What if Africa teleported 100 miles west and south in 262 AD, opening up the Mediterranean to the oceans?

[raharris1973]

What if Africa teleported 100 miles west and south in 262 AD, opening up the Mediterranean to the oceans?

262 is the second year of the reign of Julian, aka Julian the Apostate, and the year he announced the end of official favor for Christianity, and began renewed imperial patronage of a new pagan priesthood and pagan temples.

The significant widening of the strait of Gibraltar should allow greater scale interactions of Atlantic and Mediterranean marine organizations, and more significantly, unimpeded interactions of sea currents and storm systems that I would imagine would intensify storms, waves, and tidal effects in the Mediterranean. The biological and climatological changes should be even more severe on the eastern end of the Mediterranean, where, formerly separated from the Red Sea and Indian Ocean by land, the Mediterranean is now connected to the Red Sea by a wide 100 mile strait between mainland Egypt just east of the Nile delta, to the Sinai peninsula, Palestine, and Arabia. This allows the marine ecosystems of the Mediterranean and Red Sea/Indian Ocean for the first time in millions of years and for invasive species to spread, and for ocean currents to mix with each other or collide later with fewer obstacles. The Red Sea is widened as Africa's southward, and especially westward movement from Arabia makes the Bab al Mandeb strait substantially wider.

Changes to the landscape will be regarded as awesome, not in the positive, California surfer sense, but in the - this is a big deal sense, at least as frightening as amazing. And since it will ruin plans for provisioning fishing trips and and to unexpected and rough storms, and cause be to be lost at sea or lost to storm surges, the change will be associated with disasters. Nevertheless, the distances Africa is displaced are certainly not so great and the seamanship skills and technology of these 4th century Romans are not so poor that the African coast would lose contact with the European and Asian coasts and trade would be seriously depleted for any length of time.

Additionally, diversion, dilution, and alternation of ocean currents should not drastic change temperature scales such as to drain all the warming water from the North Atlantic, to end up freezing down Northern European shores. The role of the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic drift as a super novel, fragile, delicate almost accidental thing whose absence means northern latitudes default to ice is probably overrated anyway. Especially if we compare to matching latitudes off the western coast of, say, British Columbia and southern Alaska.

Anyhow. How does world civilizational development proceed with a very wide, natural Suez Canal in place from 362 AD onward. Populations in the Roman Empire had already been declining, forcing a reduction in economic specialization, and plagues were going to spread, but would greater ease of trade connections with India and East Africa by sea, help reinvigorate trade and economic activity, even while contributing to the common disease pool? What about changes for greater cultural interchange and religious proselytizing between the Roman world, India, and China?

 

[Buba]

A fun scenario I wondered about myself.
The shunt by 150km should not cause revolutionary cimate changes.
Maybe the Atlas gets a bit drier?
Ethiopia and Yeman same, with weaker East African monsoon (or maybe there is no change there). Impact on Nile water regime should be negligible or nil.
No Lespessian Invansion. To the contrary, Red Sea species accustumed to above average salinity and below average oxygen levels are wiped out.
In the southernmost part of Africa the temperate/Mediterranean climate zone should expand.

The 80nm or so open sea between Europe and Africa could make navigation more difficult, making grain shipments problematic. Or maybe not ... with there being a need, there could be advances in shipbuilding and/or navigation which did not happen in OTL for 1000 years or longer.
North Africa and/or Egypt could break away. The latter is no longer reacable by armies marching overland, while the former no longer accessible by "in sight of land" navigation (and possibly drier and less valuable).
Coast hugging trade with India expands, I'd say. The route was known, the bother being the transhipping in Egypt.
If the Silk Road is killed off, which I consider plausible (more Med-India traffic leads to some genius shipping silk from Canton) then Persia is weakened (no reveue from transit fees).

No Vandals in NA - they get wiped out in Hispania.
No push for sea route around Africa.
Discovery of America put off? Or accidentaly discovered by more advanced ships earlier?

