The volume collects the papers of the International Conference on Disaster and Relief Management in Ancient Israel/Palestine, Egypt and the Ancient Near East held from the 4th of October to the 6th of October 2010 in Leipzig. Scholars from different fields are having a close look at the concepts of disasters in antiquity, their impact on society, possible dynamics and cultural dimensions. They give insights into their actual research on the destructivity and productivity of disasters, including the possibility that disasters were used as topoi in ideological, mythological and theological discourses. Their contributions in this volume represent a first step to a cultural history of disasters in antiquity.