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Speaker 1: Welcome to stot to Blow Your Mind, the production of

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Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And

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Speaker 1: today we're gonna be talking about an artifact. This is

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Speaker 1: actually a topic that I was originally reading about thinking

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Speaker 1: about doing one of our new short form episodes, the

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Speaker 1: Artifact about but it kind of ballooned in my mind

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Speaker 1: and kept picking up weird little tangents here and there,

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Speaker 1: and I realized it was much too big of a

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Speaker 1: subject just to be like a five to ten minute episode.

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Speaker 1: So so now we're talking about this today, and the

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Speaker 1: subject is an artifact from ancient Egypt known as the

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Speaker 1: almost Steela or the Tempest Steela. And I already apologize

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Speaker 1: because I know at some point in this episode I'm

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Speaker 1: going to forget to pronounce Steela with a long E

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Speaker 1: and I'm gonna start saying stella. It's that word, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's st e l a or st e l e w.

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Speaker 1: I can never get the get the sounds right in

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Speaker 1: my brain. Yeah, but we were rehearsing it before the episode.

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Speaker 1: It's steel a as in steel Uh Steely Dan album

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Speaker 1: from the record store. Uh. And there's some kind of uh,

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Speaker 1: there's some kind of other word that's also steel or

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Speaker 1: steely st e l e, which I can't figure out

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Speaker 1: if it's totally interchangeable with Steela or just mostly interchangeable. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: we're not gonna deal with that in this episode because

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Speaker 1: we're only concerned with one primary Steela here, and it's

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Speaker 1: this almost Steela or tempest Steela. So this artifact is

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Speaker 1: at its heart a big stone block. It is a slab.

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Speaker 1: It is a big slab made of calcite that's currently

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Speaker 1: in multiple fragments. I think there are at least three

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Speaker 1: major fragments, um. And they were recovered from the temple

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Speaker 1: complex of Karnak, which is in the ancient Egyptian city

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Speaker 1: of Thebes near the modern Upper Egypt city of lux Or.

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Speaker 1: And this artifact was recovered by archaeology, so I think

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Speaker 1: in the late nineteen forties or early nineteen fifties. Uh. Karnac,

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Speaker 1: of course is this big, beautiful temple complex. You may

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Speaker 1: have seen it represented digitally and like Transformers movies where

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Speaker 1: they're big robots slugging around there, or as an actual

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Speaker 1: shooting location in the Spy Who loved me. Did the

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Speaker 1: transformers really battle here? I think they did at some

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Speaker 1: point the transform it's part of the the raison dettor

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Speaker 1: of of Transformers to eventually just slam through and demolish

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Speaker 1: every work of humankind, like all artifacts and landscapes must

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Speaker 1: be ground into sand by the transformers until only transformers remain. Right,

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Speaker 1: just a barren, featureless earth that's completely smooth, but with transformers,

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Speaker 1: with with mac trucks and jeeps and stuff. But anyway,

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Speaker 1: what's the deal with this slab, the Tempestila? It originally

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Speaker 1: stood about one point eight meters talls about six ft tall,

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Speaker 1: and it bears an inscription text that was copied on

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Speaker 1: both sides these horizontal lines, but it also has some

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Speaker 1: imagery at the top. So two. Quote from one of

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Speaker 1: the papers that we're going to be referencing today. I

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Speaker 1: think this description comes from this first paper that was

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Speaker 1: published by Karen poland your Foster, Robert K. Rittner, and

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Speaker 1: Benjamin R. Foster in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies

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Speaker 1: in nineteen Quote above. The horizontal body of each text

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Speaker 1: is a lunette with two adorsed scenes and brief vertical labels.

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Speaker 1: Unlike the parallel text. The two Lunet labels display minor

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Speaker 1: variation in wording. Both faces preserved dual scenes of the

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Speaker 1: king followed by a female deity of fecundity carrying offering trays.

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Speaker 1: And these trays have like fruits and vegetables on them.

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Speaker 1: So you've got this big old text that's on both

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Speaker 1: sides and this image of a king and a lady

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Speaker 1: who represents fertility, uh, carrying up some nice food stuffs,

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Speaker 1: fruits and vegetables, nice plant matter. And so here I

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Speaker 1: think maybe we should actually just read the full text

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Speaker 1: of the temper Steel up because it's not all that long, uh,

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Speaker 1: And this is something that I personally really love. Maybe

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Speaker 1: maybe other people aren't as interested in it as I am,

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Speaker 1: But it just reading the text of of texts that

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Speaker 1: are this old, like these ancient Egyptian inscriptions, really does

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Speaker 1: kind of put me in an altered state of consciousness.

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Speaker 1: You know. It's like, Uh, I feel like I'm inhabiting

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Speaker 1: a mind that is so separated from me by time

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Speaker 1: and culture that it's a little bit creepy. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean to to a certain extent. That's that's exactly what's happening, right.

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Speaker 1: The transfer of information across the ages. Yeah, and and

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Speaker 1: there's this like weird tangling down at the bottom of

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Speaker 1: my brain where I just feel like there's a lot

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Speaker 1: that's really important that I'm not understanding, but I'm getting

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Speaker 1: just the slightest hint of what it is coming through

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Speaker 1: in the translation. Well, that's the tangler. You got that,

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Speaker 1: that's the vinsive Price movie. Well, but I know what

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Speaker 1: you're talking about with this, Okay. This English translation is

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Speaker 1: by the American egyptologist Robert K. Rittner, who is the

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Speaker 1: one of the authors on a couple of studies that

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Speaker 1: we're going to be mentioning today. Now, again, the steel

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Speaker 1: A text is damaged, so there are some gaps, and

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Speaker 1: some of these have been filled in with what is

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Speaker 1: very likely what their contents were. So there's just some

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Speaker 1: text that we don't have, but we feel very confident,

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Speaker 1: you know, this is what it would have been. And

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Speaker 1: other parts are just left blank where there's less certainty.

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Speaker 1: And I guess when we get to one of those

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Speaker 1: blank spots will just sort of pause for a second

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Speaker 1: in the reading. So here it goes, Long Live the Horace,

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Speaker 1: Great of manifestations. He of the two Ladies, pleasing of Birth,

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Speaker 1: the golden Horace who binds the two lands, King of

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Speaker 1: the Upper and Lower Egypt, neb feti Ra, son of Raw,

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Speaker 1: almost living forever. Now, then his majesty came. Raw himself

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Speaker 1: had appointed him to be king of Upper Egypt. Then

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Speaker 1: his Majesty welt at the town of said jeff A Tawi,

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Speaker 1: in the district just to the south of Dendera, while

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Speaker 1: aman Ra, lord of the thrones of the two Lands,

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Speaker 1: was in Thebes. It was his majesty who sailed south

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Speaker 1: to offer bread, beer and everything good and pure. Now,

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Speaker 1: after the offering, then attention was given in this district.

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Speaker 1: Now then the could image of this god at his

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Speaker 1: body was installed in this temple while he was in joy.

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Speaker 1: Now then this great god desired his majesty, while the

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Speaker 1: gods declared their discontent. The gods caused the sky to

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Speaker 1: come in a tempest of rain, with darkness in the

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Speaker 1: western region, and the sky being unleashed without cessation, louder

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Speaker 1: than the cries of the masses, more powerful than while

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Speaker 1: the rain raged on the mountains, louder than the noise

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Speaker 1: of the cataract, which is at Elephantine, every house every

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Speaker 1: quarter that they reached floating on the water like skiffs

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Speaker 1: of papyrus opposite the royal residence for a period of days,

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Speaker 1: while a torch could not be lit in the Two Lands.

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Speaker 1: Then his Majesty said, how much greater this is than

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Speaker 1: the wrath of the Great God, than the plans of

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Speaker 1: the gods. Then his Majesty descended to his boat with

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Speaker 1: his counsel following him, while the crowds on the east

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Speaker 1: and west had hidden faces, having no clothing on them.

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Speaker 1: After the manifestation of the god's wrath, then his Majesty

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Speaker 1: reached the interior of Thebes with gold confronting gold for

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Speaker 1: this statue, so that he, meaning am un Rah, received

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Speaker 1: that which he desired. Then his Majesty began to reestablish

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Speaker 1: the Two Lands to drain the flooded territories without his

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Speaker 1: to provide them with silver, with gold, with copper, with oil,

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Speaker 1: and cloth of every bolt that could be desired fired.

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Speaker 1: Then his Majesty made himself comfortable inside the palace life, prosperity, health.

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Speaker 1: Then his Majesty was informed that the mortuary concessions had

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Speaker 1: been entered by water, with the tomb chambers collapsed, the

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Speaker 1: funerary mansions undermined and the pyramids fallen, having been made

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Speaker 1: into that which was never made. Then His Majesty commanded

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Speaker 1: to restore the temples which had fallen into ruin in

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Speaker 1: this entire land, To refurbish the monuments of the gods,

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Speaker 1: to erect their enclosure walls, to provide the sacred objects

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Speaker 1: in the noble chamber, to mask the secret places, to

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Speaker 1: introduce into their shrines the cult statues which were cast

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Speaker 1: to the ground, to set up the braziers, to erect

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Speaker 1: the offering tables, to establish their bread offerings, to double

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Speaker 1: the income of the personnel, to put the land into

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Speaker 1: its former state. Then it was done in accordance with

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Speaker 1: everything that His Majesty had commanded. Ooh, so there are

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Speaker 1: some parts of that that really give me chills. So

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Speaker 1: the basic outline of it being that it introduces this

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Speaker 1: great king, the great almost who rises up and he

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Speaker 1: answers this problem of there's some kind of calamity being described.

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Speaker 1: There are rains and a tempest coming out of the sky,

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Speaker 1: with darkness in the western region, thundering in the sky,

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Speaker 1: the sky being unleashed without cessation, louder than the cries

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Speaker 1: of the masses. There's appear apparently some kind of flooding

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Speaker 1: with bodies human bodies floating in the nile like skiffs

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Speaker 1: of papyrus and uh, and a torch could not be

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Speaker 1: lit in the two lands. But then there is some

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Speaker 1: kind of offering made to the gods to fix this problem,

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Speaker 1: to make everything right, and it tells us basically that

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Speaker 1: almost this guy did a really good job and he

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Speaker 1: like got everything fixed and now it's under control. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so it's uh yeah, so it's so again it's a

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Speaker 1: story of a disaster occurring and then government responding to

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Speaker 1: that disaster. But there's some We're not going to take

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Speaker 1: everything in that and explain it. I know there's some

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Speaker 1: some names and some obvious gods and some kings, but

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Speaker 1: just to run through a few things that I think

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Speaker 1: are are are important or at least halfway important to

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Speaker 1: understanding what's going on here. Um, I want to just

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Speaker 1: call it a few things. So first of all, Horace

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Speaker 1: the Horace is the celestial falcon and the embodiment of

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Speaker 1: Kingship caught in an enduring conflict with Seth. Horace likely

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Speaker 1: means the distant one, and there are two distinct versions.

