ANCIENT DISASTER REPORTERS

Today, how do we know about disasters that happened long ago? As we have explained in another chapter of the book for you, kids, specialists of all scientific fields have methods, techniques and tools to detect archaeodisasters. But there is, also, another very exciting kind of detection. When people write about disasters, become the reporters of them; either as eyewitnesses of the events, or as secondary narrators (co-villagers, storytellers, mythographers, philosophers, poets and authors, historians, naturalists, scientists, journalists, etc), even many generations after the events. Thus, we can tell that all those ancient testimonies can be included in a major field called Disaster Literature.

Of course, human beings tend to blend the description of disasters with their own psychology, imagination and culture, usually giving colourful and different descriptions for the same events. Since disasters and crises of all kind were always present in history, humans tried to detect, also, the visible and invisible bonds between Nature and Society.

Famous are the worldwide legends of ancient floods which are found in the majority of cultures and civilizations around the world, the myth of Atlantis (based on the texts of ancient Greek philosopher Plato), the myth of Phaethon, the son of ancient Greek god Helios (Sun) who burnt Earth after driving his chariot in Heavens, the legends for the heaven’s cosmology (for example the ancient Greek Titanomachy and Gigantomachy), as well as for the end of the world (The Five Suns of Mesoamerican kingdoms), the description of the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius (which destroyed Pompei and Herculaneum) by the Roman writer Pliny the Senior during the 1^st century Current Era, who gave his name to this type of eruptions (= Plinian), and others. 
Epic poems, gods, goddesses and heroes, ceremonies and star names reflected always the memory of ancient people about disasters that happened long ago or during their lifetime. This kind of information is called Disaster Mythology.
You can find much more interesting examples in the relevant chapters of your book, kids.