 

[Buba]

BTW - I agree that Golfstrom is alive and well. We can see in the Paific and Indian Oceans that the gyres work very well (with interesting currents in Indonesia/PNG).

The c.150km shift south should (minimally) push rainforest and forest-savannah zones north. Slightly bigger Lake Chad? Easier trans-Saharan traffic? Bigger Senegal River (does this change anything?). Bigger Niger? Nile gains left bank tributuaries?

 

[ATP]

Muslims never get to Europe,or even not conqer anytching.They could win after Romans and Persians exhausted each other,here such thing would simply not happen./weaker Persia,and romans sending less troops there - no big war/
Islam as arab religion,and those still living on their old lands.

Vandals could still come,if there were better ships there.

 

[Buba]

There will be no Islam here.

 

[ATP]

There will be no Islam here.

Why not? Machomet or somebody else would start some religion there,and,with weaker Persia and roman forces there,they could take Arabia - and,notching more.
Becouse there would be no big Persia/ERE war here.

 

[Buba]

Why not?

Almost 300 years of changes.
There could also be climatic changes in the Hejaz which, in a borderline area like that, could be quite dramatic. Maybe no Mecca and/or Medina? Well dried up? Wiped out by Beduins?

 

[willdelve4beer]

What would be inevitably considered a Divine intervention on a massive scale to move Africa and the wealth of Egypt farther from the heart of the Roman empire, disrupting pretty much all mediterranean trade for weeks or months, and possibly resulting in tidal surges up the Bosphorous is going to be interpreted by many as a reaction to Justinian's declaration. Whether this is considered a positive or negative omen will vary by group, but all will consider it a reaction.

You should expect to see numerous new cults and offshoots of more established faiths in reaction to this event. You may even see another Jewish offshoot sect in the Arab hinterlands, growing in the same areas, and for some of the same reasons, that islam was successful in OTL. Both these and other butterflies remove islam, replacing it with one or more abrahamic splinter groups.

I need to recheck maps - but Africa moving due west 100 miles, doesn't seem to open up the gibraltar straights /that much/. Sure, they'll be wider than today, but still very close in nautical terms. So any Africa - Iberian Peninsula interactions should still be taking place. The bigger impacts are along the former Red Sea and the Eastern med, I would think?

While ship building will move faster in this world (one would think, with the need to reach those Nile granaries not going away), there's obviously going to be no Suez canal. No suez, no land route to Egypt, different religious mix - Judea just went from being the crossroads of the world-continent to another coastal backwater.

Open and easy ocean route to east Asia probably butterflies away a Columbus equivalent, unless another militant space-filling empire shows up to block /both/ the silk road and the sea-routes - seems unlikely.

sorry - last thought - open sea route means earlier/greater interaction with India/Indonesia - not just trade, but culture as well. I can't speculate on the results, but at the very least, European cuisine will be notably improved.

 

[Buba]

West AND South

 

[willdelve4beer]

West AND South

ah. gotcha.

Wait - what happens to the Cape of good hope? The south polar current circling the antarctic is pretty important, right? (sorry, not from that half of the planet, so unclear on the distances). Pretty sure that anything disrupting that would have notable climate impacts somewhere.

 

[Buba]

This is a tiny move of up to 150km, the circumpolar current will should not be affected. There are bigger bottlenecks then the Arica-Antarctica "gap", like the Davies Strait.
Maybe a 10 degree move, of 1000km would be more "exciting"

 

[ATP]

Almost 300 years of changes.
There could also be climatic changes in the Hejaz which, in a borderline area like that, could be quite dramatic. Maybe no Mecca and/or Medina? Well dried up? Wiped out by Beduins?

True.And even if Mecca keep standing and Machomet lived and decide to become prophet,with weaker Persia and less roan soldiers there there would be no any major war which could lead to chance for taking them both.

 

[raharris1973]

North Africa and/or Egypt could break away. The latter is no longer reacable by armies marching overland, while the former no longer accessible by "in sight of land" navigation (and possibly drier and less valuable).