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Speaker 1: There's Horace the Elder and Horace the Younger, not to

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Speaker 1: be confused with Horace the Child. Right, So an important

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Speaker 1: god who's associated with the royal lineage of of Egypt

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Speaker 1: in this period. Right And uh Now, one thing that

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Speaker 1: this makes reference to that is geographically confusing to modern

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Speaker 1: audiences is the concept of Upper and Lower Egypt, which

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Speaker 1: are unless you're familiar with how ancient Egyptians talked about

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Speaker 1: their geography, it's the opposite of what you would think, right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's always worth remembering that the ancient Egyptians saw their

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Speaker 1: world a little bit differently than we do today. Um.

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Speaker 1: And not to say they saw the world upside down,

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Speaker 1: they just saw it from their point of view. Uh

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Speaker 1: So north and south are totally arbitrary. By the way,

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Speaker 1: there's no such thing as objective north and south. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So with the way they saw it is with the

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Speaker 1: Nile delta at the bottom of their kingdom. So Upper

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Speaker 1: Egypt is actually somewhat lower on the modern state of

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Speaker 1: Egypt that we memorize in school and look at out

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Speaker 1: a map. Basically, the in the area of Thebes, Lower

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Speaker 1: Egypt is the delta region that entails Memphis. So Lower

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Speaker 1: Egypt is to the north and Upper Egypt is to

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Speaker 1: the south. Right. Now, what about the sun god Raw? Right,

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Speaker 1: there's reference to Raw yeah, Raw, the sun god, source

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Speaker 1: of all light and life. Um, you know, and there's

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Speaker 1: a lot more to each of these gods, but this

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Speaker 1: is just the short and simple. Now, there's some references

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Speaker 1: in here to amun Ra. Yeah, and this, uh if

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Speaker 1: I'm correct on this, this is This is also known

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Speaker 1: as Almond. This is the mysterious creator god and his

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Speaker 1: name means the hidden one. Yeah. Now, the main character

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Speaker 1: of the almost Stela or the tempest Stela here is

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Speaker 1: Almost himself meaning almost the first who was a pharaoh,

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Speaker 1: and he's the guy who who does all the fix

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Speaker 1: in here. Yeah. He is the founder of the Eighteenth

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Speaker 1: dynasty who reigned well one of the days. The dates

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Speaker 1: I was looking at, we're fifteen forty nine through fifteen

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Speaker 1: twenty four b C. Right, So the dates of his

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Speaker 1: reign are actually somewhat disputed, and that will come into

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Speaker 1: that will be in some way the subject matter of

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Speaker 1: what we're talking about today, though it does appear he

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Speaker 1: reigned sometime in the sixteenth century b C. So probably

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Speaker 1: sometime between sixteen hundred and fifteen hundred b C. E

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Speaker 1: the more conventional Egyptology chronology dates put put him in

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Speaker 1: the middle somewhere in there, Yeah, like a fifteen you know,

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Speaker 1: middle of the centuries, sometime in the late three quarters. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But either way, he seems to have been a very

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Speaker 1: pivotal ruler at a very pivotal time. He was building

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Speaker 1: on his father's military success and paved the road for

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Speaker 1: the new kingdom and the beginning of an age of

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Speaker 1: just Egyptian dominance. Um. He reinvigorated and united Egypt. And

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Speaker 1: this is key to he completed the expulsion of the Hicksos.

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Speaker 1: So at this time, Egypt or part of Egypt anyway,

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Speaker 1: we were ruled by these outsiders, these foreigners that invaded

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Speaker 1: UM perhaps you know, from Palestine or somewhere in that region. Uh.

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Speaker 1: In anyway, basically, what Amos did is he finished driving

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Speaker 1: them out. He finished a rebellion against them that had

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Speaker 1: begun by had been begun by his predecessors, and re

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Speaker 1: exerted Egypt's rule over northern Nubia to the south. So

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Speaker 1: it'll be important to think about all this as we

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Speaker 1: discussed the details of his rule. But he was a

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Speaker 1: pharaoh in an age of growth. He brought about a

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Speaker 1: new kingdom, a conquest king. He was like, We're I'm

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Speaker 1: going to conquer the areas to the north and the

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Speaker 1: south and bring Egypt together again under one rule. Yeah. Now,

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Speaker 1: as for the hicks Sos, they're they're very, very interesting,

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Speaker 1: and people have have written and and researched regarding them

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Speaker 1: and made various uh hypotheses and theories regarding their exact nature.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of very speculative Bible stuff about them. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you you may have you're a Bible reader and a

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Speaker 1: Bible student, you may have seen them pop up, I'm sure,

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Speaker 1: and like just even the notes in a standard Bible.

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Speaker 1: They were the foreign Canaanite or Palestinian rulers of Egypt

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Speaker 1: who took power during the seventeenth century b c. They

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Speaker 1: ruled lower in Middle Egypt and established a capital at

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Speaker 1: a Varis, which was associated with the Egyptian god Seth

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Speaker 1: or set or sue Tech, which was in turn equated

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Speaker 1: with the Palestinian god ball Uh. The Hicksos called themselves

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Speaker 1: theselves the Sons of Raw, but one of them actually

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Speaker 1: bore the name of Ra's nemesis of Papus, the Great

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Speaker 1: Crocodile or snake of chaos, which is interesting. I didn't

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Speaker 1: know that, yeah, um. And Geraldine pinches the Egyptian mythology.

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Speaker 1: She points out that the conflict of the time seems

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Speaker 1: to have taken on mythological trappings as well as their

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Speaker 1: stories related to a quarrel between the followers of Horace,

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Speaker 1: the Thebans and the followers of Seth the Hixos, and

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Speaker 1: the words seems to be related to just foreign rulers. Uh.

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Speaker 1: I believe it's heckal Kasuit rulers of foreign lands, and

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Speaker 1: Hicksos is derived from this via the Greek. Okay, right,

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Speaker 1: so hisos would not have been what they called themselves

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Speaker 1: but a sort of ex and m applied by the

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Speaker 1: Egyptians or even maybe later Greek speaking Egyptians. Right. And

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Speaker 1: of course this is where it often gets interesting with

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Speaker 1: with ancient history, when you're dealing with outsiders, right, because

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Speaker 1: the outsiders are defined by those writing the history not

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Speaker 1: only in terms of what happened and you know what transpired,

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Speaker 1: but but also like who they were, what were these people? Um?

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Speaker 1: And so at times you've had people of historians come

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Speaker 1: in and and try and figure it out and and

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Speaker 1: maybe come in with a bit of an agenda. Uh.

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Speaker 1: First century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus translated this at the time.

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Speaker 1: Again this is first century Uh see um as as

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Speaker 1: hicksos meaning king shepherds or captive shepherds. And this was

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Speaker 1: an attempt to establish historical evidence for the Jewish people

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Speaker 1: in ancient Egypt. And this will come up again. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there there are a lot of um, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: historical religious apologetics where people try to invoke the hicksos

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Speaker 1: as um somehow being descended from uh, say Joseph, like

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Speaker 1: the story of Joseph in the Book of Genesis coming

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Speaker 1: to Egypt and serving the pharaoh um as someone who

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Speaker 1: you know, listeners know that I'm a big fan of

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Speaker 1: the Bible, especially at you know, I love the books

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Speaker 1: of the Torah and all that. So not to denigrate

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Speaker 1: the story at all as a as a wonderful uh myth,

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Speaker 1: but like, I don't think there's much historical evidence that

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Speaker 1: these tales are like actual history that would be linked

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Speaker 1: to Egyptian chronology. Yeah. I mean, very broadly speaking, there

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Speaker 1: seem to be like different levels of it. I mean

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Speaker 1: they're there are are there are certainly people who looked

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Speaker 1: at history and look at things like the Hicks and

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Speaker 1: try to draw a direct line, uh and say like

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Speaker 1: these were uh the Jewish people, or say I've seen

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Speaker 1: it before in in Bible notes, for instance, saying well, okay,

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Speaker 1: the Hisos were foreign rulers in Egypt at the time,

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Speaker 1: which would have made it possible for someone like Moses

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Speaker 1: and outsider to rise up in the ranks enough to

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Speaker 1: have the role that he plays in the Exodus story.

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Speaker 1: And then you have other people who are like that

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Speaker 1: that that that make kind of a middle ground argument saying, well, okay,

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Speaker 1: the the the the Egyptian captivity is um is is

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Speaker 1: a myth or or you know, it is a legend,

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Speaker 1: but it is based in things that were past down

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Speaker 1: orally and therefore there could be some connection between these two,

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Speaker 1: but the exact threads connecting them are uncertain. So, like

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Speaker 1: I said, there a whole there's a whole lot of

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Speaker 1: literature out there about, uh, this topic, and to what

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Speaker 1: degree there are any connections here. I would just say

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Speaker 1: that anything that tries to get too specific in tying

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Speaker 1: these things to specific stories in the Bible is probably

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Speaker 1: highly speculative. And we'll come back some of this later

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Speaker 1: on in the episode. Yeah, But what actually got me

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Speaker 1: interested in talking about the Tempest Steela, apart from just

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Speaker 1: being a very interesting text to read, is the question

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Speaker 1: of is this referring to something that actually happened in

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Speaker 1: Egyptian history? All this stuff about you know, the darkness

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Speaker 1: and the sky and the and the flooding of the

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Speaker 1: Nile and the bodies floating in the water and the

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Speaker 1: water entering all these temple complexes and uh being and

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Speaker 1: the thundering and being unable to light a torch in

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Speaker 1: the two lands? What what is all this talking about? Um?

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Speaker 1: And so this actually ties into a study from fourteen,

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Speaker 1: actually a couple of studies, the most recent one I

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Speaker 1: think was from fourteen in the Journal of Near Eastern

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Speaker 1: Studies that I was reading about that that made an

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Speaker 1: interesting connection between the events described in this text and

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Speaker 1: a possible actual geological cause. Or is this text, as

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Speaker 1: it's been more traditionally interpreted, referring to either some kind

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Speaker 1: of natural event that is more I don't know, a

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Speaker 1: more regular and less extreme, or is it referring to

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Speaker 1: something in a in a metaphorical sense or telling a

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Speaker 1: kind of fictional narrative to hype up this first ruler

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Speaker 1: of the eighteenth dynasty. Yeah, some have have have have

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Speaker 1: made that argument that that it may be a metaphor

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Speaker 1: the storm it felt, They may be a metaphor for

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Speaker 1: hickso suppression. Um Ian Shaw writes about this in the

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Speaker 1: Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, suggesting that it might have

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Speaker 1: served as quote an official explanation for the impoverishment of

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Speaker 1: the theme in region and more importantly, ah MOS's role

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Speaker 1: in restoring the riches of the Karnak temple and It's god,

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Speaker 1: in other words, a story to explain why other temple

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Speaker 1: riches were sold off to pay for to a certain extent,

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Speaker 1: to pay for the Thievens rebellion of the seventeenth dynasty.

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Speaker 1: So not to say that there wasn't also a real

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Speaker 1: storm of some sort, but that quote, these particular events

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Speaker 1: might have been recounted on the steela simply in order

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Speaker 1: to suit historical religious purposes. Yeah, and that's something that

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Speaker 1: we see all throughout ancient history, I think is sort

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Speaker 1: of creative re engineering of events and storytelling to make

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Speaker 1: certain leaders look good. Yeah. And I mean another thing

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Speaker 1: is if this were just describing the flooding, like the

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Speaker 1: flooding is one of the major aspects of the calamity

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Speaker 1: described in on this slab. You know, Nile flooding is

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Speaker 1: a regular occurrence that there's like there's like monsoonal uh

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Speaker 1: seasonal flooding of the Nile that occurs every year to

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Speaker 1: varying degrees, and so that that's something to keep in

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Speaker 1: mind as we go about this. Yeah, and I think

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Speaker 1: I mentioned before, I'd love to come back and just

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Speaker 1: do an episode on the Nile and it's flooding because

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Speaker 1: it has such an such an intrinsic role in the

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Speaker 1: world view of the ancient Egyptians and their entire cosmology.

