A NON-Event??? I love a man who is so positive in his opinions.
Although you think the matter is settled and no event occurred, the debate about Thera has gone on for some time and has included many archeological, geologic and dendrochronological discoveries by respected academics.
As a starter I recommend the Overview and Assessment Paper delivered at the Third Thera Congress in 1989. “Overview and Assessment of the Evidence for the Date of the Eruption of Thera” in D. A. Hardy and A. C. Renfrew, eds., Thera and the Aegean World III: Proceedings of the Third International Congress, Santorini, Greece, 3-9 September 1989. Vol. III “Chronology” (London: The Thera Foundation 1990) 13-18. For citation purposes, page “numbers” are marked in the text. Click on the numbers here to see where page breaks exist in the linear text.
13 14 15 16 17 18
Please note that this article was part of a talk given at the Thera III Congress, which took place in 1989. While this article sums up the chronological evidence at hand at the time, several articles have appeared since then from Kuniholm, et al., that add to the debate. Please see Nature (online soon).
http://www.arts.cornell.edu/dendro/thera.html
http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/santorini.html
Regarding evidence of Thera sunamis I recommend:
http://www.ugurkuran.com/eng/thams/geology.pd
My studies lead me to the conclusion that an event did occur. It is only the details of how large and how intrusive in the culture of the nearby islands and mainland that may be in dispute.
As you note, none of that stuff is new. It might surprise as much as it did me that the supereruption mania began in the 19th century; Marinatos revived it in the 1930s, Pellegrino in the 1960s; it has never been anything but a seeking of evidence for a groundless belief, and its advocates merely point at the same fallacious non-evidence, and scratch each others backs. Great way to milk gov’ts for grants though.
[snip] I, for one, find it difficult to believe that something as cataclysmic as the Theran eruption could have taken place without causing world-wide tremors or reactions and am therefore inclined to favor the earlier date.. all around 1628-1627 BC, possibly corroborated by the silence from Egypt... The Chinese evidence is not entirely secure as to its date, the Annals having been found, lost, and then recovered, and the question of the Shang Dynasty and its dates really depends on one line in the text (information from Professor Martin Bernal at Cornell)... [unsnip]
http://www.arts.cornell.edu/dendro/thera.html#16
IOW, the silence from Egypt — lack of any record of any kind of eruption, tsunami, etc — CORROBORATES the event. That’s a nice example of a delusional system in action.
Wow, there is some heavy disagreement here.
I have a book on Thera which I have not yet had time to read. Will post something after I have. Regarding the lack of information from Egypt, this was a time of chaos with the Hyksos invasion. Perhaps scribes in hiding, killed, or unemployed. I have read of several other times of trouble and evidence being lacking because of disruption.
Regarding the time of Pharoah Ahkenaten, the 3 or 4 sources I have seen all point to 1350 BC, plus or minus a few decades, not the 9th Century.
Regarding the Queen of Sheba. I just looked up ancient Ethiopan history. She was part of their legendary history, and the article points out that the upland Ethiopians were early migrants from southern Arabia (Yemen?).
At any rate, even if we do not agree, we have fun. Happy new year to all seekers of knowledge.