Investigating the first recorded case of plague: Digging into the past


By Dr. Tim Sandle

SCIENCE EDITOR

DIGITAL JOURNAL

April 24, 2026


Plague victims. Image by Tim Sandle (taken at the Museum of London).

A newly discovered mass grave in ancient Jordan offers an insight into one of history’s first pandemics. Hundreds of plague victims were buried within days, revealing how the Plague of Justinian devastated entire communities.

The plague of Justinian or Justinianic plague (AD 541–549) was an epidemic of plague that afflicted the entire Mediterranean Basin, Europe, and the Near East, especially the Sasanian Empire and the Byzantine Empire. The plague is named for the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I.

The plague of Justinian is generally regarded as the first historically recorded epidemic of the bacterium Yersinia pestis.

The findings show that people who usually lived spread out across regions were suddenly concentrated in death. It’s a powerful reminder that pandemics don’t just spread disease—they reshape how societies live and collapse.

Modern scholars believe that the plague killed up to 5,000 people per day in Constantinople at the peak of the pandemic.

Contemporary assessment

An interdisciplinary team from the University of South Florida is studying the Plague of Justinian and its far-reaching effects. The group, led by Rays H. Y. Jiang has published a paper examining what is believed to be the first recorded outbreak of bubonic plague in the Mediterranean.

The scientists wanted to move beyond identifying the pathogen and focus on the people it affected, who they were, how they lived and what pandemic death looked like inside a real city.

A Mass Grave Reveals the Scale of Death

At the height of the Plague of Justinian, affected individuals came from a wide range of communities that were often disconnected from one another. In death, however, they were brought together. Large numbers of bodies were placed quickly on top of pottery debris in an abandoned public area, which became the central focus of this study.

Earlier research has focused mainly on Y. pestis, the bacterium responsible for plague. This new work explores how the disease affected society in both the short and long term, and what lessons it may hold today.

“The earlier stories identified the plague organism,” Jiang explains. “The Jerash site turns that genetic signal into a human story about who died and how a city experienced crisis.”

First Confirmed Plague Mass Grave

Historical accounts describe widespread disease during the Byzantine era, but many suspected plague burial sites have lacked firm proof. Jerash now stands as the first location where a plague-related mass grave has been confirmed through both archaeological evidence and genetic testing.

Jiang has confirmed that the burial represents a single event, unlike traditional cemeteries that develop gradually. In Jerash, hundreds of individuals were buried within a matter of days. Hence, his discovery reshapes understanding of the First Pandemic by providing clear evidence of large-scale mortality and offering insight into how people lived, moved and became vulnerable within ancient urban environments.

Mobility and Hidden Connections

The research findings also help resolve a long-standing question. Historical and genetic data indicate that people travelled and interacted across regions. However, burial evidence often suggests communities remained local.

The Jerash site shows that both patterns can coexist. Migration typically unfolded slowly over generations and blended into everyday life, making it difficult to detect in standard burial grounds. During a crisis, however, individuals from more mobile backgrounds were brought together in one place, making those hidden connections visible.

Evidence suggests the individuals buried in Jerash belonged to a mobile population that was part of the wider urban community. Normally spread across the region, they were united in a single burial during a moment of crisis.
Understanding the Human Impact of Pandemics

“By linking biological evidence from the bodies to the archaeological setting, we can see how disease affected real people within their social and environmental context,” Jiang observes. “This helps us understand pandemics in history as lived human health events, not just outbreaks recorded in text.”

Pandemics aren’t just biological events; they are a social event.

His research is helping shift how scientists view pandemics, emphasising not only how they begin and spread but also how they affect daily life and social structures. Dense cities, travel and environmental changes played a role then, much as they do today.

The research features in the Journal of Archaeological Science, titled “Bioarchaeological signatures during the Plague of Justinian (541–750 CE) in Jerash (ancient Gerasa), Jordan.”