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Speaker 1: It's fascinating stuff. Thank thank Okay. But so to come

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Speaker 1: into this possible or at least the hypothetical geological connection

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Speaker 1: that we're exploring today, we need to travel north of Egypt.

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Speaker 1: We need to go up into the Mediterranean to a

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Speaker 1: place that's now known as Santorini, but has also gone

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Speaker 1: by the name of Theora. Now you may have seen

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Speaker 1: that spelled t h E r A, and I have

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Speaker 1: always said Terra when saying when saying that, but it's

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Speaker 1: actually apparently Theora and theory or Santorini was the site

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Speaker 1: of a catastrophic volcanic eruption in the ancient world that

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Speaker 1: likely had a really powerful impact on Bronze Age history. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This is also known as the Minoan eruption or the

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Speaker 1: eruption at Theora. Now, I actually found a really great

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Speaker 1: source on the theory eruption, which was a chapter in

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Speaker 1: a book by former show guest Clive Oppenheimer, who was

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Speaker 1: on the show with us when we interviewed him and

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Speaker 1: Werner Herzog about their documentary Fireball. Clive Oppenheimer wrote a

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Speaker 1: book that he published with Cambridge University Press in two

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Speaker 1: thousand eleven called Eruptions That Shook the World that is

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Speaker 1: about volcanic eruptions all throughout the past and how they've

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Speaker 1: shaped the course of human events in human evolution human history.

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Speaker 1: So he's going to be one of my main sources

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Speaker 1: on on this eruption here. So, uh, Theora or today.

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Speaker 1: Santorini is an island, I guess really a group of

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Speaker 1: islands in the south of the a g See. So

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Speaker 1: it's between Grease and Turkey and north of Crete. It's

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Speaker 1: one of the southern Nigian islands. And if you look

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Speaker 1: at a picture of Santorini, taken from above, you may

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Speaker 1: immediately be able to guess something about its geological history.

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Speaker 1: It's got a kind of scary shape that immediately like

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Speaker 1: if you, if you're volcano minded, can kind of make

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Speaker 1: your gut sink, because part of the island is this

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Speaker 1: long C shaped land mass sea as in the letter C,

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Speaker 1: like a capital c uh land mass that has steep

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Speaker 1: cliffs on the inner wall of the curve of that

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Speaker 1: sea and then smoother tapering shores and slopes on the outside.

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Speaker 1: And then opposite the inner curve of that letter C shape,

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Speaker 1: there's another large land mass with similar characteristics facing inward.

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Speaker 1: Uh So, Oppenheimer mentioned that if you look at the

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Speaker 1: inward facing cliffs, you can see alternating colors of rock

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Speaker 1: strata and yellow, white and gray and red, and so

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Speaker 1: it should be probably kind of obvious what this is.

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Speaker 1: This island group is the partially submerged caldera of an

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Speaker 1: ancient gigantic volcano that is now half swallowed by the ocean. Now,

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Speaker 1: this island, of course, is famous to geologists and historians

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Speaker 1: of the Bronze Age because this volcano was the source

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Speaker 1: of the catastrophic Minoan eruption which the again the date

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Speaker 1: of this eruption is going to be in dispute and

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Speaker 1: part of what we're talking about today, but just to

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Speaker 1: you know, be a very broad strokes, think roughly in

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Speaker 1: the area of six b C. Now is in the

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Speaker 1: twentieth century actually that archaeologists really came to recognize the

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Speaker 1: effects that this eruption had had on nearby human civilization.

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Speaker 1: And one great example that Oppenheimer highlights is the work

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Speaker 1: of an archaeologist named spy Rodin Mirinatos, who dug up

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Speaker 1: parts of what would have been in a Minoan ports

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Speaker 1: settlement on the southern part of Santorini that is now

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Speaker 1: known as Akrotirie. This name is applied by modern scholars.

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Speaker 1: We don't know what the ancient inhabitants of this town

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Speaker 1: would have called it, but this would have been a

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Speaker 1: relatively wealthy and well developed town until the volcano woke up.

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Speaker 1: We talked actually some last October with Nicoletta Momiliano about

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Speaker 1: the Minoan civilization and it's it's palace power centers on crete.

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Speaker 1: Now this this island again would have been north of Create,

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Speaker 1: so away from the real center of political power of

428
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:40,160
Speaker 1: the Minoan empire, but still it was I think part

429
00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:43,480
Speaker 1: of that civilization and shared in its wealth and its

430
00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:46,840
Speaker 1: trade and its culture. Yeah. And in her book In

431
00:25:46,920 --> 00:25:49,960
Speaker 1: Search of the Labyrinth, the Cultural Legacy of Minoan Crete,

432
00:25:50,080 --> 00:25:54,000
Speaker 1: I mean she she does a reference volcanoes several times. Yeah,

433
00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:56,520
Speaker 1: and Uh, I think volcanoes would have been highly relevant

434
00:25:56,560 --> 00:25:59,240
Speaker 1: to the history of the Minoan culture. And eventually the

435
00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:03,960
Speaker 1: Minoan culled lture uh declined and was superseded and conquered

436
00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:07,879
Speaker 1: by Mycenaean culture. But this kind of eruption would have

437
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:11,800
Speaker 1: been unprecedented in local human memory. The volcano had been

438
00:26:11,840 --> 00:26:17,040
Speaker 1: calmed for approximately fifteen thousand years beforehand at least. And uh,

439
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:20,359
Speaker 1: and so this late Bronze Age eruption was one of

440
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:24,359
Speaker 1: the largest European volcano eruptions of the past hundred thousand years.

441
00:26:24,400 --> 00:26:30,080
Speaker 1: This was a huge, highly energetic, highly destructive event. Um.

442
00:26:30,359 --> 00:26:34,479
Speaker 1: And it's interesting actually looking at what's left behind in

443
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:38,159
Speaker 1: this particular settlement on Santorini, the place now known as Acritiri.

444
00:26:38,520 --> 00:26:40,680
Speaker 1: And I was reading about it a bit in UH.

445
00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:44,040
Speaker 1: This uh. One of the first of two papers involving

446
00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:46,480
Speaker 1: Robert K. Written Er that we're going to be looking

447
00:26:46,480 --> 00:26:49,000
Speaker 1: at today. This was the one by Foster written Er

448
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:52,399
Speaker 1: and Foster from nine in the Journal of Near Eastern

449
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:56,720
Speaker 1: Studies called text Storms and the Theory Eruption and Uh

450
00:26:56,880 --> 00:27:02,440
Speaker 1: the authors here they talk about how archaeologists uncovered remnants

451
00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:05,040
Speaker 1: of this ancient village on on the southern coast of

452
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:09,440
Speaker 1: the island group preserved under this thick bed of volcanic ash.

453
00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:13,120
Speaker 1: And because it was an ancient settlement that was preserved

454
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:16,080
Speaker 1: under layers of tephra, it is similar in some ways

455
00:27:16,119 --> 00:27:20,160
Speaker 1: to the ruins of places like Pompeii and Herculaneum up

456
00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:23,639
Speaker 1: on the Italian Peninsula, which were themselves kind of frozen

457
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:26,800
Speaker 1: in time by the eruption of Vesuvius in seventy nine.

458
00:27:27,640 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 1: In a similar way, we see this settlement frozen in time.

459
00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:35,200
Speaker 1: It was rapidly buried by volcanic ash, and there are

460
00:27:35,240 --> 00:27:38,520
Speaker 1: lots of artifacts and features that were very well preserved,

461
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:43,879
Speaker 1: including some extremely beautiful original frescoes and paintings that I

462
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:46,920
Speaker 1: would really recommend looking up looking up the paintings from

463
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:51,360
Speaker 1: thea um and and the frescoes there there are some

464
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:55,959
Speaker 1: that are these large sort of tableaus or landscape scenes

465
00:27:56,040 --> 00:27:58,439
Speaker 1: that show like a port city with boats moving to

466
00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:02,919
Speaker 1: and fro and ground of these colorful, colorful buildings and

467
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 1: hills full of wild animals and plants, And there was even,

468
00:28:06,640 --> 00:28:09,920
Speaker 1: for a brief tangent, there was even this really interesting

469
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:13,159
Speaker 1: mystery about the art there that I came across. That

470
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:20,280
Speaker 1: was one painting at Acritiri showing monkeys, these blue monkeys

471
00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:24,560
Speaker 1: that appear to be similar to a species that would

472
00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:26,760
Speaker 1: not have been native to the Aegean, but would have

473
00:28:26,760 --> 00:28:30,000
Speaker 1: been native either to uh to Africa or to India,

474
00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:33,800
Speaker 1: which is I think often taken as a sign of

475
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:37,760
Speaker 1: the kind of often surprising level of trade and interconnectedness

476
00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:41,000
Speaker 1: in the ancient world that either live specimens of these

477
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:45,840
Speaker 1: monkeys or artistic depictions of these monkeys were being taken

478
00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 1: back and forth from far and wide around the world.

479
00:28:49,320 --> 00:28:52,400
Speaker 1: That's impressive. I mean either way, once exposed to monkeys,

480
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:56,600
Speaker 1: one cannot help but create art about monkeys. Yes, maybe

481
00:28:56,640 --> 00:28:58,440
Speaker 1: one day we should just come back and devote a

482
00:28:58,480 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 1: whole thing to the blue monkeys. Controversy is that what

483
00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:04,440
Speaker 1: kind of monkeys are these? Where did these images come from?

484
00:29:04,800 --> 00:29:07,680
Speaker 1: And so forth? I I don't know. I found this

485
00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:09,920
Speaker 1: very interesting, but maybe you should just get back to

486
00:29:09,960 --> 00:29:14,160
Speaker 1: the eruption for now. Okay, now Oppenheimer and writing about

487
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:17,120
Speaker 1: the eruption of theory. Uh he He says that the

488
00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 1: eruption seems to have been preceded by an earthquake or

489
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:24,080
Speaker 1: maybe series of earthquakes that the damage the local infrastructure.

490
00:29:24,360 --> 00:29:27,560
Speaker 1: In fact, it looks from the remains of this settlement

491
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 1: like the locals had not finished up cleaning the debris

492
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 1: and the damage from the earthquake at the time. The

493
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:38,400
Speaker 1: town was buried under tephra from the eruption, so it

494
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 1: seems very likely that these things are related. Uh And

495
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:46,480
Speaker 1: Oppenheimer writes quote the townsfolk appear to have suspected impending doom.

