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Dating the Ancient Minoan Eruption of Thera Using Tree Rings
University of Arizona ^ | Wednesday, August15, 2018 | Mari N. Jensen

Posted on 08/16/2018 12:54:34 PM PDT by SunkenCiv

...by resolving discrepancies between archeological and radiocarbon methods of dating the eruption, according to new University of Arizona-led research... "It's about tying together a timeline of ancient Egypt, Greece, Turkey and the rest of the Mediterranean at this critical point in the ancient world -- that's what dating Thera can do," said lead author Charlotte Pearson, an assistant professor of dendrochronology at the UA Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research...

Archeologists have estimated the eruption as occurring sometime between 1570 and 1500 BC by using human artifacts such as written records from Egypt and pottery retrieved from digs. Other researchers estimated the date of the eruption to about 1600 BC using measurements of radiocarbon, sometimes called carbon-14, from bits of trees, grains and legumes found just below the layer of volcanic ash.

By using radiocarbon measurements from the annual rings of trees that lived at the time of the eruption, the UA-led team dates the eruption to someplace between 1600 and 1525, a time period which overlaps with the 1570-1500 date range from the archeological evidence...

Co-author Gregory Hodgins, director of the UA AMS lab, said, "Charlotte's redoing the calibration curve at an annual scale. What fell out of that was that the old calibration curve wasn't precisely correct during this time frame."

...Her other UA co-authors are Peter Brewer, Timothy Jull, Todd Lange and Matthew Salzer. Other co-authors are David Brown of Queen's University in Belfast, UK, and Timothy Heaton of University of Sheffield, UK...

Other research teams are also finding discrepancies between their radiocarbon measurements using annual tree rings and the current radiocarbon calibration curve, he said.

Pearson... hopes future research can nail the eruption down to a particular year.

(Excerpt) Read more at uanews.arizona.edu ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: akrotiri; bronzeage; c14; calliste; catastrophism; charlottepearson; davidbrown; dendrochronology; godsgravesglyphs; greece; gregoryhodgins; matthewsalzer; minoan; minoans; peterbrewer; qanon; radiocarbondating; santorini; thera; timothyheaton; timothyjull; toddlange; treerings
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To: SunkenCiv
So how does tree rings help them when they get them off of long dead trees with no indications as to when the trees started growing?

Wouldn't a 5000 year old tree with a hundred rings be indistinguishable from a 4000 year old tree with a hundred rings?

Somehow there has to be a fixed standard from which to measure tree rings. There must be some distinguishing characteristic about the tree that allows you to date it's beginning, and from there you can measure changes in it's rings.

I don't understand what they are doing here.

21 posted on 08/16/2018 3:19:30 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: SunkenCiv; All
Many of you may not be aware that the mummy of Ramesses I took an unplanned tour through Canada and the USA. I first set eyes upon him in a curiosity shop on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls in approximately late 1972. He had been there since 1860 (see Wiki background below). Then, while campus touring Emory University in 2003 (with my daughter) I noticed a large banner, hanging outside their Carlos Museum, declaring, “Come in! Visit Ramesses I!” Well, I couldn’t very well pass that up, now could I? Sure enough, I went in and there he was! It was the same mummy that I had seen so many years prior in Niagara Falls! He’d gone from a curiosity shop mummy to an Egyptian Pharoah! By the end of that month he was back home in Egypt with all pomp and circumstances. See background story from Wikipedia:

“A mummy currently believed to be that of Ramesses I was stolen from Egypt and displayed in a Canadian museum for many years before being repatriated. The mummy's identity cannot be conclusively determined, but is most likely to be that of Ramesses I based on CT scans, X-rays, skull measurements and radio-carbon dating tests by researchers at Emory University, as well as aesthetic interpretations of family resemblance. Moreover, the mummy's arms were found crossed high across his chest which was a position reserved solely for Egyptian royalty until 600 BC. The mummy had been stolen by the Abu-Rassul family of grave robbers and brought to North America around 1860 by Dr. James Douglas. It was then placed in the Niagara Museum and Daredevil Hall of Fame in Niagara Falls Ontario, Canada. The mummy remained there, its identity unknown, next to other curiosities and so-called freaks of nature for more than 130 years. When the owner of the museum decided to sell his property, Canadian businessman William Jamieson purchased the contents of the museum and, with the help of Canadian Egyptologist Gayle Gibson, identified their great value. In 1999, Jamieson sold the Egyptian artifacts in the collection, including the various mummies, to the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia for US $2 million. The mummy was returned to Egypt on October 24, 2003 with full official honors and is on display at the Luxor Museum.”

