Santorini (Thera) finally accurately dated

Upon the discovery of an olive tree buried alive during the Santorini eruption, scientists have finally dated the eruption to a high degree of accuracy, to just before 1600 BC:

The new results suggest that the sophisticated and powerful Minoan civilization (featured in the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur) and several other pre-Homeric civilizations arose about a century earlier and lasted for longer than previously thought.

The new timeframe also downplays Egypt’s role in the region, suggesting that the cultures of the Levant, the stretch of land that includes Syria, Israel and Palestine, may have been a more important outside influence.

The pair of studies appears in the 28 April issue of the journal Science, published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society.

Source: msnbc.msn.com...

There is also this, from the (apparently) original source:

Precise and direct dating of the Minoan eruption of Santorini (Thera) in Greece, a global Bronze Age time marker, has been made possible by the unique find of an olive tree, buried alive in life position by the tephra (pumice and ashes) on Santorini. We applied so-called radiocarbon wiggle-matching to a carbon-14 sequence of tree-ring segments to constrain the eruption date to the range 1627-1600 B.C. with 95.4% probability. Our result is in the range of previous, less precise, and less direct results of several scientific dating methods, but it is a century earlier than the date derived from traditional Egyptian chronologies.

Source:www.sciencemag.org...

Evidently, this date will cause a small but significant reshuffling of the agreed-upon archaeological timeline for the eastern Mediterreanean, as well as some re-thinking of the history of the area.

Harte

That's excellent! So many dates in historical studies are relative, and based on quasi-legendary "King Lists" and such. Whats really neat is that the explosion is used as a marker in the med, its a time marker itself, and here we have a 'seperate' marker that dates the explosion!

Nice to see that syria might be looked at as more influential upon greek history. The greeks themselves attributed much to the Egpytians, but this might be, to a degree, something of a 'super-power' effect. Egypt was the longstanding super-power of that region of the world, so most people's would want to 'cozy up to it' or solidify their own legitimacy by saying that they are an offshoot of it. Many aspects of greek religion seem to be duplicated/replicated, or perhaps spring from, Hittite and Anatolian religions. So that influence may become more popularly recognized, as the article suggests.

I seem to remember a show

on the santorini eruption

coinciding with the parting of the red sea

[ sea of reeds ]

and verifying the bible story.

they theorized the water could have pulled back

allowing the crossing ,before

rushing back in ,to wipe out the pursuers.

Originally posted by toasted
I seem to remember a show

on the santorini eruption

coinciding with the parting of the red sea

[ sea of reeds ]

and verifying the bible story.

they theorized the water could have pulled back

allowing the crossing ,before

rushing back in ,to wipe out the pursuers.

It was on the history channel not too long ago, The Exodus Decoded was the name of the program. Its primary focus was on Santorini being the cause of the biblical plagues. Most of it was a stretch, but fairly convincing. The effects of an eruption the size of Santorini could surely have caused all of those "plagues". The problem was always in the dating. If I recall, there was some problem with the way they were translating an Egyptian Stele, as well.

All in all I liked it. New perspectives, old theory.