The 859 Syrian coast earthquake affected the Mediterranean coast of Syria in the year 859 or 860 CE (

Hijri year The Hijri year ( ar, سَنة هِجْريّة) or era ( ''at-taqwīm al-hijrī'') is the era used in the Islamic lunar calendar. It begins its count from the Islamic New Year in which Muhammad and his followers migrated from Mecca to Yathr ...

245). It caused almost the complete destruction of Latakia and

Jableh ) , settlement_type = City , motto = , image_skyline = Jableh Collage.jpg , imagesize = 250px , image_caption = General view of city and port • Roman Amphitheater• A ...

, major damage at

Antioch Antioch on the Orontes (; grc-gre, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου, ''Antiókheia hē epì Oróntou'', Learned ; also Syrian Antioch) grc-koi, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου; or Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπ� ...

and led to many deaths.

Earthquake

There are various estimated dates for the earthquake, ranging from 8 April 859 to 27 March, 860, although most chroniclers put it in the month of Shawwal, 30 December 859 to 29 January 860. There are several accounts of this earthquake affecting a very large area, including the cities of Acre (Akka),

Adana Adana (; ; ) is a major city in southern Turkey. It is situated on the Seyhan River, inland from the Mediterranean Sea. The administrative seat of Adana province, it has a population of 2.26 million. Adana lies in the heart of Cilicia, wh ...

, Antioch,

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...

, Balisum, Buka, Harrana, Homs (Emesa), Madatinum,

Maresha Tel Maresha ( he, תל מראשה) is the tell (archaeological mound) of the biblical Iron Age city of Maresha, and of the subsequent, post-586 BCE Idumean city known by its Hellenised name Marisa, Arabised as Marissa (ماريسا). The tell i ...

(Marisa), Rasulaicum, Samandağ, and Uti. Besides Syria, other reportedly affected areas were

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The ...

(Asia Minor), the Arabian Peninsula,

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

, and Palestine. All accounts speak of great property damage and loss of life. However, it is probable that the effects of several earthquakes were conflated into a narrative of a single great earthquake. At Antioch, the aftershocks continued for several months.

Damage

The coastal towns of Latakia and Jableh were most strongly affected, with both suffering almost complete destruction. Antioch to the north was also badly affected, with 1,500 large buildings being destroyed and somewhere between 70 and 190 of the towers on the city's walls collapsing. Part of the

Jebel Aqra Jebel Aqra ( ar, جبل الأقرع, translit=Jabal al-ʾAqraʿ, ; tr, Kel Dağı) is a limestone mountain located on the Syrian– Turkish border near the mouth of the Orontes River on the Mediterranean Sea. Rising from a narrow coastal plain ...

appears to have collapsed into the sea, although the historian Al-Suyuti (16th century) reported that the earthquake shattered an entire

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually highe ...

in the vicinity of Antioch. The remains of the mountain reportedly fell into the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ...

, taking with them 1005 houses and 90 villages, although the particular edition of the work in which these facts appear is described as "very confused". The same account of the shattered mountain appears in the works of Al-Tabari (9th–10th 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), and

Bar Hebraeus Gregory Bar Hebraeus ( syc, ܓܪܝܓܘܪܝܘܣ ܒܪ ܥܒܪܝܐ, b. 1226 - d. 30 July 1286), known by his Syriac ancestral surname as Bar Ebraya or Bar Ebroyo, and also by a Latinized name Abulpharagius, was an Aramean Maphrian (regional primat ...

(13th century). Accounts of this earthquake that describe the collapse of Jebel Aqra into the sea, say that it was followed by the withdrawal of the sea from the coast and that the water returned, surging to the shores. This is likely a description of a

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater exp ...

. The description of the event is similar to the description of a 551 tsunami provided by

George Kedrenos George Kedrenos, Cedrenus or Cedrinos ( el, Γεώργιος Κεδρηνός, fl. 11th century) was a Byzantine Greek historian. In the 1050s he compiled ''Synopsis historion'' (also known as ''A concise history of the world''), which spanned the ...

(11th century).

References

{{Earthquakes in Syria 859 9th-century earthquakes 9th century in the Abbasid Caliphate Syria under the Abbasid Caliphate Earthquakes in the Abbasid Caliphate Earthquakes in Syria