Speaker 1: Welcome to stot to Blow Your Mind, the production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And
Speaker 1: today we're gonna be talking about an artifact. This is
Speaker 1: actually a topic that I was originally reading about thinking
Speaker 1: about doing one of our new short form episodes, the
Speaker 1: Artifact about but it kind of ballooned in my mind
Speaker 1: and kept picking up weird little tangents here and there,
Speaker 1: and I realized it was much too big of a
Speaker 1: subject just to be like a five to ten minute episode.
Speaker 1: So so now we're talking about this today, and the
Speaker 1: subject is an artifact from ancient Egypt known as the
Speaker 1: almost Steela or the Tempest Steela. And I already apologize
Speaker 1: because I know at some point in this episode I'm
Speaker 1: going to forget to pronounce Steela with a long E
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna start saying stella. It's that word, you know,
Speaker 1: it's st e l a or st e l e w.
Speaker 1: I can never get the get the sounds right in
Speaker 1: my brain. Yeah, but we were rehearsing it before the episode.
Speaker 1: It's steel a as in steel Uh Steely Dan album
Speaker 1: from the record store. Uh. And there's some kind of uh,
Speaker 1: there's some kind of other word that's also steel or
Speaker 1: steely st e l e, which I can't figure out
Speaker 1: if it's totally interchangeable with Steela or just mostly interchangeable. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna deal with that in this episode because
Speaker 1: we're only concerned with one primary Steela here, and it's
Speaker 1: this almost Steela or tempest Steela. So this artifact is
Speaker 1: at its heart a big stone block. It is a slab.
Speaker 1: It is a big slab made of calcite that's currently
Speaker 1: in multiple fragments. I think there are at least three
Speaker 1: major fragments, um. And they were recovered from the temple
Speaker 1: complex of Karnak, which is in the ancient Egyptian city
Speaker 1: of Thebes near the modern Upper Egypt city of lux Or.
Speaker 1: And this artifact was recovered by archaeology, so I think
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen forties or early nineteen fifties. Uh. Karnac,
Speaker 1: of course is this big, beautiful temple complex. You may
Speaker 1: have seen it represented digitally and like Transformers movies where
Speaker 1: they're big robots slugging around there, or as an actual
Speaker 1: shooting location in the Spy Who loved me. Did the
Speaker 1: transformers really battle here? I think they did at some
Speaker 1: point the transform it's part of the the raison dettor
Speaker 1: of of Transformers to eventually just slam through and demolish
Speaker 1: every work of humankind, like all artifacts and landscapes must
Speaker 1: be ground into sand by the transformers until only transformers remain. Right,
Speaker 1: just a barren, featureless earth that's completely smooth, but with transformers,
Speaker 1: with with mac trucks and jeeps and stuff. But anyway,
Speaker 1: what's the deal with this slab, the Tempestila? It originally
Speaker 1: stood about one point eight meters talls about six ft tall,
Speaker 1: and it bears an inscription text that was copied on
Speaker 1: both sides these horizontal lines, but it also has some
Speaker 1: imagery at the top. So two. Quote from one of
Speaker 1: the papers that we're going to be referencing today. I
Speaker 1: think this description comes from this first paper that was
Speaker 1: published by Karen poland your Foster, Robert K. Rittner, and
Speaker 1: Benjamin R. Foster in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies
Speaker 1: in nineteen Quote above. The horizontal body of each text
Speaker 1: is a lunette with two adorsed scenes and brief vertical labels.
Speaker 1: Unlike the parallel text. The two Lunet labels display minor
Speaker 1: variation in wording. Both faces preserved dual scenes of the
Speaker 1: king followed by a female deity of fecundity carrying offering trays.
Speaker 1: And these trays have like fruits and vegetables on them.
Speaker 1: So you've got this big old text that's on both
Speaker 1: sides and this image of a king and a lady
Speaker 1: who represents fertility, uh, carrying up some nice food stuffs,
Speaker 1: fruits and vegetables, nice plant matter. And so here I
Speaker 1: think maybe we should actually just read the full text
Speaker 1: of the temper Steel up because it's not all that long, uh,
Speaker 1: And this is something that I personally really love. Maybe
Speaker 1: maybe other people aren't as interested in it as I am,
Speaker 1: But it just reading the text of of texts that
Speaker 1: are this old, like these ancient Egyptian inscriptions, really does
Speaker 1: kind of put me in an altered state of consciousness.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like, Uh, I feel like I'm inhabiting
Speaker 1: a mind that is so separated from me by time
Speaker 1: and culture that it's a little bit creepy. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean to to a certain extent. That's that's exactly what's happening, right.
Speaker 1: The transfer of information across the ages. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: there's this like weird tangling down at the bottom of
Speaker 1: my brain where I just feel like there's a lot
Speaker 1: that's really important that I'm not understanding, but I'm getting
Speaker 1: just the slightest hint of what it is coming through
Speaker 1: in the translation. Well, that's the tangler. You got that,
Speaker 1: that's the vinsive Price movie. Well, but I know what
Speaker 1: you're talking about with this, Okay. This English translation is
Speaker 1: by the American egyptologist Robert K. Rittner, who is the
Speaker 1: one of the authors on a couple of studies that
Speaker 1: we're going to be mentioning today. Now, again, the steel
Speaker 1: A text is damaged, so there are some gaps, and
Speaker 1: some of these have been filled in with what is
Speaker 1: very likely what their contents were. So there's just some
Speaker 1: text that we don't have, but we feel very confident,
Speaker 1: you know, this is what it would have been. And
Speaker 1: other parts are just left blank where there's less certainty.
Speaker 1: And I guess when we get to one of those
Speaker 1: blank spots will just sort of pause for a second
Speaker 1: in the reading. So here it goes, Long Live the Horace,
Speaker 1: Great of manifestations. He of the two Ladies, pleasing of Birth,
Speaker 1: the golden Horace who binds the two lands, King of
Speaker 1: the Upper and Lower Egypt, neb feti Ra, son of Raw,
Speaker 1: almost living forever. Now, then his majesty came. Raw himself
Speaker 1: had appointed him to be king of Upper Egypt. Then
Speaker 1: his Majesty welt at the town of said jeff A Tawi,
Speaker 1: in the district just to the south of Dendera, while
Speaker 1: aman Ra, lord of the thrones of the two Lands,
Speaker 1: was in Thebes. It was his majesty who sailed south
Speaker 1: to offer bread, beer and everything good and pure. Now,
Speaker 1: after the offering, then attention was given in this district.
Speaker 1: Now then the could image of this god at his
Speaker 1: body was installed in this temple while he was in joy.
Speaker 1: Now then this great god desired his majesty, while the
Speaker 1: gods declared their discontent. The gods caused the sky to
Speaker 1: come in a tempest of rain, with darkness in the
Speaker 1: western region, and the sky being unleashed without cessation, louder
Speaker 1: than the cries of the masses, more powerful than while
Speaker 1: the rain raged on the mountains, louder than the noise
Speaker 1: of the cataract, which is at Elephantine, every house every
Speaker 1: quarter that they reached floating on the water like skiffs
Speaker 1: of papyrus opposite the royal residence for a period of days,
Speaker 1: while a torch could not be lit in the Two Lands.
Speaker 1: Then his Majesty said, how much greater this is than
Speaker 1: the wrath of the Great God, than the plans of
Speaker 1: the gods. Then his Majesty descended to his boat with
Speaker 1: his counsel following him, while the crowds on the east
Speaker 1: and west had hidden faces, having no clothing on them.
Speaker 1: After the manifestation of the god's wrath, then his Majesty
Speaker 1: reached the interior of Thebes with gold confronting gold for
Speaker 1: this statue, so that he, meaning am un Rah, received
Speaker 1: that which he desired. Then his Majesty began to reestablish
Speaker 1: the Two Lands to drain the flooded territories without his
Speaker 1: to provide them with silver, with gold, with copper, with oil,
Speaker 1: and cloth of every bolt that could be desired fired.