496
00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:50,600
Speaker 1: At least no victims have been found, suggesting that Acritiris

497
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:53,880
Speaker 1: residents abandoned the town before it was buried by thick

498
00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 1: tephra fall and pyroclastic current deposits. On the other hand,

499
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:02,560
Speaker 1: so much tefra remain excavated that it's entirely possible that

500
00:30:02,720 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 1: victims will be located eventually. Uh Now, I guess this

501
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:08,240
Speaker 1: book was written in two thousand eleven. I haven't read

502
00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:10,960
Speaker 1: about any victims discovered since then, but that would be

503
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:14,840
Speaker 1: interesting to come back to anyway. Oppenheimer goes on to say,

504
00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 1: the clearing away of debris and reconstruction were unfinished when

505
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:23,080
Speaker 1: the first hydro volcanic blasts excavated a new pathway for

506
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:26,640
Speaker 1: magma to reach the surface, probably through a vent on

507
00:30:26,640 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 1: one of the islands and towards the eastern wall of

508
00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 1: the present day caldera. Once the conduit was established, a

509
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:37,560
Speaker 1: sustained plenty and eruption ensued, gaining an intensity through time

510
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:41,480
Speaker 1: evident from increasing size of pumice chunks upwards through the

511
00:30:41,520 --> 00:30:46,760
Speaker 1: associated deposits. The eruption column reached an estimated maximum altitude

512
00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:50,080
Speaker 1: of thirty six kilometers, from which it would have descended

513
00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:53,440
Speaker 1: to its level of neutral buoyancy in the lower stratosphere.

514
00:30:53,800 --> 00:30:56,840
Speaker 1: The plume was then carried towards the east and southeast

515
00:30:57,120 --> 00:31:00,320
Speaker 1: by prevailing winds, so there would be this Joe giant

516
00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:03,719
Speaker 1: volcanic column, you know, visible from very far away, going

517
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:06,600
Speaker 1: up thirty six kilometers in the air, or at least

518
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:09,160
Speaker 1: up to thirty six kilometers in the air. And then

519
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:11,440
Speaker 1: he says the parts of the island were covered in

520
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:16,880
Speaker 1: up to six meters of white solicit pummice. And then

521
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:21,720
Speaker 1: the geological evidence indicates that sea water repeatedly sloshed into

522
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 1: the volcanic vent, rapidly mixing together water and magma and

523
00:31:26,640 --> 00:31:29,720
Speaker 1: uh and then through the surrounding sedimentary structures. So the

524
00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:32,480
Speaker 1: rock layers that we can see left there. Now it

525
00:31:32,520 --> 00:31:36,760
Speaker 1: looks like that there was this enhanced fragmentation of magma

526
00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:41,680
Speaker 1: that you see when water and magma mixed together very quickly,

527
00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 1: and Oppenheimer rights quote the resulting deposits, which accumulated to

528
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:50,560
Speaker 1: a depth of twelve meters, are punctuated by desk sized

529
00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:54,720
Speaker 1: lava bombs that must have traced ballistic trajectories from the

530
00:31:54,800 --> 00:31:59,080
Speaker 1: vent to thwack into the soft and sticky pyroclastic beds.

531
00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:04,360
Speaker 1: These care touristics indicate formation by successive shattering blasts and

532
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:09,520
Speaker 1: associated with base surges similar to ground hugging currents apparent

533
00:32:09,600 --> 00:32:13,840
Speaker 1: in photographs of atmospheric nuclear weapons tests that would have

534
00:32:13,880 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 1: readily scaled the complex topography of the island um So

535
00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:22,000
Speaker 1: so now Oppenheimer wrights that the event at this point

536
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:23,840
Speaker 1: in the eruption would have been filled with this sort

537
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:29,200
Speaker 1: of red hot salad of ash, water, steam and pummice,

538
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:32,520
Speaker 1: and you'd get these repeated blasts that would have kept

539
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:35,880
Speaker 1: widening the vent as the energy released by the eruption

540
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:39,520
Speaker 1: just kept increasing, and eventually you would get this climactic

541
00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:42,800
Speaker 1: phase of the eruption, you know, as it reaches it's

542
00:32:42,840 --> 00:32:46,120
Speaker 1: it's pinnacle, h and what he calls a soaring phoenix

543
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:50,000
Speaker 1: cloud and a new formation of a new caldera. So

544
00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:54,719
Speaker 1: in the end, this this gargantuan event had implications reaching

545
00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 1: far beyond just this island here known as Santorini. There

546
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 1: would have been weather and climate effects far and wide,

547
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:07,400
Speaker 1: quite possibly major damage from tsunami's Oppenheimer rights that quote.

548
00:33:07,400 --> 00:33:10,000
Speaker 1: The total size of the eruption, which probably lasted no

549
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 1: more than a few days, is difficult to estimate since

550
00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 1: so much of the material is beneath the waves, but

551
00:33:15,760 --> 00:33:18,360
Speaker 1: it's thought to have been around a magnitude of seven

552
00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:24,240
Speaker 1: point two or sixty cubic kilometers of dense magma. Uh So,

553
00:33:24,320 --> 00:33:28,400
Speaker 1: do you know people can't picture sixty cubic kilometers what

554
00:33:28,560 --> 00:33:32,640
Speaker 1: is that? Imagine a solid cube that is about three

555
00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 1: point nine kilometers or about two point four miles on

556
00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:38,960
Speaker 1: each edge, and it's a cube that big. So we're

557
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:42,239
Speaker 1: talking about it. It's a real cataclysmic eruption here. This

558
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:45,640
Speaker 1: was this, this was this was would have been horrifying

559
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:49,400
Speaker 1: to to witness from Afar. Yes, the local environment, the

560
00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:53,120
Speaker 1: island itself would have been just completely entombed, as the

561
00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:57,240
Speaker 1: word Oppenheimer uses, just buried. And then my no in

562
00:33:57,320 --> 00:34:00,640
Speaker 1: Tefra goes far far away, like has been found as

563
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:04,479
Speaker 1: far away as the Black Sea, indicating, um, you know,

564
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:09,200
Speaker 1: what Oppenheimer says is a fallout area bigger than two

565
00:34:09,239 --> 00:34:12,359
Speaker 1: million square kilometers, which he says is equivalent to about

566
00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 1: the size of Mexico, so gigantic radius of of effect

567
00:34:17,120 --> 00:34:19,440
Speaker 1: if you're trying to picture on the map it affecting

568
00:34:19,560 --> 00:34:22,800
Speaker 1: areas beyond in the Black Sea. The Black Sea is

569
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 1: on the other side of Turkey from the Aegean, so

570
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:30,560
Speaker 1: it is huge. But then, interestingly, Oppenheimer brings up one

571
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:33,319
Speaker 1: of the issues that is most debated with respect to

572
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:37,280
Speaker 1: the minor interruption, which is what was its exact date?

573
00:34:38,080 --> 00:34:40,000
Speaker 1: It seems like the kind of thing that you should

574
00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:42,880
Speaker 1: be able to tell, right, you know, we know exactly

575
00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:46,560
Speaker 1: what day this occurred, but it's harder than you might think.

576
00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:50,160
Speaker 1: We know it was roughly thirty years ago, but what

577
00:34:50,360 --> 00:34:54,560
Speaker 1: year exactly? Um, Now, I guess the question would be like,

578
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:57,960
Speaker 1: why would this be tricky? To date. You know, shouldn't

579
00:34:58,080 --> 00:35:00,640
Speaker 1: shouldn't we have a record of it. Well, most of

580
00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:05,279
Speaker 1: our chronology for the ancient Eastern Mediterranean is based on

581
00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:09,600
Speaker 1: the historical timeline of Pharaonic dynasties in Egypt. You know

582
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:12,280
Speaker 1: that they kept pretty good records, They include the lengths

583
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:17,120
Speaker 1: of rains. But even with these, uh, these pharaoh chronologies,

584
00:35:17,200 --> 00:35:19,839
Speaker 1: there's still a lot of uncertainty in the dating of

585
00:35:19,880 --> 00:35:22,680
Speaker 1: these pharaohs when you go farther back, especially to the

586
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:24,840
Speaker 1: kind of period we're talking about. You know, if you

587
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:28,919
Speaker 1: get into like the period of the Roman Empire or something, uh,

588
00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:31,560
Speaker 1: then dates are really solid. We just know what your

589
00:35:31,680 --> 00:35:34,920
Speaker 1: things happened. But if you go a thousand years fifteen

590
00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:39,480
Speaker 1: hundred years back before that, throughout much of the Eastern Mediterranean,

591
00:35:39,520 --> 00:35:42,680
Speaker 1: there's way more room for questioning and error because there

592
00:35:42,680 --> 00:35:46,400
Speaker 1: are fewer written records. Those records are less correlated with

593
00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:50,440
Speaker 1: objectively dated other things, so there's just there there are

594
00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:52,520
Speaker 1: a lot of question marks. Yeah, I like to to

595
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:55,359
Speaker 1: drive on something we've We've mentioned in the past. We

596
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:57,960
Speaker 1: were in dealing with the with ancient Egypt. We're dealing

597
00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:01,720
Speaker 1: with the ancient history of the Romans. Like the Romans

598
00:36:01,760 --> 00:36:05,000
Speaker 1: considered this ancient history. Yeah, what we're saying, so Julius Caesar,

599
00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:08,680
Speaker 1: if he's thinking about the events concurrent with the eruption

600
00:36:08,760 --> 00:36:12,000
Speaker 1: of theory, that would have been like something like fifteen

601
00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:14,759
Speaker 1: hundred years ago for him. So us thinking back to,

602
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:18,399
Speaker 1: you know, the collapse of the Roman Empire, and then

603
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:21,040
Speaker 1: that's funny, that's just the new Kingdom of Egypt. Again,

604
00:36:21,080 --> 00:36:22,960
Speaker 1: I've said this on the show before, but one of

605
00:36:23,080 --> 00:36:25,080
Speaker 1: one of the most amazing things is to think about

606
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:28,360
Speaker 1: how far back ancient history goes. Just in the written

607
00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:31,160
Speaker 1: part of history, where we have some records and there

608
00:36:31,160 --> 00:36:36,000
Speaker 1: are recognizable civilizations, that's the new Kingdom to the ancient Romans.

609
00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:39,560
Speaker 1: The old Kingdom of Egypt would have been more ancient

610
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:43,239
Speaker 1: to them than the Romans were to us. Yeah, and

611
00:36:43,280 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 1: that that's just always nine boggling to think about it.

612
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:48,480
Speaker 1: I love that. Yeah. But anyway, so so we get

613
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:51,360
Speaker 1: to these dating issues. Um now, I'm gonna try to

614
00:36:51,400 --> 00:36:54,680
Speaker 1: avoid getting too technical about the dating because like you know,

615
00:36:54,800 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 1: are arguing about you know, how many decades in this

616
00:36:58,160 --> 00:37:01,719
Speaker 1: direction or that direction? Uh you date an event can

617
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:04,640
Speaker 1: get a little bit uh wearisome. I think if you

618
00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:07,680
Speaker 1: if you don't have a lot of other history knowledge

619
00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:10,120
Speaker 1: to sort of orient around that. But to give you

620
00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:13,040
Speaker 1: the short version, the standard view for some time at

621
00:37:13,120 --> 00:37:16,879
Speaker 1: least according to Oppenheimer, is that the minor interruption took

622
00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:23,319
Speaker 1: place sometime around fifty d b C. But there has

623
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:28,520
Speaker 1: recently been radiocarbon dating and other types of evidence that,

624
00:37:28,640 --> 00:37:32,000
Speaker 1: if correct, would place the eruption like a hundred years earlier.

