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Abstract

The Chronology of Ancient Nations, written in the 10th Century AD by the Islamic scholar al-Biruni, provides a monthly calendar of weather and climatic information translated from ancient Greek, Egyptian and Roman sources. The descriptive citations of heat and cold, hydrometeors and wind were extracted from the calendar for interpretive analysis. Assessment of data quality requires examination of the calendar used by al-Biruni, the translations available, the sources cited, the period described, and the locations mentioned. Innumerable difficulties were encountered in analysis of the extracted data and eventually only sources relating to Egypt from c100 BC to c100 AD were considered seriously as a potential usable data set for historic climate reconstruction. Although requiring a number of assumptions, information extracted from the Chronology suggests that precipitation distribution and wind direction in the identified period differed from those of the present.

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