Speaker 1: Then his Majesty made himself comfortable inside the palace life, prosperity, health.
Speaker 1: Then his Majesty was informed that the mortuary concessions had
Speaker 1: been entered by water, with the tomb chambers collapsed, the
Speaker 1: funerary mansions undermined and the pyramids fallen, having been made
Speaker 1: into that which was never made. Then His Majesty commanded
Speaker 1: to restore the temples which had fallen into ruin in
Speaker 1: this entire land, To refurbish the monuments of the gods,
Speaker 1: to erect their enclosure walls, to provide the sacred objects
Speaker 1: in the noble chamber, to mask the secret places, to
Speaker 1: introduce into their shrines the cult statues which were cast
Speaker 1: to the ground, to set up the braziers, to erect
Speaker 1: the offering tables, to establish their bread offerings, to double
Speaker 1: the income of the personnel, to put the land into
Speaker 1: its former state. Then it was done in accordance with
Speaker 1: everything that His Majesty had commanded. Ooh, so there are
Speaker 1: some parts of that that really give me chills. So
Speaker 1: the basic outline of it being that it introduces this
Speaker 1: great king, the great almost who rises up and he
Speaker 1: answers this problem of there's some kind of calamity being described.
Speaker 1: There are rains and a tempest coming out of the sky,
Speaker 1: with darkness in the western region, thundering in the sky,
Speaker 1: the sky being unleashed without cessation, louder than the cries
Speaker 1: of the masses. There's appear apparently some kind of flooding
Speaker 1: with bodies human bodies floating in the nile like skiffs
Speaker 1: of papyrus and uh, and a torch could not be
Speaker 1: lit in the two lands. But then there is some
Speaker 1: kind of offering made to the gods to fix this problem,
Speaker 1: to make everything right, and it tells us basically that
Speaker 1: almost this guy did a really good job and he
Speaker 1: like got everything fixed and now it's under control. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's uh yeah, so it's so again it's a
Speaker 1: story of a disaster occurring and then government responding to
Speaker 1: that disaster. But there's some We're not going to take
Speaker 1: everything in that and explain it. I know there's some
Speaker 1: some names and some obvious gods and some kings, but
Speaker 1: just to run through a few things that I think
Speaker 1: are are are important or at least halfway important to
Speaker 1: understanding what's going on here. Um, I want to just
Speaker 1: call it a few things. So first of all, Horace
Speaker 1: the Horace is the celestial falcon and the embodiment of
Speaker 1: Kingship caught in an enduring conflict with Seth. Horace likely
Speaker 1: means the distant one, and there are two distinct versions.
Speaker 1: There's Horace the Elder and Horace the Younger, not to
Speaker 1: be confused with Horace the Child. Right, So an important
Speaker 1: god who's associated with the royal lineage of of Egypt
Speaker 1: in this period. Right And uh Now, one thing that
Speaker 1: this makes reference to that is geographically confusing to modern
Speaker 1: audiences is the concept of Upper and Lower Egypt, which
Speaker 1: are unless you're familiar with how ancient Egyptians talked about
Speaker 1: their geography, it's the opposite of what you would think, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's always worth remembering that the ancient Egyptians saw their
Speaker 1: world a little bit differently than we do today. Um.
Speaker 1: And not to say they saw the world upside down,
Speaker 1: they just saw it from their point of view. Uh
Speaker 1: So north and south are totally arbitrary. By the way,
Speaker 1: there's no such thing as objective north and south. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So with the way they saw it is with the
Speaker 1: Nile delta at the bottom of their kingdom. So Upper
Speaker 1: Egypt is actually somewhat lower on the modern state of
Speaker 1: Egypt that we memorize in school and look at out
Speaker 1: a map. Basically, the in the area of Thebes, Lower
Speaker 1: Egypt is the delta region that entails Memphis. So Lower
Speaker 1: Egypt is to the north and Upper Egypt is to
Speaker 1: the south. Right. Now, what about the sun god Raw? Right,
Speaker 1: there's reference to Raw yeah, Raw, the sun god, source
Speaker 1: of all light and life. Um, you know, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot more to each of these gods, but this
Speaker 1: is just the short and simple. Now, there's some references
Speaker 1: in here to amun Ra. Yeah, and this, uh if
Speaker 1: I'm correct on this, this is This is also known
Speaker 1: as Almond. This is the mysterious creator god and his
Speaker 1: name means the hidden one. Yeah. Now, the main character
Speaker 1: of the almost Stela or the tempest Stela here is
Speaker 1: Almost himself meaning almost the first who was a pharaoh,
Speaker 1: and he's the guy who who does all the fix
Speaker 1: in here. Yeah. He is the founder of the Eighteenth
Speaker 1: dynasty who reigned well one of the days. The dates
Speaker 1: I was looking at, we're fifteen forty nine through fifteen
Speaker 1: twenty four b C. Right, So the dates of his
Speaker 1: reign are actually somewhat disputed, and that will come into
Speaker 1: that will be in some way the subject matter of
Speaker 1: what we're talking about today, though it does appear he
Speaker 1: reigned sometime in the sixteenth century b C. So probably
Speaker 1: sometime between sixteen hundred and fifteen hundred b C. E
Speaker 1: the more conventional Egyptology chronology dates put put him in
Speaker 1: the middle somewhere in there, Yeah, like a fifteen you know,
Speaker 1: middle of the centuries, sometime in the late three quarters. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But either way, he seems to have been a very
Speaker 1: pivotal ruler at a very pivotal time. He was building
Speaker 1: on his father's military success and paved the road for
Speaker 1: the new kingdom and the beginning of an age of
Speaker 1: just Egyptian dominance. Um. He reinvigorated and united Egypt. And
Speaker 1: this is key to he completed the expulsion of the Hicksos.
Speaker 1: So at this time, Egypt or part of Egypt anyway,
Speaker 1: we were ruled by these outsiders, these foreigners that invaded
Speaker 1: UM perhaps you know, from Palestine or somewhere in that region. Uh.
Speaker 1: In anyway, basically, what Amos did is he finished driving
Speaker 1: them out. He finished a rebellion against them that had
Speaker 1: begun by had been begun by his predecessors, and re
Speaker 1: exerted Egypt's rule over northern Nubia to the south. So
Speaker 1: it'll be important to think about all this as we
Speaker 1: discussed the details of his rule. But he was a
Speaker 1: pharaoh in an age of growth. He brought about a
Speaker 1: new kingdom, a conquest king. He was like, We're I'm
Speaker 1: going to conquer the areas to the north and the
Speaker 1: south and bring Egypt together again under one rule. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: as for the hicks Sos, they're they're very, very interesting,
Speaker 1: and people have have written and and researched regarding them
Speaker 1: and made various uh hypotheses and theories regarding their exact nature.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of very speculative Bible stuff about them. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you you may have you're a Bible reader and a
Speaker 1: Bible student, you may have seen them pop up, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: and like just even the notes in a standard Bible.
Speaker 1: They were the foreign Canaanite or Palestinian rulers of Egypt
Speaker 1: who took power during the seventeenth century b c. They
Speaker 1: ruled lower in Middle Egypt and established a capital at
Speaker 1: a Varis, which was associated with the Egyptian god Seth
Speaker 1: or set or sue Tech, which was in turn equated
Speaker 1: with the Palestinian god ball Uh. The Hicksos called themselves
Speaker 1: theselves the Sons of Raw, but one of them actually
Speaker 1: bore the name of Ra's nemesis of Papus, the Great
Speaker 1: Crocodile or snake of chaos, which is interesting. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that, yeah, um. And Geraldine pinches the Egyptian mythology.
Speaker 1: She points out that the conflict of the time seems
Speaker 1: to have taken on mythological trappings as well as their
Speaker 1: stories related to a quarrel between the followers of Horace,
Speaker 1: the Thebans and the followers of Seth the Hixos, and
Speaker 1: the words seems to be related to just foreign rulers. Uh.
