Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
This lesson asks you to assess what the forces of nature do to natural and built places, and to name ways people can reduce or increase those effects. The museum offers two records: a chronicle's account of wind and earthquake in 425 AH, and the rebuilding of one mosque after an earthquake. Whether people actually reduced the harm your class must judge from what the records say. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- C1.1 assess the effects of the action of forces from natural phenomena on natural and built environments, and identify ways in which human activities can reduce or enhance these effects
2 The lesson
What was struck, and what was it made of?
Separate what the wind struck from what the earthquake struck, and what was natural from what was built. Notice the building materials the record mentions.
Go deeper
The record of the year 425 AH tells of a black wind at Nisibin. The wind uprooted many of the town's orchards and knocked down a palace built of baked brick, stone and lime 2. Then hail fell in the shapes of hands, pillars and fingers 2. The record names the materials of the palace: baked brick, stone and lime 2.
Think about it
The wind uprooted orchards and knocked down a palace of brick, stone and lime. Which would be harder to repair, the orchards or the palace, and why?
Into the museum
- Earthquake at Ramla and the sea's recession, 425: the other things the record says happened in the same year.
- The Fatimid rebuilding of al-Aqsa: what was built again after an earthquake.
Try this
Read Earthquake at Ramla and the sea's recession, 425 and then The Fatimid rebuilding of al-Aqsa. Make a two-column chart: what the forces struck, and what people did afterwards.
3 Carry it further
Where this lesson leads in the museum.
4 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does Earthquake at Ramla and the sea's recession, 425 have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
A black wind and an earthquake in 425. Ibn al-Imad's chronicle reports that in 425 AH a black wind over Nisibin uprooted many of its orchards and knocked down a palace of baked brick, stone and lime. Ramla was then shaken and about half of it destroyed, and part of the wall of Jerusalem and the minaret of the mosque of Ascalon fell. Which of these effects fell on farmland, and which on buildings?
In your own words: what does The Fatimid rebuilding of al-Aqsa after the 1033 earthquake have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
After the earthquake: rebuilding the Aqsa. The earthquake of 1033 devastated Jerusalem, and the Fatimid caliph al-Zahir had al-Aqsa rebuilt between 1034 and 1036; the work was completed under al-Mustansir in 1065. The new mosque was smaller than the one before it, with seven aisles instead of fifteen. What was the rebuilt mosque like?
I can now