subtitle: Bean weevils are key to figuring out mystery of event that destroyed a civilization.
The volcanic crater on Nea Kameni in Santorini, Greece. Photograph by Celyn, Alamy
Posted on 08/25/2013 2:52:17 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
A new study of insect pests found in an ancient storage jar on the Greek island of Santorini suggests the major volcanic eruption that took place there around 1600 B.C. -- and which may have inspired the legend of Atlantis -- happened in early summer.
The "Atlantis" eruption was one of the most significant volcanic eruptions in human history. The blast is credited for not only ending the Minoan civilization, but also for affecting ancient Egypt and other communities around the eastern Mediterranean, explained Eva Panagiotakopulu, a palaeoecologist and fossil-insect expert at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
Based on previous evidence, scientists had concluded that the eruption happened sometime between 1627 to 1600 B.C. But there has been one important and unresolved question about the event: What season did it take place in?
In a new study, published in a recent issue of the journal Naturwissenschaften, Panagiotakopulu and her team now say that based on insect remains found in a jar containing seeds of sweet peas discovered at the Bronze Age settlement of Akrotiri, they think the eruption occurred sometime between June to early July.
It was only during these months, the scientists say, that the insect, a species of bean weevil, would have had an opportunity to infest the crops and end up in the storage area.
"There is a short window from early to mid summer just after threshing which could justify the assemblage [of insects] recovered," Panagiotakopulu explained in an email.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...
The volcanic crater on Nea Kameni in Santorini, Greece. Photograph by Celyn, Alamy
Archaeology in the 21st Century
by Eberhard Zangger"Even when, during the respective Thera Conferences, individual scientists had pointed out that the magnitude and significance of the Thera eruption must be estimated as less than previously thought, the conferences acted to strengthen the original hypothesis. The individual experts believed that the arguments advanced by their colleagues were sound, and that the facts of a natural catastrophe were not in doubt... All three factors reflect a fantasy world rather than cool detachment, which is why it so difficult to refute the theory with rational arguments." -- pp 49-50.
That particular eruption would also explain the strange natural events on Moses’ journey, according to some.
Aren’t they always ?
The Linear B Tablets and Mycenaean Social, Political, and Economic Organization
Lesson 25, The Prehistoric Archaeology of the Aegean
Revised: Friday, March 18, 2000
Trustees of Dartmouth College
Posted on 08/29/2004 8:19:46 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1202723/posts
KO-RE-TE, PO-RO-KO-RE-TE [koreter, prokoreter] — Such officials are known at both Knossos and Pylos. The titles bear a suspiciously close resemblance to the Latin terms curator and procurator (”guardian” and “manager, imperial officer/governor” respectively). The Linear B evidence suggests that the koreter was a local official in charge of one of the sixteen major administrative units within the Pylian kingdom, and the prokoreter was evidently his deputy.
“Way down below the ocean where I wanna be she may be.”
New Ice-Core Evidence Challenges the 1620s age for the Santorini (Minoan) Eruption
Journal of Archaeological Science
Volume 25, Issue 3, March 1998, Pages 279-289
13 July 1997
Gregory A. Zielinski, Mark S. Germani
Posted on 07/29/2004 12:25:45 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1180724/posts
For these tests, I hope they chose the lesser of two weevils.
http://www.varchive.org/dag/cilas.htm
Pliny described the changes in land and sea distribution. “Land is sometimes formed . . . rising suddenly out of the sea. Delos and Rhodes, islands which have now been long famous, are recorded to have risen up in this way. More lately there have been some smaller islands formed,” and he names them: Anapha, Nea, Halone, Thera, Therasia,4 Hiera, and Thia, the last of which appeared in his own time.5
[notes]
4 The story of Thera and Therasia is told at greater length by Strabo: “For midway between Thera and Therasia fires broke forth from the sea and continued for four days, so that the whole sea boiled and blazed, and the fires cast up an island which was gradually elevated as though by levers and consisted of burning masses — an island with a stretch of twelve stadia in circumference. After the cessation of the eruption, the Rhodians, at the time of their marine supremacy, were first to venture upon the scene. . . .” — Geography I.3.16. On the great volcanic eruption on Thera in Late Minoan times, cf. the bibliography collected by S. Hiller, “Die Explosion des Vulkans von Thera,” Gymnasium 82 (1975), pp. 32-74
5 Pliny, Natural History, transl. by J. Bostock and H.T. Riley (London, 1853), II.89.
Presuming of course that Atlantis and Minoa are one and the same.
:’)
Reading new American bible (awesome) exodus now.
something like both sides of that one:
Viewer Beware: The Exodus Decoded [ Jacobovici response to BAR review]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1693241/posts
Interesting!
Cool, wished we had more time to explore Santorini,, we were series tourist as, cameras in both hands, binocs around the neck,, talk about scenic, pretty bug-free except where the donkeys and goats roam..
LOL
And I don’t. :’)
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