Speaker 1: I believe it's heckal Kasuit rulers of foreign lands, and
Speaker 1: Hicksos is derived from this via the Greek. Okay, right,
Speaker 1: so hisos would not have been what they called themselves
Speaker 1: but a sort of ex and m applied by the
Speaker 1: Egyptians or even maybe later Greek speaking Egyptians. Right. And
Speaker 1: of course this is where it often gets interesting with
Speaker 1: with ancient history, when you're dealing with outsiders, right, because
Speaker 1: the outsiders are defined by those writing the history not
Speaker 1: only in terms of what happened and you know what transpired,
Speaker 1: but but also like who they were, what were these people? Um?
Speaker 1: And so at times you've had people of historians come
Speaker 1: in and and try and figure it out and and
Speaker 1: maybe come in with a bit of an agenda. Uh.
Speaker 1: First century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus translated this at the time.
Speaker 1: Again this is first century Uh see um as as
Speaker 1: hicksos meaning king shepherds or captive shepherds. And this was
Speaker 1: an attempt to establish historical evidence for the Jewish people
Speaker 1: in ancient Egypt. And this will come up again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there there are a lot of um, I don't know,
Speaker 1: historical religious apologetics where people try to invoke the hicksos
Speaker 1: as um somehow being descended from uh, say Joseph, like
Speaker 1: the story of Joseph in the Book of Genesis coming
Speaker 1: to Egypt and serving the pharaoh um as someone who
Speaker 1: you know, listeners know that I'm a big fan of
Speaker 1: the Bible, especially at you know, I love the books
Speaker 1: of the Torah and all that. So not to denigrate
Speaker 1: the story at all as a as a wonderful uh myth,
Speaker 1: but like, I don't think there's much historical evidence that
Speaker 1: these tales are like actual history that would be linked
Speaker 1: to Egyptian chronology. Yeah. I mean, very broadly speaking, there
Speaker 1: seem to be like different levels of it. I mean
Speaker 1: they're there are are there are certainly people who looked
Speaker 1: at history and look at things like the Hicks and
Speaker 1: try to draw a direct line, uh and say like
Speaker 1: these were uh the Jewish people, or say I've seen
Speaker 1: it before in in Bible notes, for instance, saying well, okay,
Speaker 1: the Hisos were foreign rulers in Egypt at the time,
Speaker 1: which would have made it possible for someone like Moses
Speaker 1: and outsider to rise up in the ranks enough to
Speaker 1: have the role that he plays in the Exodus story.
Speaker 1: And then you have other people who are like that
Speaker 1: that that that make kind of a middle ground argument saying, well, okay,
Speaker 1: the the the the Egyptian captivity is um is is
Speaker 1: a myth or or you know, it is a legend,
Speaker 1: but it is based in things that were past down
Speaker 1: orally and therefore there could be some connection between these two,
Speaker 1: but the exact threads connecting them are uncertain. So, like
Speaker 1: I said, there a whole there's a whole lot of
Speaker 1: literature out there about, uh, this topic, and to what
Speaker 1: degree there are any connections here. I would just say
Speaker 1: that anything that tries to get too specific in tying
Speaker 1: these things to specific stories in the Bible is probably
Speaker 1: highly speculative. And we'll come back some of this later
Speaker 1: on in the episode. Yeah, But what actually got me
Speaker 1: interested in talking about the Tempest Steela, apart from just
Speaker 1: being a very interesting text to read, is the question
Speaker 1: of is this referring to something that actually happened in
Speaker 1: Egyptian history? All this stuff about you know, the darkness
Speaker 1: and the sky and the and the flooding of the
Speaker 1: Nile and the bodies floating in the water and the
Speaker 1: water entering all these temple complexes and uh being and
Speaker 1: the thundering and being unable to light a torch in
Speaker 1: the two lands? What what is all this talking about? Um?
Speaker 1: And so this actually ties into a study from fourteen,
Speaker 1: actually a couple of studies, the most recent one I
Speaker 1: think was from fourteen in the Journal of Near Eastern
Speaker 1: Studies that I was reading about that that made an
Speaker 1: interesting connection between the events described in this text and
Speaker 1: a possible actual geological cause. Or is this text, as
Speaker 1: it's been more traditionally interpreted, referring to either some kind
Speaker 1: of natural event that is more I don't know, a
Speaker 1: more regular and less extreme, or is it referring to
Speaker 1: something in a in a metaphorical sense or telling a
Speaker 1: kind of fictional narrative to hype up this first ruler
Speaker 1: of the eighteenth dynasty. Yeah, some have have have have
Speaker 1: made that argument that that it may be a metaphor
Speaker 1: the storm it felt, They may be a metaphor for
Speaker 1: hickso suppression. Um Ian Shaw writes about this in the
Speaker 1: Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, suggesting that it might have
Speaker 1: served as quote an official explanation for the impoverishment of
Speaker 1: the theme in region and more importantly, ah MOS's role
Speaker 1: in restoring the riches of the Karnak temple and It's god,
Speaker 1: in other words, a story to explain why other temple
Speaker 1: riches were sold off to pay for to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: to pay for the Thievens rebellion of the seventeenth dynasty.
Speaker 1: So not to say that there wasn't also a real
Speaker 1: storm of some sort, but that quote, these particular events
Speaker 1: might have been recounted on the steela simply in order
Speaker 1: to suit historical religious purposes. Yeah, and that's something that
Speaker 1: we see all throughout ancient history, I think is sort
Speaker 1: of creative re engineering of events and storytelling to make
Speaker 1: certain leaders look good. Yeah. And I mean another thing
Speaker 1: is if this were just describing the flooding, like the
Speaker 1: flooding is one of the major aspects of the calamity
Speaker 1: described in on this slab. You know, Nile flooding is
Speaker 1: a regular occurrence that there's like there's like monsoonal uh
Speaker 1: seasonal flooding of the Nile that occurs every year to
Speaker 1: varying degrees, and so that that's something to keep in
Speaker 1: mind as we go about this. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: I mentioned before, I'd love to come back and just
Speaker 1: do an episode on the Nile and it's flooding because
Speaker 1: it has such an such an intrinsic role in the
Speaker 1: world view of the ancient Egyptians and their entire cosmology.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating stuff. Thank thank Okay. But so to come
Speaker 1: into this possible or at least the hypothetical geological connection
Speaker 1: that we're exploring today, we need to travel north of Egypt.
Speaker 1: We need to go up into the Mediterranean to a
Speaker 1: place that's now known as Santorini, but has also gone
Speaker 1: by the name of Theora. Now you may have seen
Speaker 1: that spelled t h E r A, and I have
Speaker 1: always said Terra when saying when saying that, but it's
Speaker 1: actually apparently Theora and theory or Santorini was the site
Speaker 1: of a catastrophic volcanic eruption in the ancient world that
Speaker 1: likely had a really powerful impact on Bronze Age history. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is also known as the Minoan eruption or the
Speaker 1: eruption at Theora. Now, I actually found a really great
Speaker 1: source on the theory eruption, which was a chapter in
Speaker 1: a book by former show guest Clive Oppenheimer, who was
Speaker 1: on the show with us when we interviewed him and
Speaker 1: Werner Herzog about their documentary Fireball. Clive Oppenheimer wrote a
Speaker 1: book that he published with Cambridge University Press in two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven called Eruptions That Shook the World that is
Speaker 1: about volcanic eruptions all throughout the past and how they've
Speaker 1: shaped the course of human events in human evolution human history.
Speaker 1: So he's going to be one of my main sources
Speaker 1: on on this eruption here. So, uh, Theora or today.
Speaker 1: Santorini is an island, I guess really a group of
Speaker 1: islands in the south of the a g See. So
Speaker 1: it's between Grease and Turkey and north of Crete. It's
Speaker 1: one of the southern Nigian islands. And if you look
Speaker 1: at a picture of Santorini, taken from above, you may
Speaker 1: immediately be able to guess something about its geological history.
