GAH: No Mediterranean Sea

[Thermopylae]

Inspired by the two previous GAH threads...

No Mediterranean! The Nile, Rhone, etc empty out into small lakes rather than the sea. What happens, y'all?!

 

[stevep]

Inspired by the two previous GAH threads...

No Mediterranean! The Nile, Rhone, etc empty out into small lakes rather than the sea. What happens, y'all?!

I think the climate for the Med. region would be a lot worse. Quite possibly never even any Saharan wet period in the last Ice Age. The areas north of the Alps might be less badly affected but probably still colder and drier.

This of course would mean that virtually all the civilisations west of Mesopotamia wouldn't exist in anything like recognisable form. Europe would be even more isolated and small in resources until any industrial revolution occurs, if it still does.

Steve

 

[chunkeymonkey13q]

Oh, I'll go get Straha, he'll love to share his ideas about the Mediterranean abyss!

 

[NomadicSky]

wouldn't the sea level be higher?

 

[Michael B]

This of course would mean that virtually all the civilisations west of Mesopotamia wouldn't exist in anything like recognisable form. Europe would be even more isolated and small in resources until any industrial revolution occurs, if it still does.

You certainly would not get the pre Classical Europeans civilisations. However, once iron tools become available it becomes possible to work the forest along the Atlantic and Baltic coasts. Rome would either be in Normandy or Denmark.

A lower population is going to reduce the quantity of imports from the East which is going to reduce flow of gold in the opposite direction. Conseqentally, the Chinese are going to be a little poorer.

One piece of technology that is going to take longer to reach Europe is the sail. Northern Europeans gained knowledge of it via Mediterranean culture, and in the case of Scandinavia, not until circum 500-600 AD. In this AH they are going to have to independentally invent it themselves.

 

[Anthony Appleyard]

The Mediterranean Sea would be an empty hot dry salt-floored sink, with some brine lakes in the deepest hollows. See this link. Most of the lands around the Med would be much drier. Travel across the Mediterrranean Sink would be very difficult because of extreme heat much worse than in any OTL desert. This scenario is used in Down in the Bottomlands which Harry Turtledove wrote in 1993.

Eventually man would find a way to run (sealed air-conditioned) passenger railway trains and work vehicles across the endless hot miles of the dry abyssal plains.

There would be no Egypt as we know it, only a super-Grand Canyon 8000 feet deep at Cairo and hundreds of feet deep at Aswan.

There would be much chance for hydroelectricity where rivers run off the continent into the Sink.

 

[Mark]

A lot depends on how the Mediterranean Sea disappeared. If the Straits of Gibralter are higher, then you end up with highly saline lakes in the deepest portions of the basin. Ken Hsu wrote a popular book a while ago about the evidence and Turtledove has a story based on this.

Another option is that Africa moves north faster than OTL and we end up with Himalaya-styled Alps. Considering that humans spread out from Africa, that would really change our distribution patterns.

 

[Smaug]

Seems to me this would ruin the whole flood myth. If no Med., how can there be a Flood Myth?

Assuming that the Flood Myth, was caused by the Bosphorous(?) being flooded, that might affect the core of many religions... Not just the Bible, But Gilgamesh and other recurrent Flood Myths.

Just Saying.

 

[pa_dutch]

Would it be correct to say that the Americas would be one of the few places that won't be affected? Taking away the Mediterranean kills Egypt, Greece, and Rome, and hurts the development of Mesopotamia, India, and China, but civilization should still arise in Mesoamerica and the Andes relatively right on time.

 

[Albidoom]

Well, China could be less impacted by this (apart from possible climatic changes, but those can occur anywhere), but they still might turn inwise as they did OTL, with a non-developing Europe and Mid-East there are only barbarians outside of China (India depends on how the TL develops), so the Americas might be left on their own for a bit longer.
On the other side, with no profitable European kingdoms to raid, the Vikings or whatever this ATL would bring up might actually focus more on Vinland and this could bring a succesful settlement there, though this still would give Mesoamerica and the south more time. And if they're hit with the, ahem, 'eurasian' plagues earlier (due to more Viking settlers and maybe traders/explorers that travel farther south), they could have recovered from it by the time someone gets itchy and thinks about conquest.

 

[Michael B]

On the other side, with no profitable European kingdoms to raid, the Vikings or whatever this ATL would bring up might actually focus more on Vinland and this could bring a succesful settlement there.

Alternatively they could do more of what they did in the East, namely trade.