They could split. They could stick together with common institutions. The main thing is that is Egypt and North Africa should be invasion-proofed against foreign invaders like Germanics, Huns, or Persians, and will always be redoubt of Roman or Roman lineage/Roman-descended government, even if all of Europe or all of West Asia are eventually lost.

No Vandals in NA - they get wiped out in Hispania.

Most likely-

BTW - I agree that Golfstrom is alive and well. We can see in the Paific and Indian Oceans that the gyres work very well (with interesting currents in Indonesia/PNG).

Yes, but often in these types of discussions people speak as if *any* landmass move makes all ocean currents go completely wild and random and ruin everybody's climate and growing season, and think at Europe's latitude it's natural temperature is a deep freeze. I think the way gyres work, it just seems to be the west coasts of continents in the northern hemisphere are warmer, and the east coasts are cooler.

The c.150km shift south should (minimally) push rainforest and forest-savannah zones north. Slightly bigger Lake Chad? Easier trans-Saharan traffic? Bigger Senegal River (does this change anything?). Bigger Niger? Nile gains left bank tributuaries?

Mmm, I guess it'll push the desert right up to the ocean front right in Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, (it was already the case in Libya). But if it shrinks the width of the desert and thus makes for easier trans-Saharan traffic, I expect to see more cultural, religious, genetic, and biological exchange between the north coast of Africa and the Nile valley and the Sahel savannah and rainforest areas and the Berbers, Punics, African Romance, Copts, and Sub-Saharan Africans.

What would be inevitably considered a Divine intervention on a massive scale to move Africa and the wealth of Egypt farther from the heart of the Roman empire, disrupting pretty much all mediterranean trade for weeks or months, and possibly resulting in tidal surges up the Bosphorous is going to be interpreted by many as a reaction to Justinian's declaration. Whether this is considered a positive or negative omen will vary by group, but all will consider it a reaction.

I think you mean *Julian's* declaration. I think another deity was his bag and neoplatonism was his philosophy, but somebody's gonna say Neptune is making a show. Meanwhile Christians will be saying their God was PO'ed.

The bigger impacts are along the former Red Sea and the Eastern med, I would think?

Yep.

Judea just went from being the crossroads of the world-continent to another coastal backwater.

Well, still religiously significant to Abrahamic religions. But yeah, not an intercontinental crossroads.

 

[Buba]

1 They could split. They could stick together with common institutions. The main thing is that is Egypt and North Africa should be invasion-proofed against foreign invaders like Germanics, Huns, or Persians, and will always be redoubt of Roman or Roman lineage/Roman-descended government, even if all of Europe or all of West Asia are eventually lost.

1 - all are possibilities, and quite likely.
Nevertheless Egypt could go "local", with Coptic replacing Greek.
Africa could succumb to some local Numidian warlord.
Hence "eternal redoubt of Greco-Roman civilisation" is possible, but not a given.

2 - Yes, but often in these types of discussions people speak as if *any* landmass move makes all ocean currents go completely wild and random and ruin everybody's climate and growing season, and think at Europe's latitude it's natural temperature is a deep freeze. I think the way gyres work, it just seems to be the west coasts of continents in the northern hemisphere are warmer, and the east coasts are cooler.

2 - or simply not enough change to notice. In Europe at least. I see the Arabian Peninsula and Abyssynian Highland as the area of bggest possible changes (which still should not be too dramatic - but what do I know?).

3 - Mmm, I guess it'll push the desert right up to the ocean front right in Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, (it was already the case in Libya). But if it shrinks the width of the desert and thus makes for easier trans-Saharan traffic, I expect to see more cultural, religious, genetic, and biological exchange between the north coast of Africa and the Nile valley and the Sahel savannah and rainforest areas and the Berbers, Punics, African Romance, Copts, and Sub-Saharan Africans.

3 - on one hand the Sahara reaches the coast in Libya, on the other hand the mountains/hills of Cyrenica and Tripolitania catch enough mosture as to suppot steppe/forest steppe there. In NA you have the big Atlas Mts. - I imagine the southernmost range - the Saharan Atlas - getting drier. But the SHott Plateau may be unchanged, while the coast will almost certainly be unchanged.

