The Thera (Santorini) Volcanic Eruption and the
Absolute Chronology of the Aegean Bronze Age
A pdf (via WWW) companion to: Sturt W. Manning, A test of time: the volcano of Thera and the
chronology and history of the Aegean and east Mediterranean in the mid second millennium BC
(Oxford: Oxbow Books, 1999). Softback. Pp. 494 + xxxiii, figs. 66, tables 14, pls.15. ISBN 1-900188-99-6. 28. Oxbow Books, Park
End Place, Oxford OX1 1HN, UK. Tel: +44 (0) 1865 241249. Fax: +44 (0) 1865 794449. E-Mail: [email protected] In the USA,
contact: The David Brown Book Company, PO Box 511, Oakville, CT 06779, USA. Tel: 860 945 9329. Fax: 860 945 9468.
IMPORTANT NOTE TO ALL READERS (AD 2006)
A test of time … was published in late 1999. It was written in 1996-1998 and revised in early-mid 1999. The text as published is
thus ‘out of date’ by going on 6 years minimum, and often by 6-8+ years. A very great deal has happened since the nearly 520
pages of the book were written! Some things vindicate arguments and positions taken; other things entirely contradict or
undermine arguments and positions taken (and some things have in fact done both over the course of the last 6 years…!); some
things change the debate and indicate new directions; much remains more or less as it was. This is the nature of the field as new
data emerge, and new analyses and critical studies are made, and new perspectives open up.
How this pdf/website works:
If you want the CURRENT situation and review of how things have changed since A test of time was written, then you should
simply go the News of Relevance AD2000 onwards section. Here some such information and scholarship is noted and considered
(note: there is NO claim to completeness, nor any commitment to continual up-dating). The preceding sections of the pdf/website
are strictly historical – meaning that they are as they were written at the end of 1999/start 2000 when A test of time first appeared
– these sections are modified by the News of Relevance Section (sometimes I have inserted cross-references or notes to this
effect) and are NOT the current situation.
NEW NEWS!
April 2006
► “Santorini Eruption Radiocarbon Dated to 1627-1600 B.C.” by Walter L. Friedrich, Bernd Kromer,
Michael Friedrich, Jan Heinemeier, Tom Pfeiffer, and Sahra Talamo, Science 312, 28 April 2006: 548.
(http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/312/5773/548)
► “Chronology for the Aegean Late Bronze Age 1700-1400 B.C.” by Sturt W. Manning, Christopher
Bronk Ramsey, Walter Kutschera, Thomas Higham, Bernd Kromer, Peter Steier, and Eva M. Wild
Science 312, 28 April 2006: 565-569. (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/312/5773/565)
► “New Carbon Dates Support Revised History of Ancient Mediterranean” by Michael Balter
Science 312 (issue 5773) 28 April 2006: 508-509.
(http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/312/5773/508)
?A summary of A test of time
?An approximate absolute chronology for Bronze Age Crete
?Corrigenda and Addenda to A test of time
?Postscript to A test of time, December 1999, re-Warren (1999)
?News of relevance, AD2000 onwards (LATEST 28 April 2006)
Sturt W. Manning, Department of Classics, Cornell University.
[email protected]
Visiting Professor, School of Human and Environmental Sciences,
University of Reading, UK
©Sturt W. Manning, December 1999, onwards
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of Sturt W. Manning, A test of time: the volcano of Thera and the chronology and history of the Aegean and
?Aeastsummary
Mediterranean in the mid second millennium BC (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 1999)
Contents:
Abbreviations
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Plates
Preface
I. Introduction
II. A brief history of the Thera debate
III. Aims and Preliminary issues for this Study
IV. Archaeological and Historical evidence
1. Relative date of the Thera eruption in the Aegean and beyond
2. Dating Middle Minoan III in archaeological terms
3. Tell el-Dab‘a, its frescoes, and early LBA Aegean chronology?
4. Linkages between the Late Minoan IA Period, the Late Cypriot I period, and Egypt and the Levant
5. More on White Slip I, and the start of the Late Cypriot IA and Late Minoan IA periods
6. Tempest Stela of Ahmose
7. Archaeology and the absolute chronology of the Late Minoan IB period
8. Archaeology and the absolute chronology of the Late Minoan II period
9. Keftiu in Theban tomb paintings and Aegean chronology
10. Amenhotep III and Aegean chronology
V. Absolute dating evidence
1. Radiocarbon evidence
2. Northern hemisphere climate event in the later 17th century BC
3. The identification of volcanic glass in the GISP2 ice-core. Potential confirmation of a 17th century BC date for the
Thera eruption?
4. Aegean dendrochronology, and further evidence for a 1628BC climate-event consistent with the eruption of Thera
VI. Summary and Conclusions
1.a. Problem Issues: Archaeology
1.b. Problem Issues: Tell el-Dab‘a
1.c. Problem Issues: Science-Based Dating
2. The limited scope for a ‘post-eruption-LMIA phase’ and the importance of recognising an earlier phase of the long
overall LMIB/LHIIA periods
3. Proposed Conclusions
VII. Some implications, and the problem of dating Alalakh VII
Appendix 1: Egyptian chronology
Appendix 2: Why the standard chronologies are approximately correct, and why radical re-datings are therefore incorrect
References
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Back Cover Blurb:
The great mid-second millennium BC eruption of the Thera (Santorini) volcano in the Aegean Sea has been the subject of intense
popular and scholarly interest for over a century. The effects of the eruption have been linked with the destruction of the Minoan palace
civilisation of Crete, the legend of Atlantis and even the events described in the Biblical account of the Exodus. Scientists have studied
the remains of the volcano, traced eruption products across the east Mediterranean, and sought evidence for a climatic impact in ice-cores
and tree-rings. At Akrotiri, archaeologists have unearthed a major prehistoric town which was buried by the eruption, finding multistorey houses decorated with wonderful frescoes, and full of ceramics and other finds linking this site with the contemporary civilisations
of Crete, Greece, Anatolia, Cyprus, the Levant and Egypt.
The eruption of Thera represents a special, clearly defined, moment in Aegean and east Mediterranean prehistory. If the eruption could
be precisely dated, it would offer a linchpin for the study and synchronisation of the history and cultures of the region in the mid-second
millennium BC. Further, it would provide a key test for the historical chronology of ancient Egypt (as determined by two centuries of
scholarship) and the derived archaeological chronologies currently employed in the Aegean and east Mediterranean.
But the date of the Thera eruption is the one question which has remained stubbornly unresolved: the subject of intense controversy for a
generation in both archaeological and scientific publications. Dates differ in current scholarship by over 100 years. This book seeks a
resolution of the Thera date, and related archaeological chronologies, based on a critical review of all current archaeological and
scientific data. A new 'early' chronology for the Aegean c.1700-1400BC is proposed.
Summary of current Thera debate and conclusions of A test of time:
This book reviews and analyses all the available archaeological, art-historical, and scientific (radiocarbon, dendrochronological, ice-core)
evidence potentially relevant to the subject of the date of the Minoan eruption of the Thera (Santorini) volcanic eruption, and the
associated phases of the Minoan (Cretan) and other east Mediterranean civilisations. The discussion concerns both absolute and relative
chronology. A test of time finds strong evidence in favour of both an earlier relative chronology for the Aegean vis vis the east
Mediterranean and an early absolute chronology for the Thera eruption and the associated archaeological periods.
Relative Chronology. It is argued that the key Late Minoan IA period, the high point of the Minoan civilisation, was not, as
conventionally held, contemporary (even in part) with the New Kingdom (18th Dynasty) of Egypt, nor the Late Bronze 1 phase of the
Levant. Instead, the Late Minoan IA period in the Aegean is linked with the late Middle Bronze Age of Syria-Palestine, the Second
Intermediate (Hyksos) Period of Egypt, and the Late Cypriot IA period of Cyprus. This is an important realignment of cultural
synchronisations. The high point of Crete should be considered in terms of the dominant Canaanite trading system of the late Middle
Bronze Age, and not New Kingdom Egypt.
Absolute Chronology. A test of time finds the balance of probabilities strongly in favour of an ‘early chronology’, with the Thera eruption
dated to the later 17th century BC (probably c.1628BC*) [AD2003: now better c.1663-1599BC with a personal preference for the later
17th century BC (News no.6) – see note below; and AD2006: now better within or just after 1660-1612BC with IntCal04 or 16611605BC with IntCal98 (Manning et al. 2006), and most likely within the range 1627-1600BC (Friedrich et al. 2006): see News no. 9].
The archaeological evidence, and other absolute dating evidence from adjacent cultural phases, is found to be either compatible, or in
support of this conclusion.