625
00:37:32,080 --> 00:37:34,719
Speaker 1: So just one example is a study that I was

626
00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:37,320
Speaker 1: reading about from two thousand six published in the journal

627
00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:41,200
Speaker 1: Science by Friedrich at All. That was radiocarbon dating of

628
00:37:41,280 --> 00:37:44,640
Speaker 1: a branch from an olive tree that was buried alive

629
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:49,879
Speaker 1: in Tephra on Santorini. Uh. When so the branches would

630
00:37:49,880 --> 00:37:52,480
Speaker 1: have been they were preserved in their life position. You know,

631
00:37:52,600 --> 00:37:54,840
Speaker 1: this was not a dead tree. This was still living

632
00:37:55,120 --> 00:37:58,480
Speaker 1: when it got put under the ash. And that evidence,

633
00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:00,759
Speaker 1: the evidence from that radio carb and dating, would put

634
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:04,960
Speaker 1: the eruption in the late seventeenth century BC, so like

635
00:38:05,040 --> 00:38:08,919
Speaker 1: sometime around sixteen hundred to sixteen twenty seven or so.

636
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:13,200
Speaker 1: And of course the authors of this radio carbon dating say, uh, whoops.

637
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:16,719
Speaker 1: The one problem here is this is not consistent with

638
00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:20,359
Speaker 1: the eruption date as it uh as it's assumed by

639
00:38:20,360 --> 00:38:25,360
Speaker 1: many archaeologists, especially based on the chronology of pharaohs in

640
00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:28,319
Speaker 1: the New Kingdom of Egypt. It doesn't really match up.

641
00:38:28,360 --> 00:38:30,959
Speaker 1: So maybe there's something wrong with our date, or maybe

642
00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:34,080
Speaker 1: there's something wrong with that chronology. Now, it certainly is

643
00:38:34,120 --> 00:38:37,080
Speaker 1: possible that the radio carbon dates could be wrong. Oppenheimer

644
00:38:37,239 --> 00:38:40,000
Speaker 1: in his book points out that there are uncertainties with

645
00:38:40,120 --> 00:38:44,360
Speaker 1: the level of atmospheric carbon fourteen right around this period.

646
00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:47,200
Speaker 1: He says, between thirty five hundred and thirty seven hundred

647
00:38:47,280 --> 00:38:51,200
Speaker 1: years ago for various atmospheric chemical reasons um that make

648
00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:53,160
Speaker 1: it a little bit harder than it might usually be

649
00:38:53,239 --> 00:38:56,720
Speaker 1: to obtain accurate carbon dates for objects within this period,

650
00:38:57,120 --> 00:38:59,400
Speaker 1: And there have been other attempts to date the eruption

651
00:38:59,560 --> 00:39:01,920
Speaker 1: using in act He's got a long section in his

652
00:39:02,080 --> 00:39:04,000
Speaker 1: chapter if you ever want to check out the book

653
00:39:04,080 --> 00:39:07,800
Speaker 1: that's really interesting about using dendro chronology and the study

654
00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:11,960
Speaker 1: of ancient trees in Turkey, UH to try to understand

655
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:14,600
Speaker 1: what might have been happening with the theory eruption, Like

656
00:39:14,960 --> 00:39:17,799
Speaker 1: there are these trees that show these sudden spurts of

657
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:21,480
Speaker 1: growth at a time that might be signaled by the

658
00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:24,720
Speaker 1: eruption of the volcano, and it's like, why would volcano

659
00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:27,440
Speaker 1: erupting make trees grow more? But it has to do

660
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:30,160
Speaker 1: with the local climate in Turkey that actually having a

661
00:39:30,239 --> 00:39:34,040
Speaker 1: cooler summer. If you're a tree in a hot arid climate,

662
00:39:34,200 --> 00:39:36,640
Speaker 1: a cooler summer could actually help you grow more than

663
00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:39,520
Speaker 1: you would normally. Oh fascinating. Now to come back to

664
00:39:39,560 --> 00:39:41,440
Speaker 1: something more parallel to what we were talking about with

665
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:44,600
Speaker 1: people trying to relate these events to the Bible. Uh.

666
00:39:44,719 --> 00:39:46,759
Speaker 1: One thing that I think is funny is that a

667
00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:50,319
Speaker 1: Nappenheimer goes into this bit. Many people have tried to

668
00:39:50,520 --> 00:39:55,160
Speaker 1: link the Minoan eruption to the story of Atlantis told

669
00:39:55,200 --> 00:39:59,839
Speaker 1: by Plato and the Timiest Dialogue. There are some obvious parallels.

670
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:03,720
Speaker 1: It does tell of an island civilization that achieved great

671
00:40:04,120 --> 00:40:07,440
Speaker 1: prosperity but then sank into the sea amid earthquakes and

672
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 1: fire and left behind a shoal of mud that made

673
00:40:11,080 --> 00:40:15,319
Speaker 1: the sea in that region impassable. So you know, you

674
00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:18,440
Speaker 1: can see some similarities. But I think it's it's important

675
00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:20,400
Speaker 1: to keep in mind that this is one of the

676
00:40:20,400 --> 00:40:23,160
Speaker 1: places where it's really easy for the pattern seeking brain

677
00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:27,000
Speaker 1: to get over excited because the story of Atlantis was

678
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:31,040
Speaker 1: written more than a thousand years after the theory eruption,

679
00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:35,000
Speaker 1: probably like the thirteen or fourteen hundred years later, might

680
00:40:35,040 --> 00:40:38,120
Speaker 1: not even have been intended to be taken as anything

681
00:40:38,160 --> 00:40:41,000
Speaker 1: more than like an allegorical story to make a point.

682
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:44,640
Speaker 1: So I think any attempts to say, Aha, Atlantis was

683
00:40:44,719 --> 00:40:49,520
Speaker 1: Santorini that seems entirely speculative based on pretty weak inference.

684
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:52,480
Speaker 1: I don't think we can even be confident that that

685
00:40:52,680 --> 00:40:57,239
Speaker 1: Atlantis was a place. Yes, but Atlantis is one of

686
00:40:57,239 --> 00:41:00,759
Speaker 1: those one of those things that people are always going

687
00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:02,959
Speaker 1: to jump to conclusions with, and they're gonna they're gonna

688
00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:06,839
Speaker 1: bend over backwards to try and fit Atlantis in with

689
00:41:06,840 --> 00:41:09,719
Speaker 1: with some sort of existing evidence or tail, and he's

690
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:12,600
Speaker 1: right up there with the aliens, right though, I admit

691
00:41:12,680 --> 00:41:15,360
Speaker 1: I guess like if you're gonna say the Atlanta story,

692
00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:18,560
Speaker 1: if you knew somehow that it was based on a

693
00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:21,840
Speaker 1: real event in Mediterranean history, I guess maybe this wouldn't

694
00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:24,120
Speaker 1: be a bad candidate. I just if you get more

695
00:41:24,120 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 1: into that that sort of middle area of like, okay,

696
00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:30,000
Speaker 1: a story, and even if it's just purely for allegorical

697
00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:33,560
Speaker 1: purposes based on a city vanishing into the sea and

698
00:41:33,640 --> 00:41:36,279
Speaker 1: some sort of a cataclysm. It could have connections to this,

699
00:41:36,440 --> 00:41:40,719
Speaker 1: you know, just to some uh you know, memories and

700
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:44,040
Speaker 1: accounts of this having happened before uh, you know, because

701
00:41:44,040 --> 00:41:47,000
Speaker 1: that's just that's how humans work. We we when we

702
00:41:47,040 --> 00:41:49,239
Speaker 1: make things up, we tend to make them, make base

703
00:41:49,320 --> 00:41:52,000
Speaker 1: them on things that came before us, either historical events

704
00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:55,799
Speaker 1: or other myth cycles, other stories, etcetera. Right, So, if

705
00:41:55,840 --> 00:41:59,200
Speaker 1: we're trying to get come up with a good solid

706
00:41:59,360 --> 00:42:02,000
Speaker 1: date for or the theory eruption and and sort out

707
00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:05,240
Speaker 1: all these discrepancies, one thing that would be really useful

708
00:42:05,239 --> 00:42:08,080
Speaker 1: would be if there were a contemporary record that we

709
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:11,120
Speaker 1: could did you know that we could date definitively which

710
00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:16,480
Speaker 1: referred to the eruption. Unfortunately, we actually have shockingly few

711
00:42:16,640 --> 00:42:21,080
Speaker 1: written records from this period in this region of any kind,

712
00:42:21,680 --> 00:42:25,160
Speaker 1: and what we do have does not make explicit reference

713
00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:29,319
Speaker 1: to the eruption unless unless one of the papers we're

714
00:42:29,320 --> 00:42:32,600
Speaker 1: looking at today is correct, and it does in an

715
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:35,520
Speaker 1: abstracted form. And this, of course is what brings us

716
00:42:35,520 --> 00:42:41,799
Speaker 1: back to this hypothetical interpretation of the tempest Steela. Alright, Yes,

717
00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 1: the the intense rain, the darkening of the sky, the

718
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:50,239
Speaker 1: flooding exactly so, so Oppenheimer actually makes reference in his

719
00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:54,760
Speaker 1: chapter to this this possible connection. He says, quote in Egypt,

720
00:42:54,880 --> 00:42:58,560
Speaker 1: depending on which its eruption chronology you adhere to, the

721
00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:01,200
Speaker 1: time of the eruption co sided with the end of

722
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:04,440
Speaker 1: the Second Intermediate Period and the rise of the brothers

723
00:43:04,520 --> 00:43:08,279
Speaker 1: Commos and Amos, who founded the eighteenth dynasty of the

724
00:43:08,280 --> 00:43:12,680
Speaker 1: New Kingdom. Meanwhile, in Mesopotamia, the Old Babylonian period was

725
00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:16,400
Speaker 1: nearing its terminus with the hit Heights Sack of Babylon

726
00:43:16,800 --> 00:43:22,239
Speaker 1: dated circa fift b C. Unfortunately, there are virtually no

727
00:43:22,440 --> 00:43:26,200
Speaker 1: surviving historical texts from the period. And here's where we

728
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:29,160
Speaker 1: get to the really relevant part. It has been suggested

729
00:43:29,200 --> 00:43:32,719
Speaker 1: that hieroglyphs on a stela erected by Amos in the

730
00:43:32,840 --> 00:43:37,920
Speaker 1: Karnak Temple bear witness to the Manuan eruptions climatic consequences

731
00:43:38,200 --> 00:43:41,520
Speaker 1: in the guise of a great storm accompanied by flooding

732
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:45,719
Speaker 1: and destruction, but it seems more likely the events recorded

733
00:43:45,920 --> 00:43:49,479
Speaker 1: referred to. Severe monsoonal flooding in the Nile as still

734
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:53,120
Speaker 1: occurs from time to time, so at the time Oppenheimer

735
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:56,560
Speaker 1: published this in two thousand eleven, he thought it unlikely

736
00:43:56,680 --> 00:44:00,600
Speaker 1: that the Tempest Stela was referring to the Man interruption,

737
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:04,240
Speaker 1: because first of all, it could have the Steeler could

738
00:44:04,239 --> 00:44:07,480
Speaker 1: have other plausible interpretations like some of the interpretations we've

739
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:11,719
Speaker 1: talked about already. And also the dates, though close, don't

740
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:15,000
Speaker 1: exactly line up. Right. Yeah, and again, like you said,

741
00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:17,960
Speaker 1: the Nile floods, it will it will flood, it will

742
00:44:17,960 --> 00:44:21,800
Speaker 1: shrink back down. And this sort of um fluctuation is

743
00:44:22,040 --> 00:44:26,360
Speaker 1: in a crucial part of of the the Egyptian worldview

744
00:44:26,400 --> 00:44:28,640
Speaker 1: and the way that they saw the world and the

745
00:44:28,640 --> 00:44:33,080
Speaker 1: way that they they formed their various interpretations of the gods. Right.

