At the first hour of the
night, there appeared a wonderful sign in the sky, which was to
tell Constantine the worthy, emperor of Constantinople, that his
proud empire was to come to an end. Nicolo Barbaro
... one of the 7 most
important explosive eruptions in the last ten millennia and ...
comparable in strength to the Santorini eruption in Greece (3600
BP) or the Mt Mazama in the US (6845 BP). Eissen et al, 1994:1200
It was a major turning point in world history as Constantinople,
founded by the Roman Emperor Constantine, was a seat of learning and
the tangible presence of Western civilization in the East. It has
been said that the flight of many scholarly refugees from
Constantinople to Italy was the single most important mainspring of
the European Renaissance. Yet the antagonists of the siege of
Constantinople had the minds of the Middle Ages era, and the effect
of ‘ominous’ heavenly wonders probably affected the outcome.
During the preceding weeks, the city had suffered many heavy rains
and hailstorms. Being medieval men, the leaders believed that the
Christian city would not fall to the siege of the Ottoman
armies under Sultan Mehmed
II Fatih unless there was a sign in the moon.
Unfortunately for them, the moon went into a long and dark eclipse
on May 22,
displaying a thin crescent – the image of the Turkish standard
flying over Mehmed's camp.
On the 26th,
an unseasonal, thick fog fell on Constantinople. By nightfall, the
fog lifted and the Christians were appalled by what they saw: the
buildings of the city glowed in ominous shades of red. Even the
enormous copper dome of the imposing cathedral, the Hagia Sophia
(which has been a mosque ever since) appeared to be engulfed in
flames, but it never burned. Phrantzes, a friend of the emperor,
wrote that the light remained over the city for an entire night.
Nicolo Barbaro, A Venetian surgeon living in Constantinople at the
time, later wrote:
At the first hour of the night, there appeared a wonderful sign
in the sky, which was to tell Constantine the worthy, emperor of
Constantinople, that his proud empire was to come to an end ... The
moon rose, being at this time at the full ... but it rose as if it
were no more than a three-day moon, with only a little of it showing
... The moon stayed in this form for about four hours.
Following this there were more wild storms that certainly must have
encouraged the Muslims to liberate a city that they believed
belonged to them, and discouraged the Christians who believed the
same with equal fervour.
The Greek chronicler, Kritovoulos of Imbros, wrote:
Such was the unheard-of and unprecedented violence of that storm
and hail [that it] certainly foreshadowed the imminent loss of all,
and ... like a torrent of fiercest waters, it would carry away and
annihilate everything.
Pacific volcano, worldwide phenomena Some scientists now believe that the strange heavenly phenomena
came about due to the eruption of a volcano at Kuwae, Vanuatu, in
the Pacific earlier in the year.
A local legend recounts that a cataclysmic eruption broke up a
big island in the New Hebrides Arc into Tongoa and Epi, separated by
Kuwae.
An old man named Raherir was living a very long time ago in
a village behind the actual village of Litau. He was extremely old
and could hardly move. A strong spell kept him alive against his
will. Tired of this very miserable life, he decided to kill
himself using his magical ability. One day, he called his two sons
and explained to them a magic to raise a tsunami, which would kill
him. Five days before the event, all the inhabitants of the
village were led to the nearby plateau with all their belongings
and waited for the wave. When announced, a huge wave hurried to
the shore. The old man afraid by the power of what he had
triggered tried to escape and crawled slowly towards the plateau.
Too late. A huge swell took him and buried him among the ruins of
his village. Catastrophism
and Natural Disaster in Oceania
The volcanic dust that belched into the atmosphere probably
contributed to the stormy weather, the unusually dark eclipse, the
luminescent phenomena and the red skies seen over Constantinople in
May, 1453. In fact, there is now a submerged crater there, measuring
12 by 6 by 1 kilometres (7.5 by 4 by 0.5 miles). Approximately 40
cubic kilometres (10 cubic miles) of rock and dust were spewed into
the atmosphere.
In Sweden at this time, as the crops failed due to unseasonable
weather, corn tithes fell to zero. In the New World, western
bristlecone pines show frost damage in 1453; meanwhile the growth of
European and Chinese trees was stunted in 1453-57. History also
records that in Constantinople, that spring had bad crop results,
which we can now quite likely attribute to low temperatures caused
by the global cloud of dust.
According to the history of the Ming Dynasty in China in the
spring of 1453, "Non-stop snow damaged wheat crops". As
the year progressed, dust darkened the sky and a Chinese chronicler
wrote, "Several feet of snow fell in six provinces; tens of
thousands of people froze to death". Early in 1454, "it
snowed for 40 days south of the Yangtze River and countless died of
cold and famine". Lakes and rivers froze, and the Yellow Sea
was ice-bound even 20 kilometres (13 miles) from shore.
Two million Hiroshimas
The
scientist responsible for this theory, Dr Kevin Pang, a
geologist from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California
Institute of Technology, drew on evidence found in tree rings, ice
cores and in the contemporary records of civilizations in Europe and
China. We know now that oak panels of contemporary British portraits
had abnormally narrow rings in 1453-55.
"I conclude that Kuwae erupted in early 1453," Pang
said. "The residual volcanic cloud could have made the
apocalyptic June 1456 appearance of Halley's
Comet look 'red' with a 'golden' tail, as reported by
contemporary astronomers". (In fact, one
source says that in Europe in 1456, the appearance of Halley's
was interpreted by some as God passing comment on the fall of
Constantinople, and perhaps a portent of more trouble to come from
the Turks, as Mehmed II was now besieging Belgrade – a bit too
close to home for comfort. According to the early 16th-century
illustrated manuscript, the Lucerne Chronicles, the 1456
appearance was the cause of earthquakes, disease, a mysterious red
rain and even the births of two-headed creatures. According to
legend, in that same year, Pope Callixtus III excommunicated the
comet as an agent of the devil, and to the Ave Maria was
added the prayer: "Lord save us from the devil, the Turk, and
the comet".)
Geologists reckon that Kuwae spewed out more than 32 cubic
kilometres of molten rock with a force two million times that of the
Hiroshima atomic bomb. Compare this with the famous Krakatau
(Krakatoa)
explosion of 1883, which threw out less than one-third of that.
Mount Pinatubo (1991) expelled only five cubic kilometres but still
caused stunning
sunsets around the globe for months. Pang says that such an
eruption, equivalent to two million Hiroshima-type atomic bombs,
would have altered the world's climate.
If you enjoyed this page, click to receive similar items
daily with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine
Webmaster, webmasters free content, or else
articles at very reasonable rates
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your
website or publication, on application. Further
details
It was a major turning point in world history as Constantinople,
founded by the Roman Emperor 
Some scientists now believe that the strange heavenly phenomena
came about due to the eruption of a volcano at Kuwae, Vanuatu, in
the Pacific earlier in the year.