(Of course, it is fair to note here that a number of archaeologists and art historians disagree! And some, such as especially Professor
Manfred Bietak, have written several papers arguing at length against the Aegean high chronology. Some of the criticisms of points or
details made by such critics are valid or plausible [or later work published after 1999 throws new light, etc.] – just as a number of the
criticisms of the ‘low’ chronology and the associated cultural and stratigraphic interpretation made in A test of time are valid and widely
accepted. But(!) the bottom line which the scholarly field must start to address sooner or later is that the science-dating evidence
continues, more and more strongly, and more clearly, to support the ‘high’ or ‘early’ or ‘long’ Aegean chronology – see most recently
the Friedrich et al. 2006 and Manning et al. 2006 studies cited in News no.9. This is the basic underlying case presented in A test of time.
And with no doubt various modifications, concessions, changes, and revisions, the basic cultural re-alignment proposed in A test of time
remains the plausible way to facilitate the accommodation of science-dating with the archaeology and history of the east Mediterranean.
The linking of the horizon of the (MMIIIB-)LMIA (earlier New Palace) period on Crete, the LHI and the Shaft Grave period in Greece,
and the Late Cypriot IA period of Cyprus, especially, with the Levantine to Nile Delta (Hyksos) Canaanite maritime trading world of the
Second Intermediate Period (as in A test of time) offers an exciting, dynamic, new context and cultural milieu for investigating Aegean
prehistory and the early Greek period. It may even, for example, offer a route to accommodate some of the stronger (more
sensible/credible) aspects of the cultural interconnections scenarios envisaged by e.g. Cyrus Gordon (starting from his observation of the
strong Semitic/Levantine associations for Linear A) (on Cyrus Gordon, see e.g. assessments in Biblical Archaeologist 59.1 (1996)) or
those of Martin Bernal. To date, we (most Aegean archaeologists and Egyptologists), have rather failed to pay sufficient attention to the
later Middle Bronze Age Canaanite/Levantine (Hyksos) world (for a summary of this world, see E.D. Oren, Ed., The Hyksos: new
historical and archaeological perspectives, The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1997), and its role in wider
Aegean-east Mediterranean developments. In general, as Jeremy Rutter is quoted in Science 312, 28 April 2006, p.508, “The Hyksos
have gotten lousy press”.)
[*NB.
IMPORTANT NOTE RE DATE OF 1628BC, AS FAVOURED IN A TEST OF TIME.
Work in the later 1980s through earlier 2003 appeared to offer grounds for perhaps linking the great Thera eruption with likely climate anomalies recorded in tree-ring
archives and/or with evidence for a large volcanic eruption recorded in Greenland ice-cores. Where these dates were consistent within the date range indicated by the
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radiocarbon evidence, it seemed that these dates might indeed indicate a precise date for the Thera eruption. The most likely date adopted in Test of Time, c.1628BC, came
from the tree-ring evidence, and, at that time, this seemed potentially capable of association with indications of major eruptions in ice core records. But since the end of the
1990s this nexus of evidence has broken down. First, it became clear that the date of the best ice-core (Dye 3) was NOT compatible with the tree-ring growth anomaly in
1628BC – it instead dated c.1644BC give or take only about 4 years by publications of AD2000. This removed most of the argument that the two evidence sources were
compatible, and thus the case that both reflected the same major volcanic eruption. Later a date of c.1645BC for Thera was suggested from ice-core evidence (Hammer et al.
2003). HOWEVER, it is important to note that critical analysis of the provenance data available from the GRIP ice-core indicates that the volcanic glass found there is in
fact NOT from Thera – contrary to earlier suggestions and indications. Thus there is at present no evidence linking the Thera eruption with the volcanic acid signal c.1645BC.
See the papers by Pearce et al. (2004) and Keenan (2003) for full details. This analysis means that suggestions of a Thera-Greenland ice-core date link mentioned on the basis
of pers. comms from the ice-core team in a Test of time are now irrelevant. The tree-ring evidence was never claimed to be directly linked to Thera (or any volcano) – the
argument advanced was of a plausible association with the tree-rings offering therefore a proxy record. With the 1645BC ice-core evidence removed now on current data and
its analysis, one may wonder whether one of the tree-ring anomalies – one occurs in the Aegean Dendrochronology c.1650BC (Manning et al. 2001) and another occurs in
several northern hemisphere records c.1628BC (see Test of Time for refs.) – may correlate with Thera. The answer is: perhaps, or perhaps not – there is at present no direct or
causal linkage. These events may also very well be something else in one or both cases. IF – as is not the case at present – ice-core evidence could identify a contemporary
large volcanic eruption, then there seems a nexus of association. BUT this does not exist at present. Hence the tree-ring evidence is at present largely ‘on the side’ of the topic
pending some way being found to link it to Thera specifically. This means that, as of late AD2003, we have only two data sources to resolve the date of the Thera eruption:
(i) conventional archaeohistoric methods, and (ii) radiocarbon. (Of course we must hope that a programme to identify major volcanic events in the ice-core records c.17001450BC will follow and that Thera may one day be specifically pin-pointed in the ice; or that dendrochemical research may enable the tree-ring evidence to come more
securely back into play: cf. e.g. preliminary research reported by Pearson et al. 2005; and Ünlü et al. 2005.)
Current radiocarbon evidence and analysis within a LMIA to LMII sequence (late 2003 – published as Bronk Ramsey et al. 2004) indicates a 95.4% confidence date range
c.1663-1599BC for the eruption (or a very, very, close terminus post quem for this): see below in News no.6. Alternatively, just looking at the currently (AD2004) published
data on short-lived samples with full normal modern pretreatment regimes from the Akrotiri, Thera, volcanic destruction level and using the new IntCal04 radiocarbon
calibration curve, we get an overall 95.4% confidence range for the destruction level (and the very soon following eruption) of c.1684-1615BC (see final figure in News no.6
section below). These date ranges (in approximate terms a ‘mid-to-later 17th century BC date’) are thus the appropriate ‘high’ chronology date ranges now (and not a specific
date like 1628BC – although this of course remains as a possible date). NB. AD2006: the Manning et al. 2006 paper in News no.9 refines this Akrotiri volcanic destruction
level age range (or very, very, close terminus post quem range for the subsequent eruption) to: 1660-1612BC at 95.4% confidence (and most likely 1639-1616 BC (P=56.9%)
from the most likely sub-range at 1SD or 68.2% confidence level versus IntCal04 – or 1661-1605BC at 95.4% confidence employing IntCal98). Thus all statements in a
Test of Time should be revised and interpreted in this light. Future radiocarbon work may further modify this range.
AD2006. The new AD2006 radiocarbon position for Thera, and for the dating of an olive branch killed by the eruption, is reported in the articles cited in News no.9 below.
The most likely eruption date would now seem to be around 1627-1600 B.C. from the Friedrich et al. 2006 paper cited there.).
So the high chronology for now means a later 17th century BC date for later Late Minoan IA and the eruption of Thera. Scholars are welcome to play with exact dates within
this range.
Hammer, C.U., Kurat, G., Hoppe, P., Grum, W. and Clausen, H.B. 2003. Thera eruption date 1645BC confirmed by new ice core data. In M. Bietak ed., The synchronisation
of civilisations in the eastern Mediterranean in the second millennium B.C. II: 87-94. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Keenan, D.J. 2003. Volcanic ash retrieved from the GRIP ice core is not from Thera. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 4(11) 15 Nov. 2003. 1097,
doi:10.1029/2003GC000608.
Manning, S.W., Kromer, B, Kuniholm, P.I. and Newton, M.W. 2001. Anatolian tree-rings and a new chronology for the east Mediterranean Bronze-Iron Ages. Science
294:2532-2535.
Pearce, N., Westgate, J., Preece, S., Eastwood, W. and Perkins, W. 2004. Identification of Aniakchak (Alaska) Tephra in Greenland Ice Core Challenges the 1645 BC Date
for Minoan Eruption of Santorini. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 5(3): Q03005 doi:10.1029/2003GC000672.
Pearson, C.L., Manning, S.W., Coleman, M. and Jarvis, K. 2005. Can tree-ring chemistry reveal absolute dates for past volcanic eruptions? Journal of Archaeological
Science 32:1265-1274.
Ünlü, K., Kuniholm, P.I., Chiment, J.J., Hauck, D.K. 2005. Neutron activation analysis of absolutely-dated tree rings. Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry
264:21-27.]
The debate concerning the ‘early chronology’ may be summarised (in AD1999) as:
For:
(a) that a wide variety of independent, high-quality, scientific data either strongly support, most likely support, or are consistent
with, an ‘early’, or ‘high’, chronology for the Thera eruption (e.g. 1628BC), the early Aegean Late Bronze Age, and directly
related areas and cultures,
(b) that analysis of the archaeological evidence clearly supports a compatible raised, or earlier, chronology for the later Late
Minoan IB to Late Minoan IIIA1 periods,
(c) that the archaeological evidence relevant to the Middle Minoan III-Late Minoan IB periods may almost all be interpreted as
consistent with an early chronology and a later 17th century BC date for the eruption of Thera, with the Late Minoan IA period in
particular linked with the Late Cypriot IA period, the Hyksos (Second Intermediate Period) period in Egypt and the later Middle
Bronze II (or Middle Bronze III) period in the Levant (what is variously referred to as the MBIIC or MBIII period by different
scholars, but referring to the same chronological period), and
(d) that although there are of course a few discordant archaeological data, none of these is without problems, none may not be
plausibly discounted, and, altogether, they are a very few instances opposed to a vast majority, and a consistent pattern.
