The 957 Caspian Sea earthquake took place in the
Caspian Sea and its vicinity in 957 (
Hijri year 346).
[Antonopoulos, 1980]
History
The earthquake is mentioned by several
Arab and
Syriac chronicle
A chronicle ( la, chronica, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and lo ...
writers, who claimed that it mainly affected the region of
Persian Iraq. The initial shocks lasted 40 days, but ceased for a while. The main earthquake then occurred, damaging the cities of
Ray
Ray may refer to:
Fish
* Ray (fish), any cartilaginous fish of the superorder Batoidea
* Ray (fish fin anatomy), a bony or horny spine on a fin
Science and mathematics
* Ray (geometry), half of a line proceeding from an initial point
* Ray (g ...
,
Talikan, and
Hulwan. A reported number of 150 villages were supposedly destroyed by the earthquake.
[Antonopoulos, 1980]
The earthquake was described by among others
Miskawayh
Ibn Miskawayh ( fa, مُسْکُـوْيَه Muskūyah, 932–1030), full name Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb ibn Miskawayh was a Persian chancery official of the Buyid era, and philosopher and historian from Parandak, Iran. As ...
(11th century),
Ibn al-Jawzi (12th century),
Bar Hebraeus (13th century),
Ali ibn al-Athir (13th century),
George Elmacin
Jirjis al-Makīn ( ar, جرجس امكين ; 1205–1273), known by his ''nisba'' Ibn al-ʿAmīd ( ar, بن العميد), was a Coptic Christian historian who wrote in Arabic. His name is sometimes anglicised as George Elmacin ( la, Georgius Elm ...
(13th century),
Abu'l-Fida
Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī b. Maḥmūd b. Muḥammad b. ʿUmar b. Shāhanshāh b. Ayyūb b. Shādī b. Marwān ( ar, إسماعيل بن علي بن محمود بن محمد بن عمر بن شاهنشاه بن أيوب بن شادي بن مروان ...
(14th century),
Al-Suyuti
Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti ( ar, جلال الدين السيوطي, Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī) ( 1445–1505 CE),; (Brill 2nd) or Al-Suyuti, was an Arab Egyptian polymath, Islamic scholar, historian, Sufi, and jurist. From a family of Persian or ...
(15th century), and
Kâtip Çelebi (17th century).
[Antonopoulos, 1980]
Al-Suyuti's narrative indicates a severe
paroxysm of this earthquake. He reported that a
mountain in the vicinity of Ray sunk, and that a chasm (
canyon
A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tenden ...
) was created by the earthquake. Fetid water and smoke reportedly emerged from the chasm. An entire village was swallowed by the chasm, along with its inhabitants.
[Antonopoulos, 1980] Talikan reportedly sunk into the ground, and there were about 30 survivors from the city's population.
[Antonopoulos, 1980] Hulwan was engulfed. The earthquake caused water from the ground to emerge in the surface, and also caused bones from the city's tombs to resurface.
[Antonopoulos, 1980]
According to Al-Suyuti, Abu'l-Fida, and Bar Hebraeus, the Capian Sea ("Great Sea" in their narratives), sunk , and retired from its previous coast. New "rocks" (
skerries
A skerry is a small rocky island, usually defined to be too small for habitation.
Skerry, skerries, or The Skerries may also refer to:
Geography
Northern Ireland
* Skerries, County Armagh, a townland in County Armagh
* Skerry, County Antrim, a ...
) and
islands appeared due to this withdrawal. Miskawayh reports that the changes in the coastal formations perplexed the
sailors who navigated the Caspian Sea. An additional detail reported by a chronicle is that the Caspian Sea seemed to be in a state of
convulsion
A convulsion is a medical condition where the body muscles contract and relax rapidly and repeatedly, resulting in uncontrolled shaking. Because epileptic seizures typically include convulsions, the term ''convulsion'' is sometimes used as a s ...
at the time of the disaster.
[Antonopoulos, 1980]
The narratives indicate that this earthquake caused extensive
faulting, and permanent
crustal deformation
Orogeny is a mountain building process. An orogeny is an event that takes place at a convergent plate margin when plate motion compresses the margin. An ''orogenic belt'' or ''orogen'' develops as the compressed plate crumples and is uplifted t ...
. The deformation itself caused the elevation of the coasts of the Caspian Sea. It seems probable that the event also caused a "seismic sea wave" (
tsunami), though this is not clearly indicated in the primary sources.
[Antonopoulos, 1980]
Historical debates
The historians
Johann Jakob Reiske
Johann Jakob Reiske (Neo-Latin: Johannes Jacobus Reiskius; December 25, 1716 – August 14, 1774) was a German scholar and physician. He was a pioneer in the fields of Arabic and Byzantine philology as well as Islamic numismatics.
Biography
Reisk ...
(18th century) and
E. A. Wallis Budge
Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge (27 July 185723 November 1934) was an English Egyptologist, Orientalist, and philologist who worked for the British Museum and published numerous works on the ancient Near East. He made numerous trips ...
(20th century) interpreted the sources as indicating an earthquake in the
Persian Gulf rather than the Caspian Sea.
Robert Mallet (19th century) instead interpreted the sources as indicating the location of the earthquake in the Caspian Sea. At least some of the primary sources locate the areas affected by the earthquake within the province of
Jibal in the
Abbasid Caliphate.
[Antonopoulos, 1980]
Sources
*
References
{{Earthquakes in Iran
957
10th-century earthquakes
10th century in the Abbasid Caliphate
History of the Caspian Sea
Jibal
Earthquakes in the Abbasid Caliphate
Earthquakes in Iran