José Miguel Garcia León, a native of Bilbao, holds a PhD in Art and Humanities from the University of Murcia. He has taught postgraduate courses at the Polytechnic University of Valencia and has served as an associate professor at the Miguel Hernández University of Elche.

The beginnings of a literary project resemble a love affair, where each new discovery is oblivious to the risks and difficulties involved. The craft of writing—much like that of reading—is accompanied by a routine that often remains detached from personal urgencies and imposed canons. In the present age, however, the excess of productivity, the immediacy of information, and the persistent need for external validation have gradually eclipsed craftsmanship, reflection, and individual judgment. As a result, a certain societal disdain for writers—and by extension, for reading books—has increasingly become the norm, to the point where the only regulars at public libraries are often those seeking emotional refuge or shelter from the elements. Within this emerging technosophical and transhumanist order, one may glimpse the summit of linear progress poised at the edge of an abyss, evoking the enduring image of the myth of Sisyphus. The evidence of this terminal culture reveals how modern societies persist while remaining largely oblivious to humanity’s place within the universe and to the cyclical character of nature, thereby exposing themselves to the traumatic experience of collapse and perpetual renewal at the precipice. This reflection serves as an introduction to a study that examines civilisational collapses and the responses developed by ancient systems in the face of catastrophic events, with the aim of drawing lessons that may help prevent future tragedies.

In this research, entitled “Observatory of Prodigies, Catastrophes, and Calamities,” I have chosen to focus on a period of history that may justifiably be described as apocalyptic, given the magnitude of the traumatic transformations that affected civilisation between the sixth and eighth centuries. The study concentrates on the geopolitical transformations that unfolded across both the western and eastern worlds, from the reign of Justinian I to the emergence of the Abbasid Caliphate, in connection with wars, famines, intermittent plague outbreaks, and persistent climatic crises. The principal methodological innovation of this work lies in a historical periodisation structured around intervals associated with the passages of Halley’s Comet in the years 530/531, 607, 684, and 760. As an illustrative precedent, and to situate the argument within an earlier context, it is useful to recall the trajectory of Halley’s Comet in the year 374, which preceded the great Mediterranean earthquake and tsunami of 365. Known in historical memory as the “Day of Horror,” this event expressed the near-total destruction of late Roman coastal populations from the Nile Delta to the Gulf of Cádiz. The passage of this comet, and the decades that followed, were marked by three volcanic winters and significant glacial advances that triggered extensive migratory movements. These waves of migration overwhelmed the frontiers of the Roman and Sassanid Empires. Under the pressure of these extreme phenomena, northern tribes crossed the Rhine, destabilising the Roman provincial administrations of Britannia and Gaul before eventually crossing the Alps and Pyrenees. In this context, a new Germanic warrior aristocracy emerged, increasingly assuming the role of the Roman legions by serving as federal forces and receiving territorial concessions in exchange. A succession of usurpers and deserters progressively weakened the authority of the Western Roman Empire, whose territories were eventually transferred to the kingdoms of the Franks and Visigoths in Gaul, the Suebi in Hispania, and the Vandals in North Africa, leaving Rome itself exposed to siege, famine, and plague. During this same calamitous period, the steppe nomadic hordes known as the Huns advanced rapidly from northern China, disrupting the Silk Road toward the Black Sea and subjugating numerous peoples along their path. Confronted with these new invaders, the Sassanid and Eastern Roman rulers were compelled to grant tribute and territorial concessions and to integrate these groups into imperial military structures. This emerging order was further reinforced by the growing power of ecclesiastical hierarchies, whose resolutions under the Nicene doctrinal framework were imposed against pagan practices and dissident sects. A bipolar religious landscape thus emerged, characterised by the confrontation between Roman Catholic traditions and Arianism, which had been adopted by several Germanic kingdoms, while the Eastern Orthodox world remained engaged in enduring Christological controversies.

The passage of Halley’s Comet in 451 coincided with two momentous events: the defeat of the Huns of Attila by the Western federated forces and the convening of the Council of Chalcedon. The council’s decisions established doctrinal concord between the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Pontiff of Rome, but they also provoked a prolonged schism with the Monophysite communities, particularly among Syriac and Coptic Christians. The death of Attila, following the failed invasion of Italy and the struggles among his successors, allowed various vassal tribes to regain their autonomy. Among these groups, the Ostrogoths emerged as a dominant force, settling in the Balkans as federates of Byzantium. These developments unfolded in parallel with a prolonged volcanic winter and a severe climatic crisis that foreshadowed the fall of the last Western Roman emperor and the subsequent devastation of Italy by the Vandals, thereby paving the way for the Ostrogothic occupation of the peninsula. The new Germanic order in the West witnessed the rise of monarchies aligned with the Arian creed, while Rome remained the principal bastion defended by the papacy, albeit still formally subordinate to the Eastern emperor. The conversion of the Franks to the Nicene creed, reinforced by their alliance with imperial authority and their territorial expansion from the Rhine to the Atlantic and southern Gaul, soon constituted a major threat to the shared interests of the Arian Ostrogoths and Visigoths. Following the fall of the kingdom of Toulouse, the Visigoths migrated into Hispania. Meanwhile, the Vandals established their dominance in North Africa and over the western Mediterranean, disrupting vital supply routes. Byzantium continued to wage intermittent border wars with the Sassanid Empire, particularly in Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Syria. The Sassanid realm itself was weakened by the hegemony of the White Huns and the Avar Empire in northern China, which exerted control over segments of the Silk Road extending toward the Ganges Valley. Constantinople, however, benefited from maritime trade routes linking the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and Alexandria, particularly as the Ethiopian kingdom of Axum, under the authority of the Coptic patriarchate, expanded into a regional empire encompassing Somalia, Nubia, and parts of southern Arabia.