Possibly against:
(a) that a Cypriot White Slip I bowl was found on Thera in a pre-eruption context, and, since there is no good (or undisputed)
evidence for exports of White Slip I in the east Mediterranean before about the start of the 18th Dynasty in Egypt, some scholars
argue that this places the eruption no earlier than the start of the 18th Dynasty, and so a mid-16th century BC date (but see
summary of why this argument is incorrect), and
(b) the (revised) current interpretation of the stratigraphy, architecture, and finds at the site of Tell el-Dab‘a in the Nile Delta of
Egypt – A test of time spends considerable space on a review and critique of the current interpretation of the Tell el-Dab‘a
sequence and data.
The analysis in A test of time finds that the only potentially viable alternative to the ‘early chronology’ to be what is termed a
‘compromise early chronology’. This is deemed to be possible, but much less likely than the ‘early chronology’. The relative
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chronology is more or less identical under either of these chronologies. The difference is the length of the Late Minoan IB period
(which shrinks) and the date of the eruption of Thera (which is placed somewhere c.1570-1530BC). The debate concerning the
‘compromise early chronology’ may be summarised as:
For:
(a) that the radiocarbon evidence also makes a mid-16th century BC date before c.1535/1525BC possible for the eruption of
Thera, and this enables the White Slip I ‘problem’ as conceived by Bietak to be resolved,
(b) that analysis of the archaeological and radiocarbon evidence which supports a raised, or earlier, chronology for the later Late
Minoan IB to Late Minoan IIIA1 periods does not necessarily require a date for later Late Minoan IA (and the Thera eruption)
earlier than about the start of the 18th Dynasty, and
(c) that the archaeological evidence relevant to the Middle Minoan III-Late Minoan IB periods may almost all be interpreted as
consistent with a mid-16th century BC date for the eruption of Thera with most of the Late Minoan IA period still contemporary
with the (later) Hyksos (Second Intermediate Period) period in Egypt.
Against:
(a) that a large body of evidence for a major mid-latitude northern hemisphere volcanic eruption in the later 17th century BC
(plausibly at 1650/1645 to 1628BC - but not necessarily the same event - see note above), which seems remarkably consonant
with the Thera eruption, must in fact be associated instead with another (as yet unknown) eruption (but this now seems to be the
case for the 1645BC volcanic signal: see Pearce et al. 2004; Keenan 2003),
(b) that there is little or no evidence of a major mid-latitude northern hemisphere volcanic eruption in the mid-16th century BC,
and
(c) the radiocarbon evidence presently available seems to favour the 17th century BC option.
The low chronology position, where the eruption of Thera is placed around or after c.1520BC, is found to be virtually impossible.
It is possible only if all the science-dating evidence is ignored. It is true that arguments may be made to dismiss the strict causal
relevance of the tree-ring evidence, and the ice-core evidence has yet to produce confirmed Thera eruption products in a dated icelayer, but the radiocarbon data of direct relevance to the final human abandonment of Akrotiri on Thera before the eruption, and
the radiocarbon data from the subsequent Late Minoan periods, cannot be lightly dismissed. Suggestions of old carbon-dioxide
from the volcano affecting the samples from Thera are not supported by chemical analyses of the samples, nor by observations of
the nature of such 'volcanic' effects elsewhere. The samples from LMIB Crete cannot be so affected, and yet they also support the
chronology available from the Akrotiri samples. Radiocarbon evidence requires a date either in the 17th century BC or, less likely,
the mid-16th century BC (and before c.1535/1525BC). Meanwhile, although the ice-core evidence may not yet date Thera
directly, it does show clearly that there was no major (even minor major) volcanic eruption in the northern hemisphere in the last
two decades of the 16th century BC (there are currently smaller candidate spikes at 1569BC and 1525BC - among several from
the 17th-16th centuries BC), nor in the early 15th century BC. The Thera eruption cannot be 'hiding' here. A date prior to c.1520
seems required on any analysis.
The case against the low chronology is, moreover, not just from science. The archaeological evidence also contradicts it. Among
other important data a Mycenaean vase which dates, at the earliest, to late Late Helladic IIA (i.e. significantly after the eruption of
Thera, and contemporary with the mid-later Late Minoan IB period on Crete), has been found at Saqqara in Egypt in a context
which may be dated to the reigns of Ahmose or Amenhotep I, (or just possibly as late as Tuthmosis I). This is simply not
compatible with a c.1520BC or later date for the later Late Minoan IA eruption of Thera. The rest of the evidence suggests that the
Late Minoan IB period was largely contemporary with the early 18th Dynasty, and probably began during the Second
Intermediate Period (before 1550/1540BC). All the evidence relevant to the Late Minoan IA period supports a correlation with the
Late Cypriot IA period, the later Middle Bronze Age of Syria-Palestine, and the Second Intermediate Period of Egypt. The lowest
workable date for the eruption of Thera which could be made to work with all the evidence is somewhere in the mid-16th century
BC (c.1570-1530BC). The balance of probabilities supports a point in the later 17th century BC, consistent with the sciencedating evidence.
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? An approximate absolute chronology for the Bronze Age Crete (1999), by Sturt W. Manning
In the books A test of time: the volcano of Thera and the chronology and history of the Aegean and east Mediterranean in the mid second millennium BC
(Oxford, Oxbow Books, 1999) and The Absolute chronology of the Aegean Early Bronze Age: archaeology, radiocarbon and history (Sheffield,
Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), and also in a number of articles, the relative and absolute chronologies of the Aegean Bronze Age have been explored
and defined in some detail by this author. The archaeology of Crete has been at the heart of most of these analyses. It seems useful to bring all this work
together in one place to offer a working chronology of Bronze Age Crete for the reference of scholars and students. It must of course be remembered that
the underlying details change constantly with new data and interpretation, and that the exact dates offered are necessarily only approximate in most cases
(I have employed ‘rounded’ dates here). What follows is my assessment as of December 1999 (versus 1989-1993 in The Absolute chronology of the
Aegean Early Bronze Age, and 1996-1998 in A test of time). The intention is not to review all the very recent literature. One important new book should,
however, be noted: J.A. MacGillivray, Knossos: pottery groups of the Old Palace period (British School at Athens Studies 5, London: The British
School at Athens, 1998).
This ‘working’ Bronze Age chronology for Crete is best conveyed through the dynamic medium of the World Wide Web.
The chronology below is based on the integration of both all the archaeological and art-historical evidence for relative and absolute chronology, and the
evidence provided by radiocarbon dating. This has been the central theme of the chronological analyses published by this author from 1988 to 1999: the
marriage of science and archaeology. In comparison, Sinclair Hood has offered a contrasting recent assessment of Minoan chronology in which the
evidence from radiocarbon dating is noted, but largely dismissed (see Hood, S. 1999. Aspects of Minoan chronology. In P.P. Betancourt, V.
Karageorghis, R. Laffineur and W.-D. Niemeier (eds.), Meletemata: studies in Aegean archaeology presented to Malcolm H. Wiener as he enters his
65th year. Vol.II: 381-386. Aegaeum 20. Université de Liège: Service d’Histoire de l’art et archéologie de la Grèce antique, and Austin: Program in
Aegean Scripts and Prehistory, The University of Texas at Austin).
The Egyptian dates employed are those of Jürgen von Beckerath, Chronologie des pharaonischen Ägypten. Die Zeitbestimmung der ägyptischen
Geschichte von der Vorzeit bis 332 v. Chr. (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1997). These are largely very similar to those of Kenneth A. Kitchen in his 1996
article "The historical chronology of ancient Egypt, a current assessment", Acta Archaeologica 67: 1-13. The most significant subsequent study is the
analysis of the Second Intermediate Period (Dynasties 13-17) by K.S.B. Ryholt, The political situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period
c.1800-1550 B.C. (Carsten Niebuhr Institute Publications volume 20. Copenhagen: The Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Near Eastern Studies, University of
Copenhagen, and Museum Tusculanum Press, 1997). For an assessment of Ryholt’s important book, see the review article by D. Ben-Tor, S.J. Allen and
J.P. Allen in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 315: 47-74 (1999).
