing the symptoms of the smallpox-like illness, he said: "Their intestines are shaken with a continual vomiting, [and] the eyes are on fire with the injected blood.
"In some cases the feet or some parts of the limbs are taken off by the contagion."
Pontius the deacon, who served under Cyprian, wrote of the plague: "All were shuddering, fleeing, shunning the contagion, impiously exposing their own friends, as if with the exclusion of the person who was sure to die of the plague, one could exclude death itself also."
The discovery team's research was published in the journal Egyptian Archaeology as they still continue to dig for more evidence.
Yet Tiradritti said extracting the DNA from the dead bodies would be impossible.
He said: "In a climate like Egypt, the DNA is completely destroyed."
Researchers are now hoping to find live samples of the disease elsewhere around the globe.
But warn that it would have to be carefully contained to avoid a new epidemic.