Speaker 1: It's got a kind of scary shape that immediately like
Speaker 1: if you, if you're volcano minded, can kind of make
Speaker 1: your gut sink, because part of the island is this
Speaker 1: long C shaped land mass sea as in the letter C,
Speaker 1: like a capital c uh land mass that has steep
Speaker 1: cliffs on the inner wall of the curve of that
Speaker 1: sea and then smoother tapering shores and slopes on the outside.
Speaker 1: And then opposite the inner curve of that letter C shape,
Speaker 1: there's another large land mass with similar characteristics facing inward.
Speaker 1: Uh So, Oppenheimer mentioned that if you look at the
Speaker 1: inward facing cliffs, you can see alternating colors of rock
Speaker 1: strata and yellow, white and gray and red, and so
Speaker 1: it should be probably kind of obvious what this is.
Speaker 1: This island group is the partially submerged caldera of an
Speaker 1: ancient gigantic volcano that is now half swallowed by the ocean. Now,
Speaker 1: this island, of course, is famous to geologists and historians
Speaker 1: of the Bronze Age because this volcano was the source
Speaker 1: of the catastrophic Minoan eruption which the again the date
Speaker 1: of this eruption is going to be in dispute and
Speaker 1: part of what we're talking about today, but just to
Speaker 1: you know, be a very broad strokes, think roughly in
Speaker 1: the area of six b C. Now is in the
Speaker 1: twentieth century actually that archaeologists really came to recognize the
Speaker 1: effects that this eruption had had on nearby human civilization.
Speaker 1: And one great example that Oppenheimer highlights is the work
Speaker 1: of an archaeologist named spy Rodin Mirinatos, who dug up
Speaker 1: parts of what would have been in a Minoan ports
Speaker 1: settlement on the southern part of Santorini that is now
Speaker 1: known as Akrotirie. This name is applied by modern scholars.
Speaker 1: We don't know what the ancient inhabitants of this town
Speaker 1: would have called it, but this would have been a
Speaker 1: relatively wealthy and well developed town until the volcano woke up.
Speaker 1: We talked actually some last October with Nicoletta Momiliano about
Speaker 1: the Minoan civilization and it's it's palace power centers on crete.
Speaker 1: Now this this island again would have been north of Create,
Speaker 1: so away from the real center of political power of
Speaker 1: the Minoan empire, but still it was I think part
Speaker 1: of that civilization and shared in its wealth and its
Speaker 1: trade and its culture. Yeah. And in her book In
Speaker 1: Search of the Labyrinth, the Cultural Legacy of Minoan Crete,
Speaker 1: I mean she she does a reference volcanoes several times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Uh, I think volcanoes would have been highly relevant
Speaker 1: to the history of the Minoan culture. And eventually the
Speaker 1: Minoan culled lture uh declined and was superseded and conquered
Speaker 1: by Mycenaean culture. But this kind of eruption would have
Speaker 1: been unprecedented in local human memory. The volcano had been
Speaker 1: calmed for approximately fifteen thousand years beforehand at least. And uh,
Speaker 1: and so this late Bronze Age eruption was one of
Speaker 1: the largest European volcano eruptions of the past hundred thousand years.
Speaker 1: This was a huge, highly energetic, highly destructive event. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting actually looking at what's left behind in
Speaker 1: this particular settlement on Santorini, the place now known as Acritiri.
Speaker 1: And I was reading about it a bit in UH.
Speaker 1: This uh. One of the first of two papers involving
Speaker 1: Robert K. Written Er that we're going to be looking
Speaker 1: at today. This was the one by Foster written Er
Speaker 1: and Foster from nine in the Journal of Near Eastern
Speaker 1: Studies called text Storms and the Theory Eruption and Uh
Speaker 1: the authors here they talk about how archaeologists uncovered remnants
Speaker 1: of this ancient village on on the southern coast of
Speaker 1: the island group preserved under this thick bed of volcanic ash.
Speaker 1: And because it was an ancient settlement that was preserved
Speaker 1: under layers of tephra, it is similar in some ways
Speaker 1: to the ruins of places like Pompeii and Herculaneum up
Speaker 1: on the Italian Peninsula, which were themselves kind of frozen
Speaker 1: in time by the eruption of Vesuvius in seventy nine.
Speaker 1: In a similar way, we see this settlement frozen in time.
Speaker 1: It was rapidly buried by volcanic ash, and there are
Speaker 1: lots of artifacts and features that were very well preserved,
Speaker 1: including some extremely beautiful original frescoes and paintings that I
Speaker 1: would really recommend looking up looking up the paintings from
Speaker 1: thea um and and the frescoes there there are some
Speaker 1: that are these large sort of tableaus or landscape scenes
Speaker 1: that show like a port city with boats moving to
Speaker 1: and fro and ground of these colorful, colorful buildings and
Speaker 1: hills full of wild animals and plants, And there was even,
Speaker 1: for a brief tangent, there was even this really interesting
Speaker 1: mystery about the art there that I came across. That
Speaker 1: was one painting at Acritiri showing monkeys, these blue monkeys
Speaker 1: that appear to be similar to a species that would
Speaker 1: not have been native to the Aegean, but would have
Speaker 1: been native either to uh to Africa or to India,
Speaker 1: which is I think often taken as a sign of
Speaker 1: the kind of often surprising level of trade and interconnectedness
Speaker 1: in the ancient world that either live specimens of these
Speaker 1: monkeys or artistic depictions of these monkeys were being taken
Speaker 1: back and forth from far and wide around the world.
Speaker 1: That's impressive. I mean either way, once exposed to monkeys,
Speaker 1: one cannot help but create art about monkeys. Yes, maybe
Speaker 1: one day we should just come back and devote a
Speaker 1: whole thing to the blue monkeys. Controversy is that what
Speaker 1: kind of monkeys are these? Where did these images come from?
Speaker 1: And so forth? I I don't know. I found this
Speaker 1: very interesting, but maybe you should just get back to
Speaker 1: the eruption for now. Okay, now Oppenheimer and writing about
Speaker 1: the eruption of theory. Uh he He says that the
Speaker 1: eruption seems to have been preceded by an earthquake or
Speaker 1: maybe series of earthquakes that the damage the local infrastructure.
Speaker 1: In fact, it looks from the remains of this settlement
Speaker 1: like the locals had not finished up cleaning the debris
Speaker 1: and the damage from the earthquake at the time. The
Speaker 1: town was buried under tephra from the eruption, so it
Speaker 1: seems very likely that these things are related. Uh And
Speaker 1: Oppenheimer writes quote the townsfolk appear to have suspected impending doom.
Speaker 1: At least no victims have been found, suggesting that Acritiris
Speaker 1: residents abandoned the town before it was buried by thick
Speaker 1: tephra fall and pyroclastic current deposits. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: so much tefra remain excavated that it's entirely possible that
Speaker 1: victims will be located eventually. Uh Now, I guess this
Speaker 1: book was written in two thousand eleven. I haven't read
Speaker 1: about any victims discovered since then, but that would be
Speaker 1: interesting to come back to anyway. Oppenheimer goes on to say,
Speaker 1: the clearing away of debris and reconstruction were unfinished when
Speaker 1: the first hydro volcanic blasts excavated a new pathway for
Speaker 1: magma to reach the surface, probably through a vent on
Speaker 1: one of the islands and towards the eastern wall of
Speaker 1: the present day caldera. Once the conduit was established, a
Speaker 1: sustained plenty and eruption ensued, gaining an intensity through time
Speaker 1: evident from increasing size of pumice chunks upwards through the
Speaker 1: associated deposits. The eruption column reached an estimated maximum altitude
Speaker 1: of thirty six kilometers, from which it would have descended
Speaker 1: to its level of neutral buoyancy in the lower stratosphere.