Approximate Chronology of Crete 3000-1100BC follows (in two parts):
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Thera Eruption 0
between likely
c.1627-1600BC*
8 of 36
* NOTE: this date range is the 95% confidence range in the Friedrich et al. 2006 paper (see News no.9 – this study uses IntCal04). Other radiocarbon data for seeds found
stored at Akrotiri on Thera at the time of the volcanic destruction define a range of 1660-1612BC at 95% confidence (Manning et al. 2006 paper – see News no.9 – this uses
IntCal04). The Akrotiri seeds may be a year or so older than the eruption (they are the last harvest placed in storage jars at the site prior to the eruption) – so they set either
an age range for, or a very, very, close terminus post quem range for, the eruption. The date range of 1627-1600BC is from an olive branch killed by the eruption – it offers,
at present, the best and most precise age range for the eruption.
As of January 2002 (revised November 2003) we may make the following preliminary revisions to the chronology above (a revised version of the above chronology will be produced in due course)
Based on new radiocarbon data (see News item 6 below), we may state:
(i) By convention, the start date for LMIA was placed c.1600/1580BC, but evidence now indicates a specific and likely narrow terminus post quem, and possibly even actual date, for early LMIA as predating at a minimum
c.1689/1680BC, and in fact probably lying around or a little after c.1765-1716BC. 1700BC give or take seems a reasonable approximation at present.
(ii) The mature-late parts of the LMIA phase lie in the 17th century BC, and not the 16th century BC.
(iii) The LMIA phase likely ends around c.1610-1590BC, and not c.1500/1480BC as conventionally held.
(iv) The eruption of the Thera volcano is best dated c.1663-1599BC (AD2006: see now *Note above this section, and News item no.9), and not 1525-1500BC. I note that this new range is based on the analysis of just over 100
radiocarbon data all from the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (see Bronk Ramsey, Manning and Galimberti 2004). These data and the analysis are robust as they stand given current information (see also Manning and Bronk
Ramsey 2003:esp.124-29). But, of course, we may expect that other data, or data from other laboratories, may be slightly different. And in such a case the stated range might then vary a little. Tests on known age data indicate that
only a very small laboratory offset may apply to the Oxford data (Bronk Ramsey et al. 2004) – such a factor will not significantly change the results given. AD2006: see now the Manning et al. 2006 paper cited in News no.9 for a
collaborative inter-laboratory study. Here the 95% confidence age range for the Akrotiri VDL was determined as 1660-1612BC.
(v) A point late in the classic LMIB phase probably lies c.1522-1512BC (1528-1503BC at 1 standard deviation confidence), and, at the extreme limits of the 2 standard deviation range, before c.1460BC, and not c.1425BC as
conventionally held.
Bronk Ramsey, C., Manning, S.W. & Galimberti, M. 2004. Dating the volcanic eruption at Thera. Radiocarbon 46(1):325-344.
Bronk Ramsey, C., Higham, T. and Leach, P. 2004. Towards high-precision AMS: progress and limitations. Radiocarbon 46(1):17-24.
Manning, S.W. & Bronk Ramsey, C. 2003. A Late Minoan I-II absolute chronology for the Aegean – combining archaeology with radiocarbon. In: Bietak, M. (ed.), The synchronisation of civilisations in the eastern Mediterranean
in the second millennium BC (II). Proceedings of the SCIEM2000 EuroConference Haindorf, May 2001: 111-133. Wien: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Notes to the chronology with regard to the Late Minoan periods
1. It should always be remembered that the ‘boundaries’ between the Aegean ceramic periods are not clear cut. Styles in ceramics and other media do not start and end on
specific days. Nor are they monolithic entities; plurality is typical. The boundaries should be conceived as fuzzy, as times when one dominant style grouping gave way to
another.
2. From the archaeological evidence available from Crete it is evident that the overall LMI period (the LMIA and LMIB periods combined) is very long. I consider it
plausible that the LMIA period represents around 100 or so years. The period starts no later than c.1700-1675BC (MMIIIB-early LMIA transition), with LMIA early
underway by 1700-1675BC. The LMIB period is also a long period; it could be almost the same length as LMIA, or perhaps a little shorter. The basic pattern is LMIA =
17th century BC, and LMIB = 16th century BC. The only problem, as noted in 3. below, occurs if the LMIB period is required to stretch all the way to the 1470s BC to
overlap with at least the first years of Tuthmosis III, whose reign is dated 1479-1425BC in current Egyptological literature. The post-Thera-eruption final phase of the LMIA
period is unlikely to represent more than about quarter, to at the very most a third, of the entire LMIA period. Something around 25-30 years seems appropriate. Thus the
LMIA period should end about 1600BC given a c.1628BC eruption of Thera (NB. Thus given now, AD2003, a Thera eruption date range from radiocarbon of c.16631599BC = the ‘high’ chronology – this could move another few decades lower at the ‘lowest’ interpretation). The early LMIB period follows. It is 121 years from 1600BC
to 1479BC. To reduce this period, one can either extend the post-Thera-eruption final phase of LMIA, but the evidence suggests this should be a relatively brief phase (a
‘generation’ range in temporal extent). It seems impossible to take LMIA beyond about 1580BC if the Thera eruption is 17th century BC. The alternative is to consider the
date of the close of the LMIB period, and the issue of the link with Tuthmosis III: see 3. below. News item 6. below offers evidence for a very long LMIB period. Work
currently in press (see News item 6. below) supports an end date for the LMIA period c.1600BC.
3. The date of the close of the LMIB period depends on the resolution of a minor conflict among different types of evidence. The radiocarbon data relevant to the close of
the LMIB period at two sites favour a date no later than c.1490BC (range c.1525-1490BC) but within the 95.4% confidence range the Myrtos-Pyrgos data could extent as
9 of 36
late as c.1460BC give or take a couple of years. If the LMIB period lasted at least into the first years of Tuthmosis III as conventionally thought, then this implies a date into
the 1470s BC given current conventional dates of 1479-1425BC for the reign of Tuthmosis III. Thus this can just about be accommodated with the radiocarbon data, even if
at the very end of their dating ranges, but it is also clearly a little later than the radiocarbon would prefer, and there is maybe a c.20-year difference in preferred outcomes.
However, we should also note that the grounds for the LMIB-Tuthmosis III link are in fact less than solid. It is regularly stated that some LMIB, or mainland equivalent
LHIIA, objects are found in Egypt and the Levant in contexts dating to the reign of Tuthmosis III, and some LMI-style Keftiu (Minoans) are represented in wall paintings of
the earlier part of his reign. However, a mature (or classic) LHIIA vase has been found in a context dating some 25 (absolute minimum 13) to 71 years before the reign of
Tuthmosis III at Saqqara (discussion in A test of time chapter IV.7 – note also C.F. MacDonald, “Chronologies of the Thera eruption”, American Journal of Archaeology
105 [2001] 527-532 at p.530). This rather implies that mature/classic LHIIA, and at least mature LMIB, could have been contemporary with a point one/two to several
decades prior to the accession of Tuthmosis III, and that the few LHIIA and LMIB objects claimed to date to the reign of Tuthmosis III (and note most could also date
earlier in the 18th Dynasty – the supposed link solely with Tuthmosis III has been assumed, not demonstrated, in existing literature) are in effect heirlooms by the time of
their final deposition. The earlier LMI-style Keftiu paintings are likewise less than conclusive evidence. These images derived from pattern-books, and the original ‘source’
image may have been from some time earlier. It has been argued by Vercoutter, for example, that the source images in the pattern-books used to paint these LMI(B) Keftiu
figures with loin cloths dated from a visit of LMIB style Keftiu as early as the reigns of Tuthmosis I or Tuthmosis II (e.g. Vercoutter, J. 1956. L’Égypte et le monde égéen
préhellénique. Bibliothque d’Étude 22. Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale. See pp.410-412). Again, this might leave the LMIB period as ending on Crete up to
1 to 25 years before the accession of Tuthmosis III. A close for the LMIB period c.1500/1490BC would offer a more reasonable length for the LMIB period at about a
century, or perhaps just slightly less (LMIA ending in first years of the 16th century BC, or LMIB ending shortly before 1500BC). It is of course possible that the close of
LMIB destructions at Chania and Myrtos-Pyrgos do not represent the overall end of the LMIB period on Crete – it may have continued later elsewhere. And there might
even be some regional effects operating as well (leading to an effective overlap with LMII in some places). Some evidence seems to point this way – see brief discussion
pp.118-122 in Manning, S.W. & Bronk Ramsey, C. 2003. A Late Minoan I-II absolute chronology for the Aegean – combining archaeology with radiocarbon. In: Bietak, M.
