Cairo Nile Famine

Name: Cairo Nile Famine
Start: 1065
End: 1070

Type Event Region Egypt Time 1065–1070

In the mid-to-late 1060s, consecutive years of low Nile levels caused agricultural failure in Egypt, leading to severe famine in Cairo and the Delta …

Timeline

1065–1067Nile Delta · EgyptFor several consecutive flood seasons, Nile water levels were low, irrigation systems failed, and wheat and legume yields plummeted. Rural populations fled to Cairo to escape the famine, city grain stores were rapidly exhausted, and the government's relief capacity was severely inadequate due to long-term fiscal difficulties.
1068–1070Cairo · EgyptBy the late 1060s, grain prices in Cairo had soared, with frequent incidents of starving people and soldiers seizing grain, and large numbers of deaths. The famine intertwined with Turkic and Sudanese troop mutinies; the palace even had to sell off property and religious buildings to obtain grain, plunging Egyptian society into an unprecedented crisis.

Sources

Famines and Plagues in Early Islamic History — Michael W. Dols (1977)
The Cambridge History of Egypt, Volume 1: Islamic Egypt, 640-1517 — Carl F. Petry (1998)