The First Plague Pandemic in the Byzantine Empire – Toward a New Dynamic Consensus

Data related directly to the First Plague Pandemic [FPP] (541–750 CE) in the Byzantine Empire has been gathering for over a century. Initially, only textual evidence was used, resulting in varied interpretations. In recent decades, however, a wider range of materials from natural sciences and archaeology has been included in FPP reconstructions. The methods used to analyze and interpret these data differ across disciplines and have varying levels of margin of error. The cross-disciplinary use of such data, still in early development, has produced interpretations that are sometimes debated, mainly due to a lack of familiarity and ongoing communication among relevant fields. Even within the same dataset, like written sources, the persistent use of significantly different approaches has resulted in various FPP reconstructions. Our goal is to change that by reexamining both the original data from the eastern and central Mediterranean from the mid-sixth to the mid-eighth century and the methods behind them. We explore new data and apply methods from a broad range of disciplines to identify gaps and uncertainties and suggest ways to address them.