(ed.), The synchronisation of civilisations in the eastern Mediterranean in the second millennium BC (II). Proceedings of the SCIEM2000 EuroConference Haindorf, May
2001: 111-133. Wien: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
4. The paper of M.H. Wiener, "The absolute chronology of Late Helladic IIIA2", in M.S. Balmuth and R.H. Tykot (eds.), Sardinian and Aegean chronology: towards the
resolution of relative and absolute dating in the Mediterranean: 309-319 (Studies in Sardinian Archaeology V. Oxford: Oxbow, 1998) offers a more secure basis to the
largely contemporary LMIIIA2 period (LHIIIA2 began slightly earlier). The only note is that the tentative dendro date for the last preserved ring for some problematic wood
carried on the Uluburun ship is now to be discounted (thus also revising and discounting Test of time p.345). Following renewed investigation and the recompiling of the
master tree-ring sequences, the sample offers no significant match where it had initially seemed to have a plausible fit. A new best dating based on a high-precision
radiocarbon wiggle-match analysis is forthcoming (Maryanne Newton, pers. comm.). The sample appears to be a little older than first stated – the wreck itself, based on the
finds, remains likely to belong in the later to late 14th century BC.
For an up-date and revision to Wiener (1998), see now: Wiener, M.H. 2003. The absolute chronology of Late Helladic III A2 revisited. Annual of the British School at
Athens 98:239-250.
10 of 36
?Relevant bibliography of Sturt W. Manning
Bronk Ramsey, C., Manning, S.W. & Galimberti, M. 2004. Dating the volcanic eruption at Thera. Radiocarbon 46(1):325-344.
Cadogan, G., Herscher, E., Russell, P. and Manning, S. 2001. Maroni-Vournes: A long White Slip sequence and its chronology.
In V. Karageorghis (ed.), The White Slip Ware of Late Bronze Age Cyprus. Proceedings of an International Conference
Organized by the Anastasios G. Leventis Foundation, Nicosia in Honour of Malcolm Wiener, Nicosia 29th-30th October
1998: 75-88. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Galimberti M., Bronk Ramsey C. and Manning S.W. 2004. Wiggle-match dating of tree ring sequences. Radiocarbon 46(2):917924.
Housley, R.A., Manning, S.W., Cadogan, G., Jones, R.E. and Hedges, R.E.M. 1999. Radiocarbon, calibration, and the
chronology of the Late Minoan IB phase. Journal of Archaeological Science 26: 159-171.
Kromer, B., Manning, S.W., Kuniholm, P.I., Newton, M.W., Spurk, M. and Levin, I. 2001. Regional 14CO2offsets in the
troposphere: magnitude, mechanisms, and consequences. Science 294:2529-2532.
Kuniholm, P.I., Kromer, B., Manning, S.W., Newton, M., Latini, C.E. and Bruce, M.J. 1996. Anatolian tree-rings and the
absolute chronology of the east Mediterranean 2220-718BC. Nature 381: 780-783.
Manning, S.W. 1988a. Dating of the Santorini eruption. Nature 332: 401.
Manning, S.W. 1988b. The Bronze Age eruption of Thera: absolute dating, Aegean chronology and Mediterranean cultural
interrelations. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 1(1): 17-82.
Manning, S.W. 1990a. The eruption of Thera: date and implications. In D.A. Hardy and A.C. Renfrew (eds.), Thera and the
Aegean world III. Volume three: chronology: 29-40. London: The Thera Foundation.
Manning, S.W. 1990b. The Thera eruption: the Third Congress and the problem of the date. Archaeometry 32: 91-100.
Manning, S.W. 1991. Response to J.D. Muhly on problems of chronology in the Aegean Late Bronze Age. Journal of
Mediterranean Archaeology 4: 249-262.
Manning, S.W. 1992a. Thera, sulphur, and climatic anomalies. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 11: 245-253.
Manning, S.W. 1992b. Santorini, ice-cores and tree-rings: resolution of the 1645 or 1628BC debate? Nestor 19: 2511-2512.
Manning, S.W. and Weninger, B. 1992. A light in the dark: archaeological wiggle matching and the absolute chronology of the
close of the Aegean Late Bronze Age. Antiquity 66: 636-663.
Manning, S.W. 1995. The absolute chronology of the Aegean Early Bronze Age: archaeology, history and radiocarbon.
Monographs in Mediterranean Archaeology 1. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.
Manning, S.W. 1997. Troy, radiocarbon, and the chronology of the northeast Aegean in the Early Bronze Age. In C.G. Doumas
and V. La Rosa (eds.), He Poliochne kai he proime epoche tou Chalkou sto Voreio Aigaio/ Poliochni e l'antica et del bronzo
nell'Egeo settentrionale: 498-520. Athens: Scuola archeologica italiana di Atene.
Manning, S.W. 1998. Aegean and Sardinian chronology: radiocarbon, calibration, and Thera. In M.S. Balmuth and R.H. Tykot
(eds.), Sardinian and Aegean chronology: towards the resolution of relative and absolute dating in the Mediterranean: 297307. Studies in Sardinian Archaeology V. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Manning, S.W. 1999. A test of time: the volcano of Thera and the chronology and history of the Aegean and east Mediterranean
in the mid second millennium BC. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Manning, S.W. 2001. The chronology and foreign connections of the Late Cypriot I period: times they are a-changin. In P. Åström
(ed.), The chronology of Base Ring ware and Bichrome wheel-made ware: 69-94. Konferenser 54. Stockholm: The Royal
Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities.
Manning, S. 2005. Simulation and the Thera eruption: outlining what we do and do not know from Radiocarbon. In A. DakouriHild & S. Sherratt (eds.), Autochthon: Papers presented to O.T.P.K. Dickinson on the occasion of his retirement: 97-114.
BAR International Series 1432. Oxford: Archaeopress.
Manning, S.W., Barbetti, M., Kromer, B., Kuniholm, P.I., Levin, I, Newton, M.W. & Reimer, P.J. 2002. No systematic early bias
to Mediterranean 14C ages: radiocarbon measurements from tree-ring and air samples provide tight limits to age offsets.
Radiocarbon 44:739-754.
Manning, S.W. & Bronk Ramsey, C. 2003. A Late Minoan I-II absolute chronology for the Aegean – combining archaeology with
radiocarbon. In: Bietak, M. (ed.), The synchronisation of civilisations in the eastern Mediterranean in the second millennium
11 of 36
BC (II). Proceedings of the SCIEM2000 EuroConference Haindorf, May 2001: 111-133. Wien: Österreichischen Akademie
der Wissenschaften.
Manning, S.W., Bronk Ramsey, C., Doumas, C., Marketou, T., Cadogan, G. and Pearson, C.L. 2002. New evidence for an early
date for the Aegean Late Bronze Age and Thera eruption. Antiquity 76:733-744.
Manning, S.W., Bronk Ramsey, C., Kutschera, W., Higham, T., Kromer, B., Steier, P. and Wild, E. 2006. Chronology for the
Aegean Late Bronze Age 1700-1400 B.C. Science 312: 565-569. (DOI: 10.1126/science.1125682)
Manning, S.W., Crewe, L. & Sewell, D.A. 2006. Further light on early LCI connections at Maroni. In E. Czerny, I. Hein, H.
Hunger, D. Melman & A. Schwab (eds.), Timelines. Studies in honour of Manfred Bietak, Vol.2: 471-488. OLA 149. Leuven:
Peeters.
Manning, S.W. and Hulin, L. 2005. Maritime commerce and geographies of mobility in the Late Bronze Age of the eastern
Mediterranean: problematizations. In E. Blake and A.B. Knapp (eds.), The archaeology of Mediterranean prehistory: 270302. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Manning, S.W., Kromer, B, Kuniholm, P.I. and Newton, M.W. 2001. Anatolian tree-rings and a new chronology for the east
Mediterranean Bronze-Iron Ages. Science 294:2532-2535.
Manning, S.W., Kromer, B., Kuniholm, P.I. and Newton, M.W. 2003. Confirmation of near-absolute dating of east Mediterranean
Bronze-Iron Dendrochronology. Antiquity 77 (295): http://antiquity.ac.uk/ProjGall/Manning/manning.html
Manning, S.W. and Sewell, D.A. 2002. Volcanoes and history: a significant relationship? The case of Santorini. In R. Torrence
and J. Grattan, (eds.), Natural disasters and cultural change: 264-291. London: Routledge.
Manning, S.W., Sewell, D.A. and Herscher, E. 2002. Late Cypriot IA maritime trade in action: underwater survey at MaroniTsaroukkas and the contemporary east Mediterranean trading system. Annual of the British School at Athens 97:97-162.
Manning, S.W., Weninger, B., South, A.K., Kling, B., Kuniholm, P.I., Muhly, J.D., Hadjisavvas, S., Sewell, D.A. and Cadogan,
G. 2001. Absolute age range of the Late Cypriot IIC period on Cyprus. Antiquity 75:328-340.
Turetsky, M.R., Manning, S.W. & Wieder, R.K. 2004. Dating recent peat deposits. Wetlands 24:324-356.
12 of 36
?Corrigenda and Addenda to A test of time
p.vii Fig.4
p.xviii
p.44 item
(iii)
p.71 and
footnote
297
p.72, Fig.
21
pp.113114 and
footnote
510
p.128
footnote
602
On the map of Cyprus Palaepaphos not Paleapaphos, and Toumba tou Skourou not Tomba ...