Speaker 1: The plume was then carried towards the east and southeast
Speaker 1: by prevailing winds, so there would be this Joe giant
Speaker 1: volcanic column, you know, visible from very far away, going
Speaker 1: up thirty six kilometers in the air, or at least
Speaker 1: up to thirty six kilometers in the air. And then
Speaker 1: he says the parts of the island were covered in
Speaker 1: up to six meters of white solicit pummice. And then
Speaker 1: the geological evidence indicates that sea water repeatedly sloshed into
Speaker 1: the volcanic vent, rapidly mixing together water and magma and
Speaker 1: uh and then through the surrounding sedimentary structures. So the
Speaker 1: rock layers that we can see left there. Now it
Speaker 1: looks like that there was this enhanced fragmentation of magma
Speaker 1: that you see when water and magma mixed together very quickly,
Speaker 1: and Oppenheimer rights quote the resulting deposits, which accumulated to
Speaker 1: a depth of twelve meters, are punctuated by desk sized
Speaker 1: lava bombs that must have traced ballistic trajectories from the
Speaker 1: vent to thwack into the soft and sticky pyroclastic beds.
Speaker 1: These care touristics indicate formation by successive shattering blasts and
Speaker 1: associated with base surges similar to ground hugging currents apparent
Speaker 1: in photographs of atmospheric nuclear weapons tests that would have
Speaker 1: readily scaled the complex topography of the island um So
Speaker 1: so now Oppenheimer wrights that the event at this point
Speaker 1: in the eruption would have been filled with this sort
Speaker 1: of red hot salad of ash, water, steam and pummice,
Speaker 1: and you'd get these repeated blasts that would have kept
Speaker 1: widening the vent as the energy released by the eruption
Speaker 1: just kept increasing, and eventually you would get this climactic
Speaker 1: phase of the eruption, you know, as it reaches it's
Speaker 1: it's pinnacle, h and what he calls a soaring phoenix
Speaker 1: cloud and a new formation of a new caldera. So
Speaker 1: in the end, this this gargantuan event had implications reaching
Speaker 1: far beyond just this island here known as Santorini. There
Speaker 1: would have been weather and climate effects far and wide,
Speaker 1: quite possibly major damage from tsunami's Oppenheimer rights that quote.
Speaker 1: The total size of the eruption, which probably lasted no
Speaker 1: more than a few days, is difficult to estimate since
Speaker 1: so much of the material is beneath the waves, but
Speaker 1: it's thought to have been around a magnitude of seven
Speaker 1: point two or sixty cubic kilometers of dense magma. Uh So,
Speaker 1: do you know people can't picture sixty cubic kilometers what
Speaker 1: is that? Imagine a solid cube that is about three
Speaker 1: point nine kilometers or about two point four miles on
Speaker 1: each edge, and it's a cube that big. So we're
Speaker 1: talking about it. It's a real cataclysmic eruption here. This
Speaker 1: was this, this was this was would have been horrifying
Speaker 1: to to witness from Afar. Yes, the local environment, the
Speaker 1: island itself would have been just completely entombed, as the
Speaker 1: word Oppenheimer uses, just buried. And then my no in
Speaker 1: Tefra goes far far away, like has been found as
Speaker 1: far away as the Black Sea, indicating, um, you know,
Speaker 1: what Oppenheimer says is a fallout area bigger than two
Speaker 1: million square kilometers, which he says is equivalent to about
Speaker 1: the size of Mexico, so gigantic radius of of effect
Speaker 1: if you're trying to picture on the map it affecting
Speaker 1: areas beyond in the Black Sea. The Black Sea is
Speaker 1: on the other side of Turkey from the Aegean, so
Speaker 1: it is huge. But then, interestingly, Oppenheimer brings up one
Speaker 1: of the issues that is most debated with respect to
Speaker 1: the minor interruption, which is what was its exact date?
Speaker 1: It seems like the kind of thing that you should
Speaker 1: be able to tell, right, you know, we know exactly
Speaker 1: what day this occurred, but it's harder than you might think.
Speaker 1: We know it was roughly thirty years ago, but what
Speaker 1: year exactly? Um, Now, I guess the question would be like,
Speaker 1: why would this be tricky? To date. You know, shouldn't
Speaker 1: shouldn't we have a record of it. Well, most of
Speaker 1: our chronology for the ancient Eastern Mediterranean is based on
Speaker 1: the historical timeline of Pharaonic dynasties in Egypt. You know
Speaker 1: that they kept pretty good records, They include the lengths
Speaker 1: of rains. But even with these, uh, these pharaoh chronologies,
Speaker 1: there's still a lot of uncertainty in the dating of
Speaker 1: these pharaohs when you go farther back, especially to the
Speaker 1: kind of period we're talking about. You know, if you
Speaker 1: get into like the period of the Roman Empire or something, uh,
Speaker 1: then dates are really solid. We just know what your
Speaker 1: things happened. But if you go a thousand years fifteen
Speaker 1: hundred years back before that, throughout much of the Eastern Mediterranean,
Speaker 1: there's way more room for questioning and error because there
Speaker 1: are fewer written records. Those records are less correlated with
Speaker 1: objectively dated other things, so there's just there there are
Speaker 1: a lot of question marks. Yeah, I like to to
Speaker 1: drive on something we've We've mentioned in the past. We
Speaker 1: were in dealing with the with ancient Egypt. We're dealing
Speaker 1: with the ancient history of the Romans. Like the Romans
Speaker 1: considered this ancient history. Yeah, what we're saying, so Julius Caesar,
Speaker 1: if he's thinking about the events concurrent with the eruption
Speaker 1: of theory, that would have been like something like fifteen
Speaker 1: hundred years ago for him. So us thinking back to,
Speaker 1: you know, the collapse of the Roman Empire, and then
Speaker 1: that's funny, that's just the new Kingdom of Egypt. Again,
Speaker 1: I've said this on the show before, but one of
Speaker 1: one of the most amazing things is to think about
Speaker 1: how far back ancient history goes. Just in the written
Speaker 1: part of history, where we have some records and there
Speaker 1: are recognizable civilizations, that's the new Kingdom to the ancient Romans.
Speaker 1: The old Kingdom of Egypt would have been more ancient
Speaker 1: to them than the Romans were to us. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that that's just always nine boggling to think about it.
Speaker 1: I love that. Yeah. But anyway, so so we get
Speaker 1: to these dating issues. Um now, I'm gonna try to
Speaker 1: avoid getting too technical about the dating because like you know,
Speaker 1: are arguing about you know, how many decades in this
Speaker 1: direction or that direction? Uh you date an event can
Speaker 1: get a little bit uh wearisome. I think if you
Speaker 1: if you don't have a lot of other history knowledge
Speaker 1: to sort of orient around that. But to give you
Speaker 1: the short version, the standard view for some time at
Speaker 1: least according to Oppenheimer, is that the minor interruption took
Speaker 1: place sometime around fifty d b C. But there has
Speaker 1: recently been radiocarbon dating and other types of evidence that,
Speaker 1: if correct, would place the eruption like a hundred years earlier.
Speaker 1: So just one example is a study that I was
Speaker 1: reading about from two thousand six published in the journal
Speaker 1: Science by Friedrich at All. That was radiocarbon dating of
Speaker 1: a branch from an olive tree that was buried alive
Speaker 1: in Tephra on Santorini. Uh. When so the branches would
Speaker 1: have been they were preserved in their life position. You know,
Speaker 1: this was not a dead tree. This was still living
Speaker 1: when it got put under the ash. And that evidence,
Speaker 1: the evidence from that radio carb and dating, would put
Speaker 1: the eruption in the late seventeenth century BC, so like
Speaker 1: sometime around sixteen hundred to sixteen twenty seven or so.
Speaker 1: And of course the authors of this radio carbon dating say, uh, whoops.
Speaker 1: The one problem here is this is not consistent with
Speaker 1: the eruption date as it uh as it's assumed by
Speaker 1: many archaeologists, especially based on the chronology of pharaohs in
Speaker 1: the New Kingdom of Egypt. It doesn't really match up.
Speaker 1: So maybe there's something wrong with our date, or maybe
Speaker 1: there's something wrong with that chronology. Now, it certainly is
Speaker 1: possible that the radio carbon dates could be wrong. Oppenheimer
Speaker 1: in his book points out that there are uncertainties with
Speaker 1: the level of atmospheric carbon fourteen right around this period.
