Image shows St. Sebastian pleading for the life of a gravedigger during the Plague of Justinian. Painting by Josse Lieferinxe, between 1497 and 1499

SUMMARY

Justinian's Plague from Ancient History Encyclopedia

The plague lasted from 541 to 543 CE. It is estimated 25 million people died in the initial outbreak (13% of the world's population).

Cross-Links

• Population and Pandemics 

• The 1918 Influenza Pandemic in the United States and the World

• History of Malaria

• The AIDS Epidemic

Interactive Resources

• This link leads to a website with interactive maps for each major plague. Click on the Justinian one for information on the statistics in each major area.  

Primary Source

• This link leads to an article about the plague and then it shows Procopius's documentation at the time of the plague

Emperor Justinian

Ancient Plague's DNA Revealed from a 1500-Year-Old Tooth, NPR

 More information about the skeletons described in this can be found here.


Yersinia Pestis and the Plague of Justinian, National Center for Biotechnology Information

• Y pestis lineages that caused the Plague of Justinian and the Black Death 800 years later were independent emergences from rodents into human beings

 A short video about the plague of Justinian and how it affected the Eastern Roman Empire. 

Justinian Plague

https://origins.osu.edu/connecting-history/covid-justinianic-plague-lessons?language_content_entity=en

Justinian Plague 

https://www.worldhistory.org/article/782/justinians-plague-541-542-ce/

Maps of Justinian Plague and Black Death

https://earth.org/data_visualization/pandemic-map-plagues/