The spelling should be Alasiya and not Alasia.
Data are plural. Should read 'Significant new data have started to emerge ... these data ...'.
Add to references re-Knossos find of Theran pumice the description in Warren (1999) paper discussed below in the
Postscript.
Tephra depths fail to appear on figure. Should be, from inside contour line outwards, 30cm, 20cm, 10cm, 5cm and
1cm. See figure below.
There are now two additional late MB type Canaanite jars from LMIA Akrotiri on Thera. See p.134 and Figs. 1-2 in
Doumas, C. 1998. Aegeans in the Levant: myth and reality. In S. Getin, A. Mazar and E. Stern (eds.), Mediterranean
peoples in transition: thirteenth to early tenth centuries BCE: 129-137. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society.
Tel Haror sherd with Minoan graffito. This has now been shown to be Cretan, as noted very briefly at p.109 footnote
493. See Day et al. paper in P.P. Betancourt, V. Karageorghis, R. Laffineur and W.-D. Niemeier (eds.), Meletemata:
studies in Aegean archaeology presented to Malcolm H. Wiener as he enters his 65th year. Vol.I: 191-196. Aegaeum
20. Université de Liège: Service d’Histoire de l’art et archéologie de la Grèce antique, and Austin: Program in Aegean
Scripts and Prehistory, The University of Texas at Austin.
p.163 lines
The 'be' should be an 'is'. Thus '...but nothing is certain'.
26-27
There is some confusion/error in my text about who is Tudhaliya I and II, and whether they are the same person (as
several scholars assume), or in fact different persons. Likewise, there is a problem over whether one or two Tudhaliyas
reigned between Arnuwanda I and Suppiluliuma I. This issue of exactly how many early New Kingdom rulers there
were, and how many Tudhaliyas, has been a long-running debate/confusion in Hittite studies (Bryce 1998:132-133
and footnote 7). Let me correct/explain the errors in the text. I thank Eric H. Cline for drawing this confusion to my
attention.
1. How many Tudhaliyas at the very start of the Hittite New Kingdom before Arnuwanda I? One or two?
Most scholars assume one.
re-footnote 1108 on p. 228. The Tudhaliya II referred to by Cline (1996) is the same person as the Tudhaliya I of
p.225,
Astour (1989) – referred to as Tudhaliya I/II in Bryce (1998:133). Cline, Astour and Bryce are all talking about the
p.226
same person. There are not two kings who claim victory over Assuwa, just the one who lived c.1450-1420BC (Astour
Table 6, 1989 dates). This affects my discussion in footnote 1108. There is just the one king and one Assuwa victory. This
pp.227correction in fact favours the high chronology historical synthesis (as the early 14th century BC Tudhaliya II option
229, p.228 discussed in my footnote is incorrect). Elsewhere in my text, references to Tudhaliya I refer to Tudhaliya I (Astour) or
footnote Tuhaliya I/II (Bryce). Gurney (1990:181) has a different chronology again. He has the early New Kigndom rulers
1108
before Arnuwanda I as Tudhaliya I(?), Hattusilis II(?), and Tudhaliya II.
2. How many Tudhaliyas after Arnuwanda I and before Suppiluliuma I? One or two? Bryce and Gurney say
one (called Tudhaliya III). Astour (1989) has two, called Tudhaliya II and Tudhaliya III.
At p.225 footnote 1093 and in Table 6 on p.226, I followed Astour (1989) and have two Tudhaliyas in this interval:
Tudhaliya II and Tudhaliya III. The caption to Table 6 thus should be corrected to read: 'Table 6. List of Hittite Kings
after Bryce (1998), except for early New Kingdom which follows Astour (1989)'. In footnote 1093 I sought some
support from the evidence that Suppiluliuma's father was a Tudhaliya (see also Bryce 1998:161 and footnote 85 with
further refs.), but this is by no means a necessary corollary. Again, some confusion results. On page 229, for example,
where I have Tudhaliya II, this would be Tudhaliya III for Bryce or Gurney, and yet we all mean the same person.
Thus, in general, my Tudhaliya II = Bryce's/Gurney's Tudhaliya III.
The mention here of forthcoming radiocarbon data from Tel Kabri relevant to the late MB palace destruction and the
Aegean-style fresco fragments overlooked two dates from the Zurich laboratory already published by G. Bonani,
1994. The C14 data. In A. Kempinski and W.-D. Niemeier (eds.), Excavations at Kabri: preliminary report of 19921993 seasons (nos.7-8): 8. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv Expedition, Tel Aviv University. The two data in question come from
Area D locus 723 - a fill layer under threshold 698 - and relate to late in the MBA. It is not stated what the samples
consist of. We may guess charcoal given the delta 13C figures quoted and no specific information to the contrary. The
p.259
dates are: Lab no. 8817, 3260±60BP, and Lab no. 8819, 3480±70BP. The calibrated ages with INTCAL98.14C
n.1191
employing the OxCal calibration programme (round ranges 'on') at 1 standard deviation are 1620-1450BC and 18901690BC respectively. Clearly the dates are not very similar and likely reflect charcoal of quite differing real ages. The
combined calibrated calendar age range is 1690-1600, 1570-1530BC, but with a poor agreement statistic (since the
data appear to reflect significantly different real ages). The note to these data states "The date of 1638± B.C. fits well
the destruction date of the palace at the end of the Middle Bronze Age". This is clearly misleading. Neither date by
itself in fact supports this age, only a likely inappropriate average/combining. However, given just two data, and
13 of 36
limited to insufficient information about sample material, context, and so on, it is difficult to say much further.
Hopefully further, and better quality, data will be forthcoming.
p.268
footnote sulphur and not suphur.
1244 line 1
p.274
London is the un-named dot left of Paris.
Fig.51
p.485 plate
PWS sherd should best be oriented as shown on the cover of the book (rim at top).
9
Figure 21, corrected
14 of 36
White paste WSI sherds from Maroni
Tsaroukkas Tomb 15
Proto White Slip
MTSB.070 from the
seabed off Maroni
Tsaroukkas
WSII bowl from Maroni Tsaroukkas
?Postscript to A test of time, December 1999
Professor Peter Warren, the leading proponent of the low (or previously conventional) Aegean Late Bronze Age chronology, has
published a new study on Late Minoan (LM) I chronology (Warren, P.M. 1999. Aspects of Minoan chronology. In P.P.
Betancourt, V. Karageorghis, R. Laffineur and W.-D. Niemeier (eds.), Meletemata: studies in Aegean archaeology presented to
Malcolm H. Wiener as he enters his 65th year. Vol.III: 893-903. Aegaeum 20. Université de Liège: Service d’Histoire de l’art et
archéologie de la Grèce antique, and Austin: Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory, The University of Texas at Austin).
Since Warren’s new study claims to prove that the case supported in A test of time is incorrect, a brief review is appropriate.
Relative date
Sections 1 and 2 of Warren’s paper (pp.894-900) concern the relative date of the eruption of Thera in terms of the LMIA sequence
on Crete. In particular, he presents a more detailed review of his new deposit at Knossos in which a piece of likely Theran pumice
enables the stratigraphic definition of a post-Thera-eruption final LMIA phase (pp.899-900). This was only very briefly mentioned
in A test of time. Warren further speculates that the entire LMIA phase perhaps represents 3 or 4 generations of potters (p.900) or a
maximum of 100 years (p.902). This interpretation is entirely subjective, but probably not far off the mark. Warren’s analysis can
be considered as largely compatible with the LMI sequence recognised at Kommos, and favoured as the general model in A test of
time (with Warren’s MMIIIB-early LMIA transition phase regarded as LMIA early). Warren proposes that the eruption of Thera
was late in the LMIA phase, but not at its very end, and that there was up to one ‘generation’ of post-Thera-eruption LMIA. He
further observes that the mainland LHIIA period may have begun about the time of the eruption. Both these positions mirror
exactly those reached in A test of time. There is very little dispute over the relative chronology.
Absolute date
Warren reviews in brief the question of the absolute date of the eruption of Thera in section 3 (pp.900-902). Warren continues to
support the low chronology (following a long series of publications to this end by Warren from 1984-1998). Warren begins by
writing (p.900):
"I simply state, and therefore must face the charge of unbalanced (or worse) presentation, that in my view recent developments
render the proposed early date virtually untenable (notwithstanding the eagerness of some American colleagues, though of late
conspicuously not Malcolm Wiener, to accept it) and a date around 1520 B.C. highly probable".
The conclusion of A test of time is the exact reverse: the likely date for the eruption of Thera is in the later 17th century BC, the
possible (but less likely) alternative date is somewhere c.1570-1530BC. A date c.1520BC (or later) is extremely unlikely.
Does Warren advance any new data, or new arguments beyond those he discussed in papers up to 1998 already dealt with in A test
of time? No. But let us nonetheless review the four arguments he lists (p.901).