Speaker 1: He says, between thirty five hundred and thirty seven hundred
Speaker 1: years ago for various atmospheric chemical reasons um that make
Speaker 1: it a little bit harder than it might usually be
Speaker 1: to obtain accurate carbon dates for objects within this period,
Speaker 1: And there have been other attempts to date the eruption
Speaker 1: using in act He's got a long section in his
Speaker 1: chapter if you ever want to check out the book
Speaker 1: that's really interesting about using dendro chronology and the study
Speaker 1: of ancient trees in Turkey, UH to try to understand
Speaker 1: what might have been happening with the theory eruption, Like
Speaker 1: there are these trees that show these sudden spurts of
Speaker 1: growth at a time that might be signaled by the
Speaker 1: eruption of the volcano, and it's like, why would volcano
Speaker 1: erupting make trees grow more? But it has to do
Speaker 1: with the local climate in Turkey that actually having a
Speaker 1: cooler summer. If you're a tree in a hot arid climate,
Speaker 1: a cooler summer could actually help you grow more than
Speaker 1: you would normally. Oh fascinating. Now to come back to
Speaker 1: something more parallel to what we were talking about with
Speaker 1: people trying to relate these events to the Bible. Uh.
Speaker 1: One thing that I think is funny is that a
Speaker 1: Nappenheimer goes into this bit. Many people have tried to
Speaker 1: link the Minoan eruption to the story of Atlantis told
Speaker 1: by Plato and the Timiest Dialogue. There are some obvious parallels.
Speaker 1: It does tell of an island civilization that achieved great
Speaker 1: prosperity but then sank into the sea amid earthquakes and
Speaker 1: fire and left behind a shoal of mud that made
Speaker 1: the sea in that region impassable. So you know, you
Speaker 1: can see some similarities. But I think it's it's important
Speaker 1: to keep in mind that this is one of the
Speaker 1: places where it's really easy for the pattern seeking brain
Speaker 1: to get over excited because the story of Atlantis was
Speaker 1: written more than a thousand years after the theory eruption,
Speaker 1: probably like the thirteen or fourteen hundred years later, might
Speaker 1: not even have been intended to be taken as anything
Speaker 1: more than like an allegorical story to make a point.
Speaker 1: So I think any attempts to say, Aha, Atlantis was
Speaker 1: Santorini that seems entirely speculative based on pretty weak inference.
Speaker 1: I don't think we can even be confident that that
Speaker 1: Atlantis was a place. Yes, but Atlantis is one of
Speaker 1: those one of those things that people are always going
Speaker 1: to jump to conclusions with, and they're gonna they're gonna
Speaker 1: bend over backwards to try and fit Atlantis in with
Speaker 1: with some sort of existing evidence or tail, and he's
Speaker 1: right up there with the aliens, right though, I admit
Speaker 1: I guess like if you're gonna say the Atlanta story,
Speaker 1: if you knew somehow that it was based on a
Speaker 1: real event in Mediterranean history, I guess maybe this wouldn't
Speaker 1: be a bad candidate. I just if you get more
Speaker 1: into that that sort of middle area of like, okay,
Speaker 1: a story, and even if it's just purely for allegorical
Speaker 1: purposes based on a city vanishing into the sea and
Speaker 1: some sort of a cataclysm. It could have connections to this,
Speaker 1: you know, just to some uh you know, memories and
Speaker 1: accounts of this having happened before uh, you know, because
Speaker 1: that's just that's how humans work. We we when we
Speaker 1: make things up, we tend to make them, make base
Speaker 1: them on things that came before us, either historical events
Speaker 1: or other myth cycles, other stories, etcetera. Right, So, if
Speaker 1: we're trying to get come up with a good solid
Speaker 1: date for or the theory eruption and and sort out
Speaker 1: all these discrepancies, one thing that would be really useful
Speaker 1: would be if there were a contemporary record that we
Speaker 1: could did you know that we could date definitively which
Speaker 1: referred to the eruption. Unfortunately, we actually have shockingly few
Speaker 1: written records from this period in this region of any kind,
Speaker 1: and what we do have does not make explicit reference
Speaker 1: to the eruption unless unless one of the papers we're
Speaker 1: looking at today is correct, and it does in an
Speaker 1: abstracted form. And this, of course is what brings us
Speaker 1: back to this hypothetical interpretation of the tempest Steela. Alright, Yes,
Speaker 1: the the intense rain, the darkening of the sky, the
Speaker 1: flooding exactly so, so Oppenheimer actually makes reference in his
Speaker 1: chapter to this this possible connection. He says, quote in Egypt,
Speaker 1: depending on which its eruption chronology you adhere to, the
Speaker 1: time of the eruption co sided with the end of
Speaker 1: the Second Intermediate Period and the rise of the brothers
Speaker 1: Commos and Amos, who founded the eighteenth dynasty of the
Speaker 1: New Kingdom. Meanwhile, in Mesopotamia, the Old Babylonian period was
Speaker 1: nearing its terminus with the hit Heights Sack of Babylon
Speaker 1: dated circa fift b C. Unfortunately, there are virtually no
Speaker 1: surviving historical texts from the period. And here's where we
Speaker 1: get to the really relevant part. It has been suggested
Speaker 1: that hieroglyphs on a stela erected by Amos in the
Speaker 1: Karnak Temple bear witness to the Manuan eruptions climatic consequences
Speaker 1: in the guise of a great storm accompanied by flooding
Speaker 1: and destruction, but it seems more likely the events recorded
Speaker 1: referred to. Severe monsoonal flooding in the Nile as still
Speaker 1: occurs from time to time, so at the time Oppenheimer
Speaker 1: published this in two thousand eleven, he thought it unlikely
Speaker 1: that the Tempest Stela was referring to the Man interruption,
Speaker 1: because first of all, it could have the Steeler could
Speaker 1: have other plausible interpretations like some of the interpretations we've
Speaker 1: talked about already. And also the dates, though close, don't
Speaker 1: exactly line up. Right. Yeah, and again, like you said,
Speaker 1: the Nile floods, it will it will flood, it will
Speaker 1: shrink back down. And this sort of um fluctuation is
Speaker 1: in a crucial part of of the the Egyptian worldview
Speaker 1: and the way that they saw the world and the
Speaker 1: way that they they formed their various interpretations of the gods. Right.
Speaker 1: But anyway, back to what originally got me interested in
Speaker 1: doing this episode was this paper that was published in
Speaker 1: that UM certainly does not make a conclusive case, but
Speaker 1: maybe makes the mind no interruption interpretation of the Tempest
Speaker 1: steel a more plausible. And so this is a paper
Speaker 1: published by Robert K. Writtener and Nadine Muller Uh published
Speaker 1: in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies INTEN called the
Speaker 1: Almost Tempest steal Uh Theory and Comparative Chronology. Now, just
Speaker 1: to quickly refresh on the apocalyptic climatic lines from the
Speaker 1: Steela inscription, at least the translation we read earlier. It
Speaker 1: talks about quote, the gods caused the sky to come
Speaker 1: in a tempest of rain, with darkness in the western region,
Speaker 1: and the sky being unleashed without cessation, louder than the
Speaker 1: cries of the masses, more powerful than something, while the
Speaker 1: rain raged on the mountains, louder than the noise of
Speaker 1: the cataract, which is at Elephantine, every house every quarter
Speaker 1: that they reached floating on the water like skiffs of
Speaker 1: papyrus opposite the royal residence for a period of days,
Speaker 1: while a torch could not be lit in the two lands. Now,
Speaker 1: so so we've talked about the the sort of classic
Speaker 1: or regular interpretations of what's being described here. Maybe this
Speaker 1: is describing real weather like events that were and it
Speaker 1: maybe like uh, particularly bad monsoon season where you know,
Speaker 1: really intense nile flooding season one summer, or maybe these
Speaker 1: this is a fictional account. Maybe it's somehow metaphorical as
Speaker 1: a statement about military invasions or movements of people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and and it is also worth reminding ourselves that
Speaker 1: what we we see here, what has survived, Like, there's
Speaker 1: nothing in this account that couldn't have been said about
Speaker 1: just a really intense storm that was related to you know,
Speaker 1: to say the monsoon, uh season or something you know,
Speaker 1: to that effect. You know that it's just it rained
Speaker 1: a whole lot. The sky was dark, the sky darkness
Speaker 1: when there are heavy storms and uh and then flooding occurred. Um.