22 posted on 08/16/2018 3:31:19 PM PDT by HandyDandy (This space intentionally left blank.)
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To: SunkenCiv

Very cool. Thanks for posting!


23 posted on 08/16/2018 3:42:24 PM PDT by COBOL2Java (Marxism: Trendy theory, wrong species)
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To: SunkenCiv

I really recommend a novel by Elizabeth Hand.

It is “Waking The Moon”. Of course not true but has a lot of information about ancient mysteries and especially Crete.


24 posted on 08/16/2018 3:45:27 PM PDT by yarddog
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To: COBOL2Java
My pleasure.

25 posted on 08/16/2018 6:48:59 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: yarddog
Thanks.

26 posted on 08/16/2018 6:50:07 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: HandyDandy

Thanks HandyDandy. There will of course always be some doubt, thanks to the sketchy provenance. But the mummy has been displayed as Ramses I for years now, and a lot of work went into verifying it. Hawass stated they couldn’t be 100% sure.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3301_mummy.html

[snip] NARRATOR: Still, in 1994, the owner of the Niagara Falls Museum allowed a researcher to date a small tissue sample from the mummy. The test produced a range between 790 and 1085 B.C., right at the end of the New Kingdom, but old enough to rule out the possibility that the mummy was from the Roman Era. [/snip]

The conventional pseudochronology puts Ramses I reigning 1293-1291 BC, IOW, no, the radiocarbon date doesn’t support the conventional pseudochronology.

Hawass also claims that RC dating doesn’t work in Egypt, which actually makes him the most honest of the Egyptologists. Most just deny that the problem for their pseudochronlogy doesn’t exist, he denies it too, but rejects scientific dating. He’s also the one who rejected the recent years-long muon studies (two teams were insisted on) which clearly revealed a second, higher grand gallery type structure higher up in the Great Pyramid.


27 posted on 08/16/2018 7:05:32 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: DiogenesLamp
The point of using individual rings -- something made possible as the equipment became more sensitive, thus able to test much smaller samples -- and the annual variance of the RC accumulation is calculated. The sequence of values is then matched up, "wiggle-matching", so that there's a continuous sequence of data even though no one tree covers the whole thing.

28 posted on 08/16/2018 7:40:42 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: crusher2013
Since Plato is the only source, and Plato said Atlantis was in the Atlantic, and have gave its size and aga, and none of those match Thera, it obviously isn't a perfect match, or a match at all.

29 posted on 08/16/2018 7:42:24 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: crusher2013

and have gave its size and aga

s/b

and gave its size and age

(connection problems, DSL has to go)


30 posted on 08/16/2018 7:46:31 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: SunkenCiv

I sometimes wish there were a definitive list of what we actually know about ancient history, vs what we surmise based on what little we actually know. Bet it would be a relatively short list.


31 posted on 08/16/2018 7:49:47 PM PDT by Some Fat Guy in L.A. (Still bitterly clinging to rational thought despite it's unfashionability)
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To: SunkenCiv

Blame it on the Volcano :^)

I’ve read that when Thera went it created 800 foot tsumami’s on the coast of Turkey.

Think about that.


32 posted on 08/16/2018 7:54:00 PM PDT by crusher2013
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To: crusher2013

“What other candidate for the Atlantis myth could their be?”

There is a possibility that an Atlantis did exist in the Atlantic ocean. This is discussed at some length in Graham Hancock’s “Underworld”.

