Down in The Bottomlands (and Other Places)

'Down in the Bottomlands' is a novella written by Harry Turtledove which takes places in an alternative history in which the Atlantic Ocean did not reflood the Mediterranean Sea 5.5 million years ago in the Miocene Epoch, as it did in our history. The Mediterranean Basin thus remains dry to the present day in this time line, as a vast sunken desert called the Bottomlands, averaging nearly two kilometers below mean sea level, with summer temperatures reaching well above 40 °C and with little or no rainfall.