Let us not go overboard with a smaller Sahara - 100-200km difference. Maybe matters, maybe does not. Nor do I expect that much traffic - in Roman times the Sahara was less desertificated than today. There is an account of a Roman explorer who crossed it by horse!
It were camels+salt for gold tradewhich led to the NA cooast having an impact on the Sahel. And Islamic proselytism as, as we see in Nusantara, the Koran Follows Trade.

Well, still religiously significant to Abrahamic religions. But yeah, not an intercontinental crossroads.

Plaestine was a backwater, not a crossroads. Movement of goods and ideas was through Mesopotamia. To some extent - Egypt.



4 - maybe Sassanids can into fleet to a larger degree? OTL maps show then controlling Yemen and UAE, so they must have had some sealift capacity. Here is more incentive for them - or their Iraqui or Sind vassals - to become more maritime oriented.

 

[ATP]

Sassanids made 2 princes in Oman their vassals in OTL.

 

[raharris1973]

1 - all are possibilities, and quite likely.
Nevertheless Egypt could go "local", with Coptic replacing Greek.
Africa could succumb to some local Numidian warlord.
Hence "eternal redoubt of Greco-Roman civilisation" is possible, but not a given.

2 - or simply not enough change to notice. In Europe at least. I see the Arabian Peninsula and Abyssynian Highland as the area of bggest possible changes (which still should not be too dramatic - but what do I know?).

3 - on one hand the Sahara reaches the coast in Libya, on the other hand the mountains/hills of Cyrenica and Tripolitania catch enough mosture as to suppot steppe/forest steppe there. In NA you have the big Atlas Mts. - I imagine the southernmost range - the Saharan Atlas - getting drier. But the SHott Plateau may be unchanged, while the coast will almost certainly be unchanged.

Let us not go overboard with a smaller Sahara - 100-200km difference. Maybe matters, maybe does not. Nor do I expect that much traffic - in Roman times the Sahara was less desertificated than today. There is an account of a Roman explorer who crossed it by horse!
It were camels+salt for gold tradewhich led to the NA cooast having an impact on the Sahel. And Islamic proselytism as, as we see in Nusantara, the Koran Follows Trade.

Plaestine was a backwater, not a crossroads. Movement of goods and ideas was through Mesopotamia. To some extent - Egypt.



4 - maybe Sassanids can into fleet to a larger degree? OTL maps show then controlling Yemen and UAE, so they must have had some sealift capacity. Here is more incentive for them - or their Iraqui or Sind vassals - to become more maritime oriented.

On 1. I guess we can’t rule out absolute the possibility of native African forces (Numidian, Mauritanian, Garamantian, Punic, of course Berber/Amazigh) in northwest Africa someday rising and replacing the Roman regime, or the Afro-Asiatic Coptics doing it in Egypt, with *absolute* certitude. But the Coptics in particular do not seem to have an impressive record of military feats or rebellions against Greek, Roman, or Islamic overlords. Africa just seems the least endangered fragment of the Roman lands, with its fertility and limited exposure to invaders. Europe, dealing with free ranging Huns, Goths, Germanics, Alan’s, soon to be joined by Slavs, seems much more endangered. And Roman Asia is menaced by a resurging Persia and another Hunmic axis of attack, and eventually an Arab threat.

2 & 3 make sense to me

Your response on 4, sassanid motivation to go more naval, makes a whole lot of sense to me! The Sassanids will want trade goods, both African and Mediterranean, and will need shipping improvements to do it over a longer distance and protect it. All water routes to Mediterranean trade partners can cut out middlemen and time involved. Iraqi, Sindhi subjects would be interested, as well as Omani vassals. If, like OTL they eventually want to restore the Achaemenid empire territory, navy would be a handy adjunct, and conquest of Phoenicia could add more naval resources.

 

[raharris1973]

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