Hittite Plague Weaponized Diseased Rams

During the mid-to-late 14th century BCE, the Hittite Empire endured a plague that lasted two decades and may have contributed to the wider Bronze Age collapse alongside diseases such as smallpox and bubonic plague. The disease remains unidentified, although some researchers suspect tularemia, and ancient Hittite King Mursili II recorded its devastation in prayers after it killed his predecessors, Suppiluliuma I and Arnuwanda II. An Akkadian tablet written between 1350 and 1325 BCE called the epidemic "The Hand of Nergal." In 1320 and 1318 BCE, diseased rams apparently sent by the Hittites infected and weakened the attacking Arzawans, creating what some scholars consider the earliest recorded use of biological warfare.

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