Late Middle Ages · Central Asia · Disaster

1332

Plague breaks out in the Issyk-Kul region of Central Asia

1332

Nestorian Christian gravestones near Lake Issyk-Kul recorded a spike in deaths from an unspecified pestilence. Modern DNA analysis of these graves has confirmed Yersinia pestis. The Black Death may have begun here, carried by marmots on the Silk Road, before traveling west with Mongol trade caravans toward the Black Sea.