The knowledge of Atlantis was supposedly imparted by an Egyptian priest during a visit of Plato’s relative Solon to Egypt in the 6th century B.C. which was then presunably passed on to Plato through family lore. Per the story, Atlantis had been destroyed 9,000 years prior to Solon’s visit to Egypt.

Around the time of Atlantis’ supposed destruction the glaciers covering North America and Britain failed catastrophically as the ice age was coming to an end. The glaciers had acted as giant dams for melted water and when the ice dams failed vast amounts of water were relased at once into the world’s oceans.

The Laurentide glacier released an estimated one million cubic kilometers of water at once which then raised sea level world wide. The glacier that covered Britain also collapsed in a similar manner. The weight of the British glacier had compressed the land underneath by about half a mile. At the same time land had bulged apparently somewhere to the south of the island. When the glacial dam failed the land underneath rebounded and the bulge that may have been above water collapsed.

What I found most interesting is that the dating of the glacial collapses coincided with the date given for the destruction of Atlantis. I discount the explosion of Santorini as the origin for the Atlantis legend since the priest that passed the legend on to Solon did not date it as 1000 years previously to his visit but 9,000. Charles Pelegrino in his book “Unearthing Atlantis” had the date of the explosion of the Santorini volcano of 1628 BC, about 1000 years prior to the visit by Solon.

Even if the collapse of the glaciers don’t explain Atlantis they appear to be the source of the legends of the great flood that occurs in the Bible and the folklore of other civilizations and cultures. What I find most interesting of all is that the incidents were preserved in legends for almost 10,000 years.


33 posted on 08/16/2018 9:24:12 PM PDT by KamperKen
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To: KamperKen

Thanks for the interesting information.

I will note that ~11,000 years ago is close to the Clovis extinction event when many/most of the large animals in North America disappeared. (as well as the clovis culture).

Something happened back then, eventually we will figure it out.


34 posted on 08/16/2018 10:03:03 PM PDT by crusher2013
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To: crusher2013
Think about this -- the volcanic caldera formed 100s of 1000s of years ago, and the side open to the sea, where any tsunami would be launched, points in the direction opposite to that of Turkey.

35 posted on 08/16/2018 10:25:09 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: Some Fat Guy in L.A.
An amazing amount is known, considering how little of what happened was written down in the first place, and how little of written records have survived.

36 posted on 08/16/2018 10:26:56 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: SunkenCiv

According to most of the articles listed for Tut 3 at Google the figure around 1479 to 1425 BC seems to be the most accepted, with the first 20 to 22 years as a co-regency with Queen Hatshepsut. He was 2 when his father died. I am not familiar with Rohl’s chronology, nor have I heard about anyone proposed the reign end in the 12thc. I have heard of Manetho’s chronology, and work by Brestead (which I will have to wait to study as it is past my bedtime).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thutmose_III

This link shows some of the complexities involved in sources and dating. https://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk/manetho.html


37 posted on 08/17/2018 12:32:00 AM PDT by gleeaikin
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To: gleeaikin
Those most accepted figures are wrong by centuries. Hatshepsut was the Queen of Sheba, she syncs with King Solomon via an inscription she had made about her expedition to Punt, shows KS's port official and gives the name, which matches up with that of his son, who succeeded him in the job according to the OT.

The complexities in dating result from the preconceived notions about what the chronology "must be", and by complexities is meant, the conventional pseudochronology can't work, and therefore doesn't. I think a lot of people believe artifacts are dug up and found to have date stamps on them.

38 posted on 08/17/2018 12:38:36 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: crusher2013; gleeaikin
We're already far afield, so here's the book about the megafauna extinction you mention:

The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes: Flood, Fire, and Famine in the History of Civilization
The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes:
Flood, Fire, and Famine
in the History of Civilization

by Richard Firestone,
Allen West, and
Simon Warwick-Smith


39 posted on 08/17/2018 12:42:05 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: SunkenCiv

Perhaps Clovis, Atlantis and Noah’s Ark are all the same?

Some day we’ll know.


40 posted on 08/17/2018 8:03:56 AM PDT by crusher2013
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