746
00:44:33,560 --> 00:44:36,080
Speaker 1: But anyway, back to what originally got me interested in

747
00:44:36,120 --> 00:44:38,440
Speaker 1: doing this episode was this paper that was published in

748
00:44:39,480 --> 00:44:43,160
Speaker 1: that UM certainly does not make a conclusive case, but

749
00:44:43,280 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 1: maybe makes the mind no interruption interpretation of the Tempest

750
00:44:47,160 --> 00:44:50,960
Speaker 1: steel a more plausible. And so this is a paper

751
00:44:50,960 --> 00:44:55,080
Speaker 1: published by Robert K. Writtener and Nadine Muller Uh published

752
00:44:55,200 --> 00:44:58,360
Speaker 1: in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies INTEN called the

753
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:04,160
Speaker 1: Almost Tempest steal Uh Theory and Comparative Chronology. Now, just

754
00:45:04,200 --> 00:45:08,279
Speaker 1: to quickly refresh on the apocalyptic climatic lines from the

755
00:45:08,320 --> 00:45:12,400
Speaker 1: Steela inscription, at least the translation we read earlier. It

756
00:45:12,440 --> 00:45:15,520
Speaker 1: talks about quote, the gods caused the sky to come

757
00:45:15,560 --> 00:45:19,040
Speaker 1: in a tempest of rain, with darkness in the western region,

758
00:45:19,120 --> 00:45:22,880
Speaker 1: and the sky being unleashed without cessation, louder than the

759
00:45:22,920 --> 00:45:27,480
Speaker 1: cries of the masses, more powerful than something, while the

760
00:45:27,600 --> 00:45:30,560
Speaker 1: rain raged on the mountains, louder than the noise of

761
00:45:30,560 --> 00:45:34,640
Speaker 1: the cataract, which is at Elephantine, every house every quarter

762
00:45:34,800 --> 00:45:37,759
Speaker 1: that they reached floating on the water like skiffs of

763
00:45:37,760 --> 00:45:42,239
Speaker 1: papyrus opposite the royal residence for a period of days,

764
00:45:42,640 --> 00:45:46,359
Speaker 1: while a torch could not be lit in the two lands. Now,

765
00:45:46,680 --> 00:45:48,840
Speaker 1: so so we've talked about the the sort of classic

766
00:45:48,960 --> 00:45:53,080
Speaker 1: or regular interpretations of what's being described here. Maybe this

767
00:45:53,320 --> 00:45:58,319
Speaker 1: is describing real weather like events that were and it

768
00:45:58,520 --> 00:46:03,840
Speaker 1: maybe like uh, particularly bad monsoon season where you know,

769
00:46:04,000 --> 00:46:08,640
Speaker 1: really intense nile flooding season one summer, or maybe these

770
00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:12,719
Speaker 1: this is a fictional account. Maybe it's somehow metaphorical as

771
00:46:12,719 --> 00:46:16,640
Speaker 1: a statement about military invasions or movements of people. Yeah,

772
00:46:16,719 --> 00:46:19,520
Speaker 1: and and and it is also worth reminding ourselves that

773
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:22,879
Speaker 1: what we we see here, what has survived, Like, there's

774
00:46:22,920 --> 00:46:25,280
Speaker 1: nothing in this account that couldn't have been said about

775
00:46:25,360 --> 00:46:29,840
Speaker 1: just a really intense storm that was related to you know,

776
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:32,880
Speaker 1: to say the monsoon, uh season or something you know,

777
00:46:32,920 --> 00:46:35,479
Speaker 1: to that effect. You know that it's just it rained

778
00:46:35,480 --> 00:46:37,960
Speaker 1: a whole lot. The sky was dark, the sky darkness

779
00:46:38,560 --> 00:46:42,759
Speaker 1: when there are heavy storms and uh and then flooding occurred. Um.

780
00:46:42,920 --> 00:46:46,759
Speaker 1: So you you don't need the volcano to explain what

781
00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:50,520
Speaker 1: we're what we're reading here. Though if there were a

782
00:46:50,600 --> 00:46:54,280
Speaker 1: volcanic eruption, it's very possible that it could it could

783
00:46:54,320 --> 00:46:58,120
Speaker 1: create this kind of intense weather that is being described.

784
00:46:58,640 --> 00:47:02,319
Speaker 1: Volcanic eruptions inject gases and ash particles way up into

785
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:05,840
Speaker 1: the atmosphere, which in some cases can cause extreme heavy rains,

786
00:47:06,080 --> 00:47:09,000
Speaker 1: lightning storms, and things like that in the area surrounding

787
00:47:09,040 --> 00:47:11,600
Speaker 1: the eruption. And of course we know that on on

788
00:47:11,640 --> 00:47:14,320
Speaker 1: an even broader scale, big eruptions can have these huge

789
00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:18,040
Speaker 1: climatic effects that can infect an entire hemisphere of the globe,

790
00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:22,359
Speaker 1: like they bring cool summers, bad harvests and famine, etcetera.

791
00:47:22,640 --> 00:47:25,200
Speaker 1: But like we've said, you can have even earthquakes, you

792
00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:28,560
Speaker 1: can have dark skies, thunderstorms and flooding in Egypt without

793
00:47:28,560 --> 00:47:32,640
Speaker 1: it necessarily being the result of a volcano so wider.

794
00:47:32,640 --> 00:47:35,600
Speaker 1: Writtener and Mueller further suggest the link in this paper.

795
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:39,360
Speaker 1: Just to briefly mention a few points. One thing is

796
00:47:39,400 --> 00:47:43,480
Speaker 1: that this paper offers a new revised translation of the Steela,

797
00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:46,200
Speaker 1: which they argue, for one thing, makes it pretty clear

798
00:47:46,239 --> 00:47:50,080
Speaker 1: that the events described are not supposed to be some

799
00:47:50,200 --> 00:47:53,279
Speaker 1: kind of military or political metaphor. They really seem to

800
00:47:53,320 --> 00:47:58,560
Speaker 1: be describing literal weather events, and these events are said

801
00:47:58,600 --> 00:48:02,960
Speaker 1: to have been personally witten by Almos himself. Another thing

802
00:48:03,160 --> 00:48:07,239
Speaker 1: is just some complicated interlocking date stuff like it looks

803
00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:10,720
Speaker 1: like if you date the tempest Steela and the reign

804
00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:14,400
Speaker 1: of almost something like thirty to fifty years earlier than

805
00:48:14,440 --> 00:48:19,600
Speaker 1: the traditional uh pharoh chronology, does that puts it closer

806
00:48:19,640 --> 00:48:22,640
Speaker 1: to the date for the theory eruption, at least the

807
00:48:22,719 --> 00:48:25,680
Speaker 1: date that would be implied by the more recent radiocarbon dating.

808
00:48:25,680 --> 00:48:29,320
Speaker 1: And we've discussed already the reasons that the theory eruption

809
00:48:29,400 --> 00:48:32,680
Speaker 1: has different dates, But you remember the olive branch and

810
00:48:32,719 --> 00:48:35,919
Speaker 1: the radiocarbon dating putting it closer to like the late

811
00:48:36,040 --> 00:48:40,120
Speaker 1: sixteen hundreds BC. UH. If you do that, allegedly some

812
00:48:40,200 --> 00:48:44,200
Speaker 1: other discrepancies and discontinuities about dates in ancient regional history

813
00:48:44,239 --> 00:48:49,120
Speaker 1: would at least be partially resolved. Another interesting argument I

814
00:48:49,160 --> 00:48:53,320
Speaker 1: came across was actually a point raised by a different professor,

815
00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:57,640
Speaker 1: a University of Chicago archaeologist named David Schloan, which I

816
00:48:57,640 --> 00:49:01,359
Speaker 1: saw quoted in some news articles covering paper and this

817
00:49:01,520 --> 00:49:05,080
Speaker 1: was that if this link is true, it would make

818
00:49:05,160 --> 00:49:08,640
Speaker 1: almost as military victories over the hicks Os make even

819
00:49:08,680 --> 00:49:13,640
Speaker 1: more sense. We know that the theory eruption caused catastrophic

820
00:49:13,719 --> 00:49:17,279
Speaker 1: tsunamis that affected places like the coast of Crete. If

821
00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:20,920
Speaker 1: these tsunamis also struck the coast of Egypt along the

822
00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:25,239
Speaker 1: Nile Delta, this potentially could have devastated Hickso supports and

823
00:49:25,320 --> 00:49:29,560
Speaker 1: weakened the Hicksos greatly by crushing their coastal settlements and

824
00:49:29,600 --> 00:49:32,479
Speaker 1: crushing their ships and their sea power, which in turn

825
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:35,239
Speaker 1: would have weakened them, making it easier for almost to

826
00:49:35,280 --> 00:49:38,759
Speaker 1: get victory in the conquest of Lower Egypt. So yeah, what.