1. White Slip I. Warren cites the stratigraphic sequence at ancient Avaris (the archaeological sites of Tell el-Dab‘a and ‘Ezbet
Helmi in the Nile Delta of Egypt) , and, in particular, the argument that Cypriot White Slip I pottery only appears here in New
Kingdom (18th Dynasty) contexts. Hence, since a White Slip I bowl was found on pre-eruption Thera, he argues that the eruption
must have been after Ahmose conquered Avaris and established the New Kingdom sequence at the site. Warren dates this
c.1535/32BC, and suggests that the eruption of Thera was around this time. Warren is exactly following the argument along the
same lines made by Manfred Bietak, director of the Tell el-Dab‘a and ‘Ezbet Helmi excavations, in a number of publications from
1996-1998. (NB. The identical logic lies behind the use of Proto White Slip and White Slip in the so-called First Appearances
15 of 36
project of The Synchronization of Civilizations in the eastern Mediterranean in the 2nd millennium B.C. project. The critique
below and in A test of time applies here also.)
Chapters IV.4 and IV.5 of A test of time, in particular, spend considerable time demonstrating both that this argument is
incorrectly conceived, and that the evidence from the Avaris site does not require such a chronology. In short: the Bietak/Warren
(etc.) White Slip I argument entirely fails even to consider the long-standing case of Robert Merrillees that the Late Cypriot wares
developed as part of a specifically regional process on Cyprus in the initial Late Cypriot IA period, with the west/northwest of
Cyprus the home of what became the Late Cypriot styles, while the east and southeast continued in the Middle Cypriot White
Painted tradition more or less until the beginning of the Late Cypriot IB period when the already advanced White Slip I and other
Late Cypriot styles started to be adopted from the west/northwest through the course of LCIB. One must note that at a site like
Enkomi it is only by the close of LCIB that this assemblage takes over – thus the classic WSI, BRI, RLWM assemblage is NOT
typical of all LCIB in the east, but only so by the end of the phase. Thus when one looks to Egypt, links of such material to early
18th Dynasty contexts and as far as Tuthmosis III contexts are for mature and perhaps mainly late LCIB. Most of the LCIB period
was earlier. And, of particular relevance to the arguments of Bietak and Warren, and the Tell el-Dab‘a and ‘Ezbet Helmi sites,
Bietak and Warren fail to consider Merrillees’ case that eastern/southeastern Cyprus supplied Egypt with most, if not all, its
Cypriot ceramics. The Avaris data thus primarily reflect the situation in eastern/southeastern Cyprus, and require clarification
both from Cyprus and the (so far) unique evidence of Tell el-'Ajjul. To explain:
In the Late Cypriot (LC) IA period new early LC-style products, including by LCIA2 early White Slip (WS) I, were produced in
and available from northwest Cyprus. The site of Toumba tou Skourou offers the best evidence available, and may well have
been a/the centre of production. Eastern and southeastern Cyprus was still largely continuing the Middle Cypriot (MC) White
Painted tradition (WPV-VI) with the addition of Bichrome Ware. Such early LCIA style products from northwest Cyprus are not
common at Tell el-Dab'a because the site – as most sites in the Levant and Egypt – received most of its Cypriot imports from the
east/southeast of Cyprus. In fact, on current data, the site of Tell el-'Ajjul in Palestine is the only site in the Levant to have
received a quantity of such early WSI vessels (a handful also went west to the Aegean). Recent analysis of the large WSI
assemblage present at Tell el-'Ajjul by Celia Bergoffen (two articles in press, see previously her thesis of 1989 for data) confirms
both that an early WSI style may be isolated, and that this early WSI tends to occur stratigraphically earlier than other mature/later
styles of WSI. The early WSI occurs from Palace I onwards at Tell el-'Ajjul, and so belongs to what is defined as the later Middle
Bronze Age (MBA) of Syria-Palestine. In reverse, LCIA Toumba tou Skourou evidences several linkages with the later MBA
Hyksos world. The Thera WSI bowl is of this early WSI type. It thus happily belongs in the later MBA horizon of the Levant.
Later style WSI that is typical of the LCIB period on Cyprus is found in Late Bronze Age and 18th Dynasty contexts in the Levant
and Egypt. This reflects the adoption of the mature WSI (and associated wares such as Base Ring I) style by eastern and
southeastern Cyprus in the LCIB period. All the WSI from secure 18th Dynasty contexts at Tell el-Dab'a is of this later style
WSI, and is of LCIB date. Such evidence has no relevance to the date of the early style LCIA WSI bowl from Thera. Indeed,
since the key site of Toumba tou Skourou in northwest Cyprus has demonstrable Late Cypriot IA links with pre-eruption Late
Minoan IA Thera, it is entirely plausible that early northwestern Late Cypriot IA White Slip I went to Thera long before eastern
Cyprus-sourced Late Cypriot IB exports of mature White Slip I went to Egypt. The entire Bietak/Warren White Slip I case is thus
built on a false premise; they are, moreover, guilty of assuming that some foreign finds can act as the arbiter of Cyprus’ relative
chronology without a thorough investigation of the archaeological evidence from Cyprus itself.
It should be noted that a couple of sherds from Tell el-Dab'a may well be of the early style of WSI. However, in each case, these
sherds come from contexts which are not securely 18th Dynasty, and instead could very well be re-deposited Hyksos period
material. Thus, commensurate with the important trade status of Hyksos Tell el-Dab'a, it would seem that a few northwestern
Cypriot LCIA products, including a little early WSI, did make it to the site in the later MBA, but that the vast majority of LCIA
imports came from the east and southeast of Cyprus and continued the WP tradition. This early WSI from likely re-deposited
contexts may be contrasted with the secure 18th Dynasty occurrences of the later style WSI of LCIB date.
NB. AD2002. See further discussion in Manning 2001 pages 80-84 and 86-88 (note: Figs. 1 and 2 of this publication have been
incorrectly transposed). And for a detailed case about LCIA chronology and ceramic patterns, see Manning, Sewell and Herscher
(2002):
NB. AD2006. See further on LCIA and on WSI issue and re Thera and re regionalism on Cyprus at this time in: Manning, S.W.,
Crewe, L. & Sewell, D.A. 2006. Further light on early LCI connections at Maroni. In E. Czerny, I. Hein, H. Hunger, D. Melman
& A. Schwab (eds.), Timelines. Studies in honour of Manfred Bietak, Vol.2: 471-488. OLA 149. Leuven: Peeters.
References:
Bergoffen, C. 1989. A comparative study of the regional distribution of Cypriote pottery in Canaan and Egypt in the Late Bronze
Age. Ph.D. dissertation, New York University.
Manning, S.W. 2001. The chronology and foreign connections of the Late Cypriot I period: times they are a-changin. In P. Åström
(ed.), The chronology of Base Ring ware and Bichrome wheel-made ware: 69-94. Konferenser 54. Stockholm: The Royal
Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities.
Manning, S.W., Sewell, D.A. and Herscher, E. 2002. Late Cypriot IA maritime trade in action: underwater survey at MaroniTsaroukkas and the contemporary east Mediterranean trading system. Annual of the British School at Athens 97:97-162.
Merrillees, R.S. 1971. The early history of Late Cypriot I. Levant 3: 56-79.
16 of 36
Padgett, M. 1990.White Slip. In E.D.T. Vermeule and F.Z. Wolsky, Toumba tou Skourou. A Bronze Age potter's quarter on
Morphou Bay in Cyprus. The Harvard University-Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Cyprus Expedition: 371-376. Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press.
2. Pumice at Tell el-Dab‘a. Some pumice from the Minoan eruption of the Thera volcano has been found in an early New
Kingdom (18th Dynasty) at Tell el-Dab‘a, and not before. Thus Warren suggests (as has been suggested in several publications by
Bietak and Warren from 1994-1998) that the eruption probably occurred about the same time. As has been noted several times in
publications by this author and others, and as discussed in A test of time chapter IV.4, this argument is a non-starter.