These observations serve as an introduction to the examination of the two subsequent centuries, which were shaped by successive plague pandemics and climatic crises. In essence, this period was characterised by accelerated devastation, high mortality, and constant geopolitical transformations brought about by wars and famines that undermined established civilisations. The passage of Halley’s Comet in 530/531 coincides chronologically with the age of Justinian I, whose authority concentrated administrative, military, and religious power within the Byzantine Empire. Through a series of campaigns, the Eastern emperor succeeded in reasserting imperial control over North Africa, Italy, and parts of southern Hispania, dismantling Ostrogothic dominance and suppressing Vandal piracy, thereby restoring imperial authority over much of the Mediterranean basin. In theological controversies, Justinian I positioned himself as arbiter of the five patriarchates, laying the foundations for new conflicts with the Pontiff of Rome and with the Syrian and Coptic ecclesiastical hierarchies. After the death of the empress Theodora, a fervent supporter of Monophysitism, these tensions were addressed with severe repression. The principal geopolitical counterweight to Byzantium remained the Sassanid Empire, which continued its border conflicts with the Byzantines. The revival of Sassanid power was partly linked to the decline of the Avar Empire in northern China and to the rise of the Turkic Khaganate, whose alliance sought to eliminate the White Huns along the Silk Road.

The subsequent passage of Halley’s Comet in 607 heralded,  from an eschatological perspective, the beginning of an apocalyptic age of revelations and tribulations associated with the emergence of the Islamic theological revolution. These events unfolded amid the decline of the Byzantine Empire, weakened by prolonged civil war and increasingly vulnerable to raids by Avar and Slavic forces as well as by Turkic and Sassanid incursions. In this context, the decisive episodes of the life of the Prophet Muhammad took place, from the revelation at Mount Hira in 610 to the establishment in Medina of the Kaaba and the community of believers known as the Sahaba, corresponding to the first year of the Hijra in 622.

The passage of Halley’s Comet in 684 coincided with the second phase of the Islamic Fitna and ultimately secured the victory of the Umayyads of Damascus. Their rule consolidated a vast caliphate extending from Central Asia and the Punjab to North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. This political integration contrasted with the crisis of Byzantium under a new dynasty of iconoclast emperors, whose policies exposed Constantinople to repeated unrest and usurpations. The controversy over sacred images generated widespread dissidence within the imperial strongholds, a situation exploited by the Umayyads to strengthen their provincial administrations and lay siege to Constantinople, which was ultimately saved by the deployment of Greek fire.

The subsequent passage of Halley’s Comet in 760 did not diminish the severity of climatic adversities. The following decades were marked by glacial advances and solar disturbances that accompanied the emergence of a new political order under the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad, whose dominions extended from Central Asia and India to the Niger bend. During this same period, the Byzantine Empire survived in relative isolation, shaken by internal religious conflicts before eventually returning to orthodoxy. In the West, the rise of the Carolingian dynasty brought an end to the Lombard and Avar kingdoms and initiated the subjugation of the pagan tribes of central Europe. The coronation of Charlemagne marked the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire in alliance with the papacy, consolidating the Papal States after the disappearance of the Exarchate of Ravenna. At the same time, the Viking Age began, soon emerging as a new scourge across Europe and al-Andalus.

The catastrophic chain of calamities stretching from the reign of Justinian I to the Abbasid Caliphate leaves little doubt as to their decisive influence on the abrupt transformation of early medieval geopolitical history in both East and West. This historical perspective invites reflection on the future of civilisation in the face of potential systemic collapse. The economic patterns of linear progress increasingly place modern societies at odds with the natural world. As this essay has demonstrated, empires that reach their zenith often approach their own decline with striking rapidity. Climatic disasters and catastrophic events frequently accelerate this process of disintegration, accompanying the devastating forces of war, famine, epidemics, and death. The fundamental question of our time, therefore, concerns whether humanity possesses the preventive capacities necessary to navigate a new historical cycle. The visible symptoms—reversals of values and virtues, a decline in empathy toward others, and the concentration of creative power within large corporations—suggest the urgency of such reflection. Yet the very threats confronting our survival may also offer an opportunity to reimagine social cohesion by reconciling the structures of linear progress with the cyclical patterns inherent in the natural world.

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This essay is based on my completed and forthcoming book entitled: "Apocalypse 2.0 Observatory of Prodigies, Catastrophes, and Calamities: Intermittent Plague, Climatic Crises and Geopolitical Transformations from Justinian I to the Abbasid Caliphate."