827
00:49:38,920 --> 00:49:41,680
Speaker 1: While this is by no means conclusive, I think it

828
00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:46,600
Speaker 1: seems plausible that the phenomena described in the Tempestila could

829
00:49:46,680 --> 00:49:49,520
Speaker 1: be the theory eruption and or the weather effects that

830
00:49:49,600 --> 00:49:51,880
Speaker 1: followed it, but of course it seems very hard to

831
00:49:51,880 --> 00:49:55,240
Speaker 1: be certain about that. But in general, I do really

832
00:49:55,320 --> 00:49:59,600
Speaker 1: enjoy things like this, finding new possible connections between natural events,

833
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:03,920
Speaker 1: geological and climate events, and artifacts from human history that

834
00:50:03,960 --> 00:50:07,719
Speaker 1: we didn't really know for sure how to interpret before. Yeah,

835
00:50:07,800 --> 00:50:09,840
Speaker 1: and and one of those situations to where you you

836
00:50:09,880 --> 00:50:12,640
Speaker 1: can't help but think like, what is the you know,

837
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:14,960
Speaker 1: what is the closest we could come to being sure

838
00:50:15,000 --> 00:50:17,960
Speaker 1: about this? You know? Um? And and there's you know,

839
00:50:18,000 --> 00:50:19,919
Speaker 1: there may always be this gap of it. And then again,

840
00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:21,920
Speaker 1: who knows, who knows what else might be discovered in

841
00:50:21,960 --> 00:50:25,319
Speaker 1: the future that uh, that could help line things up

842
00:50:25,360 --> 00:50:34,239
Speaker 1: even better than now. I was poking around about this

843
00:50:34,360 --> 00:50:37,319
Speaker 1: and I figured it might be worth addressing something that

844
00:50:37,360 --> 00:50:40,480
Speaker 1: I think is um. Even with this the study we're

845
00:50:40,480 --> 00:50:43,040
Speaker 1: talking about now, like we said, as far from conclusive,

846
00:50:43,120 --> 00:50:46,080
Speaker 1: but it like it makes some interesting arguments. There's some

847
00:50:46,080 --> 00:50:50,080
Speaker 1: stuff that I think is even more speculative and and

848
00:50:50,320 --> 00:50:54,000
Speaker 1: goes in directions that might be unsurprising if you're familiar with,

849
00:50:54,120 --> 00:50:58,680
Speaker 1: you know, popular writing in this subject matter UM, which

850
00:50:58,719 --> 00:51:01,799
Speaker 1: is links to biblical interpret Titian as some people who

851
00:51:01,880 --> 00:51:05,840
Speaker 1: take the Biblical stories of like the Exodus and surrounding

852
00:51:05,880 --> 00:51:09,880
Speaker 1: events as literal history have apparently tried to connect the

853
00:51:09,960 --> 00:51:14,960
Speaker 1: events described in the Storm Steela as evidence that, for example,

854
00:51:15,040 --> 00:51:18,840
Speaker 1: the plague of darkness described in the Bible actually literally

855
00:51:18,920 --> 00:51:23,200
Speaker 1: happened in egypt Um. And I would just say, from

856
00:51:23,239 --> 00:51:26,360
Speaker 1: my point of view, this type of reading of religious

857
00:51:26,440 --> 00:51:29,759
Speaker 1: texts seems kind of misguided in several ways, but I

858
00:51:29,760 --> 00:51:32,840
Speaker 1: guess it is not surprising. Yeah. And again we touched

859
00:51:32,840 --> 00:51:36,120
Speaker 1: on a little bit already about this about the Hebrew

860
00:51:36,320 --> 00:51:40,520
Speaker 1: Hicksos correlation. As I've seen it referred to. It's it's

861
00:51:40,600 --> 00:51:43,640
Speaker 1: one of the usual suspects I've seen it referred to

862
00:51:43,680 --> 00:51:46,200
Speaker 1: as in attempts to establish an historic record for the

863
00:51:46,200 --> 00:51:48,960
Speaker 1: great antiquity of the Jewish people. And again, people have

864
00:51:49,000 --> 00:51:53,120
Speaker 1: been writing about this possible connection for literally ages. Yeah, yeah, totally,

865
00:51:53,120 --> 00:51:56,240
Speaker 1: I mean as even before this new study. But for example,

866
00:51:57,000 --> 00:51:59,279
Speaker 1: it is not surprising that people would like take one

867
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:01,560
Speaker 1: of these studies is and run with it and say, like, hey,

868
00:52:01,760 --> 00:52:04,920
Speaker 1: proof of the Bible or something. I was just I

869
00:52:05,200 --> 00:52:07,680
Speaker 1: didn't go deep on this, but for example, I found

870
00:52:07,719 --> 00:52:10,520
Speaker 1: an article by it was like a blog post on

871
00:52:10,600 --> 00:52:15,680
Speaker 1: the Times of Israel by this guy named Simcha jacobo Vici, uh,

872
00:52:15,920 --> 00:52:19,279
Speaker 1: saying essentially that you know, this is somehow proof of

873
00:52:19,280 --> 00:52:22,640
Speaker 1: the historicity of of the Exodus or the biblical plagues.

874
00:52:22,960 --> 00:52:24,759
Speaker 1: I think it goes without saying that this is not

875
00:52:24,800 --> 00:52:28,160
Speaker 1: what the authors of the study or alleging. Yeah, this

876
00:52:28,440 --> 00:52:32,879
Speaker 1: jacobo Vici argument. Uh. This was referenced in a really

877
00:52:32,880 --> 00:52:36,279
Speaker 1: interesting blog post that I read from George Athos, who

878
00:52:36,320 --> 00:52:40,000
Speaker 1: teaches that More Theological College in Sydney, Australia, and an

879
00:52:40,000 --> 00:52:44,360
Speaker 1: Athens points out that traditionally the the Steela was interpreted

880
00:52:44,400 --> 00:52:46,920
Speaker 1: as either the description of a localized natural disaster or

881
00:52:46,960 --> 00:52:49,040
Speaker 1: is the metaphor for the oppression of the Egyptians at

882
00:52:49,040 --> 00:52:51,800
Speaker 1: the hand of the hands of the the Hicksos rulers.

883
00:52:52,320 --> 00:52:55,960
Speaker 1: And he discusses u written Er and Moehler, but he

884
00:52:56,040 --> 00:53:01,120
Speaker 1: also talks about this jacobo Vici argument. Now. Jacopovici is

885
00:53:01,160 --> 00:53:04,239
Speaker 1: an Israeli Canadian filmmaker who busts out a lot of

886
00:53:04,239 --> 00:53:08,320
Speaker 1: work on archaeological evidence for Biblical events. Uh, work that

887
00:53:08,400 --> 00:53:12,279
Speaker 1: often clashes with accepted interpretations. So he's been all up

888
00:53:12,560 --> 00:53:15,719
Speaker 1: on the History Channel for example, of course, Uh, this

889
00:53:15,760 --> 00:53:19,880
Speaker 1: is what Athis says, writes quote Jacobovici asserts that this

890
00:53:19,960 --> 00:53:24,320
Speaker 1: new interpretation proves the biblical Exodus because the natural disaster

891
00:53:24,719 --> 00:53:28,200
Speaker 1: in the Tempest Stela describes matches up with the plague

892
00:53:28,200 --> 00:53:32,839
Speaker 1: of darkness described in the Exodus narrative. Jacobovici claimed back

893
00:53:32,840 --> 00:53:35,640
Speaker 1: in two thousand six that this stela was a key

894
00:53:35,680 --> 00:53:39,200
Speaker 1: piece of evidence for finding the Exodus in the archaeological

895
00:53:39,239 --> 00:53:42,040
Speaker 1: records of Egypt. And now he says, here is the

896
00:53:42,080 --> 00:53:45,120
Speaker 1: final proof. Now Athis goes on to say, no, in

897
00:53:45,160 --> 00:53:48,200
Speaker 1: his opinion, there is no direct connection to be made here,

898
00:53:48,239 --> 00:53:50,799
Speaker 1: no matter how much he himself would like to see

899
00:53:50,800 --> 00:53:53,840
Speaker 1: such firm connection. He's very uh, you know, he mentions

900
00:53:53,840 --> 00:53:55,880
Speaker 1: this several times, like he says, you know, I would

901
00:53:55,880 --> 00:53:58,040
Speaker 1: love to see this proven true. I would love to

902
00:53:58,080 --> 00:54:00,560
Speaker 1: find this connection, you know, but this is not it.

903
00:54:00,640 --> 00:54:03,920
Speaker 1: We can't jump to conclusions. And and you know announced

904
00:54:03,920 --> 00:54:06,360
Speaker 1: that it is that is done, you know. And he

905
00:54:06,400 --> 00:54:09,839
Speaker 1: presents several reasons why. First of all, uh, he said

906
00:54:10,080 --> 00:54:12,520
Speaker 1: this connection was not made by written Er and Moehler

907
00:54:12,560 --> 00:54:15,760
Speaker 1: in their work. Also the Tempest, Steeler makes no mention

908
00:54:15,760 --> 00:54:18,600
Speaker 1: of slaves, he Brews, or anything else that matches up

909
00:54:18,640 --> 00:54:22,600
Speaker 1: with Exodus. Also, i'm os described it as something greater

910
00:54:22,680 --> 00:54:24,560
Speaker 1: than the work of a god, not the work of

911
00:54:24,600 --> 00:54:28,200
Speaker 1: a god. Written Er and Moelar stress that the emphasis

912
00:54:28,280 --> 00:54:32,280
Speaker 1: is not the darkness but rather the abnormally harsh rain storm.

913
00:54:32,400 --> 00:54:35,520
Speaker 1: Darkness is secondary to the rain. Uh, you know, think

914
00:54:35,520 --> 00:54:37,399
Speaker 1: back to what we read earlier, or even go back

915
00:54:37,400 --> 00:54:41,240
Speaker 1: and listen to it, where they're like, it rained, crazy,

916
00:54:41,320 --> 00:54:43,080
Speaker 1: and it was dark. It wasn't like and then there

917
00:54:43,160 --> 00:54:46,080
Speaker 1: was darkness and also it was raining. And then he writes,

918
00:54:46,640 --> 00:54:50,160
Speaker 1: Jakobovici makes a direct link between the hicks Sos and

919
00:54:50,160 --> 00:54:53,000
Speaker 1: the Israelite slaves of the Exodus narrative. He is not

920
00:54:53,080 --> 00:54:55,120
Speaker 1: the first to make this link, but it creates a

921
00:54:55,120 --> 00:54:58,200
Speaker 1: series of other problems. For example, the Hicksos ruled a

922
00:54:58,239 --> 00:55:01,680
Speaker 1: portion of Egypt, which contrad the Exodus narrative and states

923
00:55:01,880 --> 00:55:06,080
Speaker 1: the Israelites were slaves, not rulers. There are also chronological difficulties,

924
00:55:06,120 --> 00:55:10,360
Speaker 1: including seeming clashes with the archaeological record of a settlement

925
00:55:10,600 --> 00:55:14,600
Speaker 1: into Canaan. And then, finally, Jacobovicci apparently plays fast and

926
00:55:14,640 --> 00:55:18,000
Speaker 1: loose with the term proof According to athis yeah, and

927
00:55:18,040 --> 00:55:20,480
Speaker 1: that seems like one of the biggest things obviously, I mean,

928
00:55:20,800 --> 00:55:23,840
Speaker 1: as soon as you're saying, like proof, you're you're really

929
00:55:23,840 --> 00:55:26,279
Speaker 1: setting a bar for yourself that you're almost never going

930
00:55:26,320 --> 00:55:30,040
Speaker 1: to clear. Yeah. So so ath Is finishes up by saying, quote,

931
00:55:30,040 --> 00:55:31,920
Speaker 1: I'll be glad of the day when we do find

932
00:55:32,000 --> 00:55:35,040
Speaker 1: evidence for the Exodus outside the Bible, but today is

933
00:55:35,080 --> 00:55:36,920
Speaker 1: not that day. So I thought that that was a

934
00:55:37,080 --> 00:55:39,680
Speaker 1: rather interesting take on it. You know, um uh, you

935
00:55:39,719 --> 00:55:42,600
Speaker 1: know again somebody coming from the point of view where

936
00:55:42,640 --> 00:55:45,960
Speaker 1: they're not just saying like, I'm here to to disprove all, um,

937
00:55:46,480 --> 00:55:48,440
Speaker 1: you know, bits of legend and mythology. I'm here to

938
00:55:48,480 --> 00:55:50,319
Speaker 1: disprove the Bible. And he's saying, you know, I would

939
00:55:50,320 --> 00:55:52,080
Speaker 1: I would love for this to be proven true. And

940
00:55:52,440 --> 00:55:54,759
Speaker 1: he really seems to write from a standpoint where it

