Posted on 04/22/2007 5:53:44 AM PDT by yankeedame
Sounds like the Minoans didn’t buy enough carbon offsets to prevent the Santorini eruption :)
('Course with me and computer stuff that isn't saying much.)
Was this the same time that the Indus civilisation was around? They too had streets and houses with sewer systems. And that their language hasn't been cracked yet, adds more to the mystery.
"Recent scientific work has established that the Santorini eruption was up to 10 times more powerful than the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883."
I've read recently that some believe Santorini may have been close to super-volcano status.
I just completed reading the 1965 book Krakatoa and many first hand accounts...It was no picnic either.
Anything near 1875 B.C. is always of interest. That’s when every civilized spot East of Egypt was destroyed.
If only Bush had signed Kyoto they could have been saved....
Very true, Krakatoa, the largest explosion in recorded history, was probably no picnic. The claim that the 1645 BC Santorini eruption/explosion was bigger than Krakatoa sent me to Google which turned up a site which you may find interesting: Santorini
This whole site (not just the linked page) has lots of pictures and good stuff on Santorini and volcanoes in general.
Great articles--though don't agree with everything in them, and vehemently disagree with the parts about religion.
If Atlantis existed (itself debatable) and was located in the Atlantic (such as the Azores or the island that was just out of the Straits of Gibraltar), either it wasn't as powerful as Plato's account suggested (a teensy-weensy island could support a great culture, much less a civlization--this applies to Thera/Santorini, and even Minoan Crete), or Plato was off about both the power and the size: Crete is much smaller than the Maghreb and Asia Minor.
P.S. A lot of the commenters didn't take that size issue into consideration with their criticism, nor the suggestion of a Hellenized version for Plato, putting it in familiar Mediterranean surroundings. Plus, could the Pillars have been more than just two, and the Ocean being the Pacific (the largest ocean by far, especially if that NON-OCEAN dubbed the "Southern Ocean" is removed), and thus just a grouping of islands (i.e. similar to pillars/columns in the interior of a building)?
The IVC is usually put in with Sumer and Egypt as among the earliest great civilizations. Minoan civilization is about tied with the start of Chinese civilization.
When the Minoans went down, a dark age began in the Mediterranean that lasted for several centuries. It might be that the legend of the Flood was a memory of this, although there weren't many left to remember, and Flood legends occur worldwide, most of which was unaware of any Mediterranean civilization at the time.
IMO, it was likely the 'fireworks' for the Exodus out of Egypt. The tree-rings worldwide recorded an 'event' centered at 1628BC.
Personally I like the theory that the area of the black sea was flooded.
A re-analysis of theAbstract: The paroxysmal eruption of Santorini (ca. 3500 BP), referred to as the Late Bronze Age (LBA) eruption, probably generated multiple tsunami; their occurrence and impacts being cited frequently in scientific papers and articles. This paper examines what is known about any LBA tsunami, noting possible mechanisms of generation and identifying sedimentological traces. Firstly, the eruption sequence is outlined providing the context in which tsunami genesis may have occurred. Secondly, the arguments forwarded for the tsunami and a summary of the evidence is given. Thirdly, results of a new geological investigation for LBA tsunami deposits at 41 coastal sites from Crete and Kos are presented. The data are used to test the hypothesis that the LBA eruption generated an east Mediterranean-wide tsunami. It will be seen that no terrestrial geological evidence is identified. The paper re-examines the original arguments presented for LBA tsunami, challenging them because their founding assumptions are flawed. Together, the new data and the re-analysis of the original tsunami hypothesis indicate that there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate that any significant far-field tsunami propagated throughout the entire east Mediterranean as frequently purported. Some terrestrial evidence exists to suggest localised near-field tsunami inundation. There is good submarine evidence however, to suggest that a tsunami was focused to the W and WSW. The results have important implications for understanding the volcano-related tsunami hazard within the region and elsewhere.
Late Bronze Age eruption and tsunami
of Santorini, Greece, and the
implications for the volcano-tsunami hazard
Dale Dominey-Howes
Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research
Volume 130, Issues 1-2,
15 February 2004, Pages 107-132Identification of Aniakchak (Alaska) tephraMinute shards of volcanic glass recovered from the 1645 ± 4 BC layer in the Greenland GRIP ice core have recently been claimed to originate from the Minoan eruption of Santorini [Hammer et al., 2003]. This is a significant claim because a precise age for the Minoan eruption provides an important time constraint on the evolution of civilizations in the Eastern Mediterranean. There are however significant differences between the concentrations of SiO2, TiO2, MgO, Ba, Sr, Nb and LREE between the ice core glass and the Minoan eruption, such that they cannot be correlatives. New chemical analyses of tephra from the Late Holocene eruption of the Aniakchak Volcano in Alaska, however, show a remarkable similarity to the ice core glass for all elements, and this eruption is proposed as the most likely source of the glass in the GRIP ice core. This provides a precise date of 1645 BC for the eruption of Aniakchak and is the first firm identification of Alaskan tephra in the Greenland ice cores. The age of the Minoan eruption of Santorini, however, remains unresolved.
in Greenland ice core
challenges the 1645 BC date
for Minoan eruption of Santorini
Nicholas J. G. Pearce
John A. Westgate and Shari J. Preece
Warren J. Eastwood
William T. Perkins
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 3:25:45 AM EDT by SunkenCiv
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