Speaker 1: So you you don't need the volcano to explain what
Speaker 1: we're what we're reading here. Though if there were a
Speaker 1: volcanic eruption, it's very possible that it could it could
Speaker 1: create this kind of intense weather that is being described.
Speaker 1: Volcanic eruptions inject gases and ash particles way up into
Speaker 1: the atmosphere, which in some cases can cause extreme heavy rains,
Speaker 1: lightning storms, and things like that in the area surrounding
Speaker 1: the eruption. And of course we know that on on
Speaker 1: an even broader scale, big eruptions can have these huge
Speaker 1: climatic effects that can infect an entire hemisphere of the globe,
Speaker 1: like they bring cool summers, bad harvests and famine, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But like we've said, you can have even earthquakes, you
Speaker 1: can have dark skies, thunderstorms and flooding in Egypt without
Speaker 1: it necessarily being the result of a volcano so wider.
Speaker 1: Writtener and Mueller further suggest the link in this paper.
Speaker 1: Just to briefly mention a few points. One thing is
Speaker 1: that this paper offers a new revised translation of the Steela,
Speaker 1: which they argue, for one thing, makes it pretty clear
Speaker 1: that the events described are not supposed to be some
Speaker 1: kind of military or political metaphor. They really seem to
Speaker 1: be describing literal weather events, and these events are said
Speaker 1: to have been personally witten by Almos himself. Another thing
Speaker 1: is just some complicated interlocking date stuff like it looks
Speaker 1: like if you date the tempest Steela and the reign
Speaker 1: of almost something like thirty to fifty years earlier than
Speaker 1: the traditional uh pharoh chronology, does that puts it closer
Speaker 1: to the date for the theory eruption, at least the
Speaker 1: date that would be implied by the more recent radiocarbon dating.
Speaker 1: And we've discussed already the reasons that the theory eruption
Speaker 1: has different dates, But you remember the olive branch and
Speaker 1: the radiocarbon dating putting it closer to like the late
Speaker 1: sixteen hundreds BC. UH. If you do that, allegedly some
Speaker 1: other discrepancies and discontinuities about dates in ancient regional history
Speaker 1: would at least be partially resolved. Another interesting argument I
Speaker 1: came across was actually a point raised by a different professor,
Speaker 1: a University of Chicago archaeologist named David Schloan, which I
Speaker 1: saw quoted in some news articles covering paper and this
Speaker 1: was that if this link is true, it would make
Speaker 1: almost as military victories over the hicks Os make even
Speaker 1: more sense. We know that the theory eruption caused catastrophic
Speaker 1: tsunamis that affected places like the coast of Crete. If
Speaker 1: these tsunamis also struck the coast of Egypt along the
Speaker 1: Nile Delta, this potentially could have devastated Hickso supports and
Speaker 1: weakened the Hicksos greatly by crushing their coastal settlements and
Speaker 1: crushing their ships and their sea power, which in turn
Speaker 1: would have weakened them, making it easier for almost to
Speaker 1: get victory in the conquest of Lower Egypt. So yeah, what.
Speaker 1: While this is by no means conclusive, I think it
Speaker 1: seems plausible that the phenomena described in the Tempestila could
Speaker 1: be the theory eruption and or the weather effects that
Speaker 1: followed it, but of course it seems very hard to
Speaker 1: be certain about that. But in general, I do really
Speaker 1: enjoy things like this, finding new possible connections between natural events,
Speaker 1: geological and climate events, and artifacts from human history that
Speaker 1: we didn't really know for sure how to interpret before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and one of those situations to where you you
Speaker 1: can't help but think like, what is the you know,
Speaker 1: what is the closest we could come to being sure
Speaker 1: about this? You know? Um? And and there's you know,
Speaker 1: there may always be this gap of it. And then again,
Speaker 1: who knows, who knows what else might be discovered in
Speaker 1: the future that uh, that could help line things up
Speaker 1: even better than now. I was poking around about this
Speaker 1: and I figured it might be worth addressing something that
Speaker 1: I think is um. Even with this the study we're
Speaker 1: talking about now, like we said, as far from conclusive,
Speaker 1: but it like it makes some interesting arguments. There's some
Speaker 1: stuff that I think is even more speculative and and
Speaker 1: goes in directions that might be unsurprising if you're familiar with,
Speaker 1: you know, popular writing in this subject matter UM, which
Speaker 1: is links to biblical interpret Titian as some people who
Speaker 1: take the Biblical stories of like the Exodus and surrounding
Speaker 1: events as literal history have apparently tried to connect the
Speaker 1: events described in the Storm Steela as evidence that, for example,
Speaker 1: the plague of darkness described in the Bible actually literally
Speaker 1: happened in egypt Um. And I would just say, from
Speaker 1: my point of view, this type of reading of religious
Speaker 1: texts seems kind of misguided in several ways, but I
Speaker 1: guess it is not surprising. Yeah. And again we touched
Speaker 1: on a little bit already about this about the Hebrew
Speaker 1: Hicksos correlation. As I've seen it referred to. It's it's
Speaker 1: one of the usual suspects I've seen it referred to
Speaker 1: as in attempts to establish an historic record for the
Speaker 1: great antiquity of the Jewish people. And again, people have
Speaker 1: been writing about this possible connection for literally ages. Yeah, yeah, totally,
Speaker 1: I mean as even before this new study. But for example,
Speaker 1: it is not surprising that people would like take one
Speaker 1: of these studies is and run with it and say, like, hey,
Speaker 1: proof of the Bible or something. I was just I
Speaker 1: didn't go deep on this, but for example, I found
Speaker 1: an article by it was like a blog post on
Speaker 1: the Times of Israel by this guy named Simcha jacobo Vici, uh,
Speaker 1: saying essentially that you know, this is somehow proof of
Speaker 1: the historicity of of the Exodus or the biblical plagues.
Speaker 1: I think it goes without saying that this is not
Speaker 1: what the authors of the study or alleging. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: jacobo Vici argument. Uh. This was referenced in a really
Speaker 1: interesting blog post that I read from George Athos, who
Speaker 1: teaches that More Theological College in Sydney, Australia, and an
Speaker 1: Athens points out that traditionally the the Steela was interpreted
Speaker 1: as either the description of a localized natural disaster or
Speaker 1: is the metaphor for the oppression of the Egyptians at
Speaker 1: the hand of the hands of the the Hicksos rulers.
Speaker 1: And he discusses u written Er and Moehler, but he
Speaker 1: also talks about this jacobo Vici argument. Now. Jacopovici is
Speaker 1: an Israeli Canadian filmmaker who busts out a lot of
Speaker 1: work on archaeological evidence for Biblical events. Uh, work that
Speaker 1: often clashes with accepted interpretations. So he's been all up
Speaker 1: on the History Channel for example, of course, Uh, this
Speaker 1: is what Athis says, writes quote Jacobovici asserts that this
Speaker 1: new interpretation proves the biblical Exodus because the natural disaster
Speaker 1: in the Tempest Stela describes matches up with the plague
Speaker 1: of darkness described in the Exodus narrative. Jacobovici claimed back
Speaker 1: in two thousand six that this stela was a key
Speaker 1: piece of evidence for finding the Exodus in the archaeological
Speaker 1: records of Egypt. And now he says, here is the
Speaker 1: final proof. Now Athis goes on to say, no, in
Speaker 1: his opinion, there is no direct connection to be made here,
Speaker 1: no matter how much he himself would like to see
Speaker 1: such firm connection. He's very uh, you know, he mentions
Speaker 1: this several times, like he says, you know, I would
Speaker 1: love to see this proven true. I would love to
Speaker 1: find this connection, you know, but this is not it.