941
00:55:54,800 --> 00:55:58,279
Speaker 1: sounds like he his faith is in that, that in

942
00:55:58,560 --> 00:56:01,399
Speaker 1: the reality of it. But you're saying, you know, this

943
00:56:01,480 --> 00:56:03,200
Speaker 1: is not the proof you're looking for. This is not

944
00:56:03,480 --> 00:56:06,560
Speaker 1: you know, we cannot say that the job is done

945
00:56:06,600 --> 00:56:08,560
Speaker 1: and that we can you know that it has been

946
00:56:08,560 --> 00:56:12,160
Speaker 1: proven to have existed via archaeological evidence. Yeah, don't don't

947
00:56:12,160 --> 00:56:16,120
Speaker 1: get sucked in by the checkmate mentality. Yeah, now, of course,

948
00:56:16,200 --> 00:56:19,600
Speaker 1: you know, could the Steeler refer to a cataclysm that

949
00:56:19,840 --> 00:56:24,200
Speaker 1: remembered by various people ends up influencing later tales and traditions. Uh,

950
00:56:24,239 --> 00:56:26,719
Speaker 1: you know, of course, but that is a far cry

951
00:56:26,800 --> 00:56:30,600
Speaker 1: from a direct connection, you know. Yeah, I'm finally scrolling

952
00:56:30,600 --> 00:56:32,480
Speaker 1: down and getting to see the blue monkeys. I think

953
00:56:32,520 --> 00:56:35,040
Speaker 1: maybe sometimes we should just come back and and look

954
00:56:35,080 --> 00:56:38,400
Speaker 1: more of the paintings of a criteria. They are weird

955
00:56:38,520 --> 00:56:42,319
Speaker 1: and beautiful, like there are I don't know, I love

956
00:56:42,360 --> 00:56:47,920
Speaker 1: the artistic style of them that give living beings these

957
00:56:47,960 --> 00:56:53,760
Speaker 1: strange curves. Like there are these very elongated s shaped

958
00:56:53,880 --> 00:56:56,920
Speaker 1: gazelles that look almost like something out of a I

959
00:56:56,960 --> 00:57:00,239
Speaker 1: don't know, abstract or uh, I don't know what the

960
00:57:00,320 --> 00:57:02,080
Speaker 1: term would be. I'm not good at my art history,

961
00:57:02,120 --> 00:57:06,000
Speaker 1: the impressionist or something like. They're clearly representative. They are gazelles,

962
00:57:06,440 --> 00:57:11,440
Speaker 1: but they have these ridiculously elongated, sort of tubular curved

963
00:57:11,520 --> 00:57:15,279
Speaker 1: bodies and also like humans, Like there's an image of

964
00:57:15,280 --> 00:57:17,840
Speaker 1: these these two guys that look like they're boxing each

965
00:57:17,840 --> 00:57:22,720
Speaker 1: other but with these sort of curved s shaped torsos. Yeah, yeah,

966
00:57:22,760 --> 00:57:25,640
Speaker 1: it's um, it's fascinating to look at some of these images.

967
00:57:25,680 --> 00:57:27,280
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the blue monkeys right now that you

968
00:57:27,360 --> 00:57:30,680
Speaker 1: referenced earlier, and um, I mean, aside from looking very

969
00:57:30,720 --> 00:57:33,680
Speaker 1: much like monkeys, there's a fluidity to the way that

970
00:57:33,760 --> 00:57:36,880
Speaker 1: their their bodies are illustrated here. You know that that

971
00:57:37,040 --> 00:57:40,640
Speaker 1: certainly matches up with the actual movements, the actual bodies

972
00:57:40,680 --> 00:57:42,320
Speaker 1: of these So you know, this isn't one of those

973
00:57:42,360 --> 00:57:45,280
Speaker 1: cases as fascinating as I find second and third hand

974
00:57:45,280 --> 00:57:49,320
Speaker 1: reproductions of animals in art, you know, where somebody's clearly

975
00:57:49,560 --> 00:57:52,800
Speaker 1: painting something based on a description, uh, second or third

976
00:57:52,800 --> 00:57:56,240
Speaker 1: hand description rather than than direct evidence. Like these, these

977
00:57:56,280 --> 00:57:59,120
Speaker 1: seem to capture the essence of these animals as they

978
00:57:59,160 --> 00:58:03,240
Speaker 1: are alive, perhaps even in the wild. Yeah, yeah, though

979
00:58:03,760 --> 00:58:06,440
Speaker 1: exactly one of the questions that comes up as I

980
00:58:06,520 --> 00:58:10,600
Speaker 1: was reading this weird back and forth in the Journal Primates,

981
00:58:10,680 --> 00:58:12,800
Speaker 1: or at least they began in the Journal Primates by

982
00:58:12,800 --> 00:58:17,360
Speaker 1: people arguing about what species the monkeys depicted in this

983
00:58:17,480 --> 00:58:21,120
Speaker 1: painting are supposed to be. And so there was a

984
00:58:21,240 --> 00:58:25,160
Speaker 1: paper and I think twenty nineteen saying, uh, they're actually

985
00:58:25,200 --> 00:58:28,800
Speaker 1: these monkeys from India, and then there was a reply saying, no,

986
00:58:29,040 --> 00:58:31,640
Speaker 1: there are these monkeys from Africa, and then there was

987
00:58:31,680 --> 00:58:34,480
Speaker 1: another reply. But basically it came down to the question

988
00:58:34,560 --> 00:58:38,640
Speaker 1: of were the people painting these monkeys painting a monkey

989
00:58:38,760 --> 00:58:41,840
Speaker 1: that they had seen alive, or were they painting a

990
00:58:41,840 --> 00:58:45,120
Speaker 1: monkey as it had been portrayed in other art that

991
00:58:45,160 --> 00:58:48,040
Speaker 1: they had seen. Oh, that's true too, and this is

992
00:58:48,120 --> 00:58:51,760
Speaker 1: this could be that situation as well, Like they have

993
00:58:51,840 --> 00:58:54,840
Speaker 1: this fluidity to their form, and they've caught in several

994
00:58:54,880 --> 00:58:57,920
Speaker 1: poses that feel very appropriate and realistic for monkeys. But

995
00:58:58,000 --> 00:59:00,400
Speaker 1: they could have been basing this on another work that

996
00:59:00,400 --> 00:59:03,480
Speaker 1: that someone else had done for sure. Yeah. Interesting, we'll

997
00:59:03,520 --> 00:59:05,000
Speaker 1: have to come back to that. It is a whole

998
00:59:05,080 --> 00:59:07,080
Speaker 1: mess of monkeys. Though they look like they're up to

999
00:59:07,120 --> 00:59:10,520
Speaker 1: no good there, there is also a sense of barrel

1000
00:59:10,560 --> 00:59:13,000
Speaker 1: of monkeys to it, you know, Like I don't want

1001
00:59:13,040 --> 00:59:15,560
Speaker 1: to to to reduce them to that, but there is

1002
00:59:15,640 --> 00:59:17,720
Speaker 1: kind of like a bunch of blue monkeys spilled on

1003
00:59:17,800 --> 00:59:20,800
Speaker 1: some tiles, you know. Um, because the barrel of monkeys

1004
00:59:20,800 --> 00:59:23,520
Speaker 1: are good representations of the fluidity of the monkey's form

1005
00:59:23,520 --> 00:59:26,880
Speaker 1: and movement as well, I think maybe we need to

1006
00:59:26,920 --> 00:59:29,120
Speaker 1: call it all right, Well, we're gonna go ahead and

1007
00:59:29,240 --> 00:59:32,600
Speaker 1: uh and and finish this uh steva right now and

1008
00:59:32,640 --> 00:59:34,920
Speaker 1: go ahead and uh and and and and put it

1009
00:59:34,960 --> 00:59:37,360
Speaker 1: into the archives. But we'd love for anybody out there

1010
00:59:37,400 --> 00:59:39,360
Speaker 1: to uh touch base with us on this. Have you

1011
00:59:39,840 --> 00:59:42,280
Speaker 1: have you seen any of the places that we have

1012
00:59:42,880 --> 00:59:45,040
Speaker 1: Have you visited any of the places that we discussed here?

1013
00:59:45,200 --> 00:59:47,760
Speaker 1: Do you have any thoughts on you know, the connections

1014
00:59:48,240 --> 00:59:53,200
Speaker 1: possible connections between the tempest Steela and uh, and you

1015
00:59:53,200 --> 00:59:57,400
Speaker 1: know the the cataclusmic eruptions and UH and the stories

1016
00:59:57,440 --> 01:00:01,040
Speaker 1: of of of of legend and mythology. Uh. Let us know,

1017
01:00:01,120 --> 01:00:03,160
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from you. There are all kinds

1018
01:00:03,160 --> 01:00:05,680
Speaker 1: of other interesting effects of the minor interruption that people

1019
01:00:05,720 --> 01:00:08,400
Speaker 1: have done studies on all over the place about how

1020
01:00:08,440 --> 01:00:11,840
Speaker 1: they affected, how it affected civilizations, and and marks it

1021
01:00:12,000 --> 01:00:14,800
Speaker 1: left on the planet. So yeah, if you've got anything

1022
01:00:14,800 --> 01:00:17,040
Speaker 1: interesting along those lines to share with us, please do

1023
01:00:17,480 --> 01:00:19,600
Speaker 1: all right. In the meantime, if you want more stuff

1024
01:00:19,600 --> 01:00:20,920
Speaker 1: to blow your mind, you know where to find it.

1025
01:00:20,920 --> 01:00:23,760
Speaker 1: The Stuff to Blow your Mind feed. We have normal,

1026
01:00:23,920 --> 01:00:25,960
Speaker 1: regular core episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind on

1027
01:00:26,000 --> 01:00:30,000
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursday's Little listener mail on Monday's Wednesday is

1028
01:00:30,040 --> 01:00:33,080
Speaker 1: the short form artifact episode that we mentioned earlier. You know,

1029
01:00:33,120 --> 01:00:36,840
Speaker 1: a little little uh you know, specific things, specific specific

1030
01:00:36,880 --> 01:00:40,120
Speaker 1: moments in time. Uh, specific ideas that sort of thing.

1031
01:00:40,480 --> 01:00:43,320
Speaker 1: And then on Fridays we do Weird House Cinema, which

1032
01:00:43,400 --> 01:00:47,160
Speaker 1: is uh our less science e installment, our chance to

1033
01:00:47,240 --> 01:00:50,240
Speaker 1: just focus on a particular weird film and chat about it.

1034
01:00:50,920 --> 01:00:54,120
Speaker 1: Huge things as always to our excellent audio producer Seth

1035
01:00:54,200 --> 01:00:56,720
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch

1036
01:00:56,760 --> 01:00:59,000
Speaker 1: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,

1037
01:00:59,120 --> 01:01:02,000
Speaker 1: to suggest top for the future, or just to say hello,

1038
01:01:02,080 --> 01:01:04,919
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

1039
01:01:04,960 --> 01:01:14,840
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

1040
01:01:14,880 --> 01:01:17,560
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my

1041
01:01:17,640 --> 01:01:20,560
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

1042
01:01:20,640 --> 01:01:31,120
Speaker 1: or wherever you listening to your favorite shows.