Speaker 1: We can't jump to conclusions. And and you know announced
Speaker 1: that it is that is done, you know. And he
Speaker 1: presents several reasons why. First of all, uh, he said
Speaker 1: this connection was not made by written Er and Moehler
Speaker 1: in their work. Also the Tempest, Steeler makes no mention
Speaker 1: of slaves, he Brews, or anything else that matches up
Speaker 1: with Exodus. Also, i'm os described it as something greater
Speaker 1: than the work of a god, not the work of
Speaker 1: a god. Written Er and Moelar stress that the emphasis
Speaker 1: is not the darkness but rather the abnormally harsh rain storm.
Speaker 1: Darkness is secondary to the rain. Uh, you know, think
Speaker 1: back to what we read earlier, or even go back
Speaker 1: and listen to it, where they're like, it rained, crazy,
Speaker 1: and it was dark. It wasn't like and then there
Speaker 1: was darkness and also it was raining. And then he writes,
Speaker 1: Jakobovici makes a direct link between the hicks Sos and
Speaker 1: the Israelite slaves of the Exodus narrative. He is not
Speaker 1: the first to make this link, but it creates a
Speaker 1: series of other problems. For example, the Hicksos ruled a
Speaker 1: portion of Egypt, which contrad the Exodus narrative and states
Speaker 1: the Israelites were slaves, not rulers. There are also chronological difficulties,
Speaker 1: including seeming clashes with the archaeological record of a settlement
Speaker 1: into Canaan. And then, finally, Jacobovicci apparently plays fast and
Speaker 1: loose with the term proof According to athis yeah, and
Speaker 1: that seems like one of the biggest things obviously, I mean,
Speaker 1: as soon as you're saying, like proof, you're you're really
Speaker 1: setting a bar for yourself that you're almost never going
Speaker 1: to clear. Yeah. So so ath Is finishes up by saying, quote,
Speaker 1: I'll be glad of the day when we do find
Speaker 1: evidence for the Exodus outside the Bible, but today is
Speaker 1: not that day. So I thought that that was a
Speaker 1: rather interesting take on it. You know, um uh, you
Speaker 1: know again somebody coming from the point of view where
Speaker 1: they're not just saying like, I'm here to to disprove all, um,
Speaker 1: you know, bits of legend and mythology. I'm here to
Speaker 1: disprove the Bible. And he's saying, you know, I would
Speaker 1: I would love for this to be proven true. And
Speaker 1: he really seems to write from a standpoint where it
Speaker 1: sounds like he his faith is in that, that in
Speaker 1: the reality of it. But you're saying, you know, this
Speaker 1: is not the proof you're looking for. This is not
Speaker 1: you know, we cannot say that the job is done
Speaker 1: and that we can you know that it has been
Speaker 1: proven to have existed via archaeological evidence. Yeah, don't don't
Speaker 1: get sucked in by the checkmate mentality. Yeah, now, of course,
Speaker 1: you know, could the Steeler refer to a cataclysm that
Speaker 1: remembered by various people ends up influencing later tales and traditions. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, of course, but that is a far cry
Speaker 1: from a direct connection, you know. Yeah, I'm finally scrolling
Speaker 1: down and getting to see the blue monkeys. I think
Speaker 1: maybe sometimes we should just come back and and look
Speaker 1: more of the paintings of a criteria. They are weird
Speaker 1: and beautiful, like there are I don't know, I love
Speaker 1: the artistic style of them that give living beings these
Speaker 1: strange curves. Like there are these very elongated s shaped
Speaker 1: gazelles that look almost like something out of a I
Speaker 1: don't know, abstract or uh, I don't know what the
Speaker 1: term would be. I'm not good at my art history,
Speaker 1: the impressionist or something like. They're clearly representative. They are gazelles,
Speaker 1: but they have these ridiculously elongated, sort of tubular curved
Speaker 1: bodies and also like humans, Like there's an image of
Speaker 1: these these two guys that look like they're boxing each
Speaker 1: other but with these sort of curved s shaped torsos. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's um, it's fascinating to look at some of these images.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the blue monkeys right now that you
Speaker 1: referenced earlier, and um, I mean, aside from looking very
Speaker 1: much like monkeys, there's a fluidity to the way that
Speaker 1: their their bodies are illustrated here. You know that that
Speaker 1: certainly matches up with the actual movements, the actual bodies
Speaker 1: of these So you know, this isn't one of those
Speaker 1: cases as fascinating as I find second and third hand
Speaker 1: reproductions of animals in art, you know, where somebody's clearly
Speaker 1: painting something based on a description, uh, second or third
Speaker 1: hand description rather than than direct evidence. Like these, these
Speaker 1: seem to capture the essence of these animals as they
Speaker 1: are alive, perhaps even in the wild. Yeah, yeah, though
Speaker 1: exactly one of the questions that comes up as I
Speaker 1: was reading this weird back and forth in the Journal Primates,
Speaker 1: or at least they began in the Journal Primates by
Speaker 1: people arguing about what species the monkeys depicted in this
Speaker 1: painting are supposed to be. And so there was a
Speaker 1: paper and I think twenty nineteen saying, uh, they're actually
Speaker 1: these monkeys from India, and then there was a reply saying, no,
Speaker 1: there are these monkeys from Africa, and then there was
Speaker 1: another reply. But basically it came down to the question
Speaker 1: of were the people painting these monkeys painting a monkey
Speaker 1: that they had seen alive, or were they painting a
Speaker 1: monkey as it had been portrayed in other art that
Speaker 1: they had seen. Oh, that's true too, and this is
Speaker 1: this could be that situation as well, Like they have
Speaker 1: this fluidity to their form, and they've caught in several
Speaker 1: poses that feel very appropriate and realistic for monkeys. But
Speaker 1: they could have been basing this on another work that
Speaker 1: that someone else had done for sure. Yeah. Interesting, we'll
Speaker 1: have to come back to that. It is a whole
Speaker 1: mess of monkeys. Though they look like they're up to
Speaker 1: no good there, there is also a sense of barrel
Speaker 1: of monkeys to it, you know, Like I don't want
Speaker 1: to to to reduce them to that, but there is
Speaker 1: kind of like a bunch of blue monkeys spilled on
Speaker 1: some tiles, you know. Um, because the barrel of monkeys
Speaker 1: are good representations of the fluidity of the monkey's form
Speaker 1: and movement as well, I think maybe we need to
Speaker 1: call it all right, Well, we're gonna go ahead and
Speaker 1: uh and and finish this uh steva right now and
Speaker 1: go ahead and uh and and and and put it
Speaker 1: into the archives. But we'd love for anybody out there
Speaker 1: to uh touch base with us on this. Have you
Speaker 1: have you seen any of the places that we have
Speaker 1: Have you visited any of the places that we discussed here?
Speaker 1: Do you have any thoughts on you know, the connections
Speaker 1: possible connections between the tempest Steela and uh, and you
Speaker 1: know the the cataclusmic eruptions and UH and the stories
Speaker 1: of of of of legend and mythology. Uh. Let us know,
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from you. There are all kinds
Speaker 1: of other interesting effects of the minor interruption that people
Speaker 1: have done studies on all over the place about how
Speaker 1: they affected, how it affected civilizations, and and marks it
Speaker 1: left on the planet. So yeah, if you've got anything
Speaker 1: interesting along those lines to share with us, please do
Speaker 1: all right. In the meantime, if you want more stuff
Speaker 1: to blow your mind, you know where to find it.
Speaker 1: The Stuff to Blow your Mind feed. We have normal,
Speaker 1: regular core episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind on
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursday's Little listener mail on Monday's Wednesday is
Speaker 1: the short form artifact episode that we mentioned earlier. You know,
Speaker 1: a little little uh you know, specific things, specific specific
Speaker 1: moments in time. Uh, specific ideas that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: And then on Fridays we do Weird House Cinema, which
Speaker 1: is uh our less science e installment, our chance to
Speaker 1: just focus on a particular weird film and chat about it.
Speaker 1: Huge things as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 1: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 1: to suggest top for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
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