The pumice could either have been lying on the seashore for a long time before collection, or could come from post-eruption
collection of pumice in the Aegean and subsequent trade to Egypt. It is certainly not necessary to regard the pumice as at all
contemporary with the eruption. It cannot have been transported direct to Egyptian or Levantine coasts by tsunami associated with
the eruption. Within the time interval of the Theran eruption, pumice could have been washed ashore only at distances of up to
c.100km (i.e. within the Aegean region). To explain finds of Theran pumice beyond this range, one must consider instead other,
later, tsunami, storms, or human activity. Here one very relevant factor is that cold Minoan eruption Thera pumice is low density
and in an experiment even quite small samples of it can float for more than 1.5 years (Whitham and Sparks 1986:211 and Table
1). There is likely to have been quite an amount of Minoan floating pumice on the sea immediately after the eruption since there is
also a correlation between temperature and whether or not pumice sinks on hitting water (Whitman and Sparks 1986). Very hot
pumice sinks, but since temperatures are thought to have been relatively low for the Thera eruption emplacements, its pumice may
well have floated on hitting water. Thus Thera pumice could be expected to have been afloat around the east Mediterranean both
in the years following the eruption, and then in any of the many years thereafter as storms or earthquakes eroded new material
from the Santorini island area. Its discovery at an archaeological site may relate to use (whether novel, or just now attested or
archaeologically recovered) of existing previous drift material - whether from the years soon after the eruption or subsequent
eroded material - to later large drifts of pumice from Thera broken off from the island at any later time due to water action,
earthquakes, etc., or, even more likely, to deliberate acquisition and trade in pumice (at any later, post-eruption, time) – whether
for craft purposes, and/or ritual activity. In the Aegean, Theran pumice has been found from many later contexts in craft-use and
other (including ritual) circumstances. And a similar pattern is probably evident at some other Palestinian sites. At Tel Nami on
the coast of Palestine, pumice is found in the main courtyard and environs in LBII, along with conical cups.
This scenario of potentially significantly later, post-eruption, use of the Theran pumice at Tell el-Dab‘a finds some support in a
recent scientific examination by Max Bichler et al. They report on the analysis of three pumice samples from Tell el-Dab‘a. They
found that only two of the three pumice samples analysed from Tell el-Dab‘a came from the Minoan eruption of Thera. The third
sample, in contrast, comes from another eruption. This third sample (Tell el-Dab‘a3) is very similar to pumice found at Antalya,
Turkey, and on the Greek island of Chios. This finding has two important and interesting ramifications. First, the finds of different
pumices strongly suggests either use of drift material from the coastline of various types and ages, or distribution by trade of
Aegean pumices for craft use, at an unknown time subsequent to the eruption of Thera. This finding thus challenges the a priori
assumption of special, contemporaneous, and unique use of Thera pumice and the idea that its use at Tell el-Dab‘a can be seen as
a chronological marker. Instead, volcanic pumice from several sources is relatively common on the coasts of the eastern
Mediterranean. Second, if one looks for another suitable, roughly contemporary, and chemically consistent, volcanic source, then
one might speculate that a likely source of the pumice in the Tell el-Dab‘a3, Antalya, and Chios, samples in the study of Bichler et
al. could well be the Yiali (Nissyros) volcano in the east Aegean. There is a long history of volcanic activity in the Kos, Yiali,
Nissyros area, but the Nissyros volcano in particular offers a relatively recent eruption which may in fact date in the mid-second
millennium BC. Recently reported Thermoluminescence dates obtained for this eruption are only approximate (four widely
ranging dates each with a large measurement error), and preclude any precision, but they do suggest a mid-second millennium BC
date. More obviously, they indicate a date after either the later 17th century BC or the mid-16th century BC, that is after the
possible date range of the Thera eruption: the quoted average date is 1460BC. Hence, if the Tell el-Dab‘a3, Antalya, and Chios,
samples in the study of Bichler et al. do derive from the second millennium BC Nissyros eruption, this pumice may offer the
latest, near contemporary, pumice at Tell el-Dab‘a, and so would only further highlight the irrelevant terminus ante quem nature
of the older Theran pumice.
POSTSCRIPT JANUARY 2000. The Tell el-Dab‘a3 samples have now been identified as related to the Kos volcano (Peltz et al.
1999). The general argument about use of differing pumices of differing ages remains valid, nonetheless. See also News below.
References:
Artzy, M. 1991. Conical cups and pumice, Aegean cult at Tel Nami, Israel. Aegaeum 7: 203-206.
Artzy, M. 1995. Nami: a second millennium international maritime trading centre in the Mediterranean. In S. Gitin (ed.), Recent
excavations in Israel: a view to the west. Reports on Kabri, Nami, Miqne-Ekron, Dor, and Ashkelon: 17-40. Archaeological
Institute of America Colloquia and Conference Papers, No.1. Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt.
Bichler, M., Egger, H., Preisinger, A., Ritter, D. and Stastny, P. 1997. NAA of the "Minoan pumice" at Thera and comparison to
alluvial pumice deposits in the eastern Mediterranean region. Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry 224: 7-14.
Liritzis, I., Michael, C. and Galloway, R.B. 1996. A significant Aegean volcanic eruption during the second millennium B.C.
revealed by thermoluminescence dating. Geoarchaeology 11: 361-371.
McCoy, F.W. and Heiken, G. 2000. Tsunami generated by the Late Bronze Age eruption of Thera (Santorini), Greece. Pure and
Applied Geophysics 157:1227-1256.
Peltz, C., Schmid, P. and Bichler, M. 1999. INAA of Aegean pumices for the classification of archaeological findings. Journal of
17 of 36
Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry 242: 361-377.
Whitham, A.G. and Sparks, R.S.J. 1986. Pumice. Bulletin of Volcanology 48:209-223.
3. Volcanic glass in 1623±36BC layer of the GISP2 ice-core. Zielinski and Germani found four tiny shards of volcanic glass in
the 1623±36BC layer of the GISP2 ice-core from Greenland, and, after analysis, claimed that they did not match with Theran
glass, and so were not from the eruption of Thera. Warren argues that this ice-layer correlates with the well-known 1628BC treering anomaly in the northern hemisphere, and so further claims that this finding of Zielinski and Germani means that the 1628BC
tree-ring event is also not related to the euption of the Thera volcano.
****2002. An important paper by John Southon argues that the GISP2 ice-core has an unexplained dating error around c.33003400 years BP - i.e. around the 17th century BC, and that the '1623' BC date is undoubtedly erroneous. Southon, as others before,
suggests that the layer with very large volcanic acid signal dated '1695BC' by Zielinksi and Germani and the GISP2 team is most
likely the same as the 1644BC layer with very large volcanic signal in the Dye 3 ice-core. The date for the Dye 3 and associated
GRIP and North GRIP cores is much more secure. Southon suggests that somehow a c.80 year error has occurred in the GISP2
chronology around this time period. Thus tephra should be looked for, and analysed, in the '1695' BC layer of the GISP2 ice-core
(see New item no.4 below). The '1623' BC signal and would thus be irrelevant for this calendar date and should not have any
association with the 1628BC tree-ring event. And neither of these has any association with the c.1644BC volcanic signal in the
Dye 3/GRIP/North GRIP ice-cores. Whether or not any of these signals are associated with the Thera eruption remains unknown.
Radiocarbon at present (see News no.6 below) currently best places this event between c.1663-1599BC, rendering at least one
such association possible – however, at present, there is no positive evidence (see News no.4 below). This situation in turn makes
the rest of this section largely irrelevant - but I leave it here as it illustrates the need for tephra to be characterised in detail as many
eruptions have relatively similar major element compositions/and or rare earth compositions and discrimination on this basis is
often problematic and insecure.
See now further Southon, J. 2004. A radiocarbon perspective on Greenland ice-core chronologies: can we use ice cores for 14C
calibration? Radiocarbon 46:1239-1259, esp. at pp.1249 and Fig.3.
Southon, J. 2002. A first step to reconciling the GRIP and GISP2 ice-core chronologies, 0-14,500 yr B.P. Quaternary Research
57:32-37.****
This argument by Warren is entirely incorrect and misconceived. The arguments of Zielinski and Germani are discussed at length
in A test of time chapter V.3. In short:
(i) There are problems with the GISP2 ice-core chronology in the mid-second millennium BC (seen in the non-correlation with the
internally consistent Dye 3 and GRIP ice-cores), and Claus Hammer argued in a paper at a conference in Vienna in 1998 (see
Hammer 2000) that Zielinski and Germani in effect sampled the wrong layer looking for Thera.
(ii) As argued in A test of time chapter V.3, the microprobe analyses of Zielinski and Germani cannot be argued to distinguish the
volcanic glass found in the GISP2 core from Theran eruption products. Indeed, the notable fact is that the analyses of Theran glass
by Zielinski and Germani do not match previous characterisations of Theran volcanic glass. There is a case that their
measurements are offset from the true values (instrument calibration, slight variances in analytical procedure, etc.). If their Thera
samples are ‘calibrated’ to match previous analyses of Theran glass, then their GISP2 samples could also just about match the
usual field defined for Theran eruption products. See further developments in NEWS section.
Like Zielinski and Germani, Warren further assumes that an ice-layer dated c.1623±36BC should correlate with a tree-ring event
absolutely dated to 1628BC. While it is clearly possible, this is by no means likely, nor necessary. The ice-core evidence at best
defines a window of some 72 years. The chronology of the GISP2 ice-core at this period is also open to some doubt as the study
by Clausen et al. made clear, concluding that ‘it is possible that the GISP2 timescale at these ages should be reconsidered’ (pp.
26,713-26,714). Thus the attempt to remove the case for a linkage between the tree-ring evidence and Thera on this evidence is
wholly unsubstantiated. In addition, it may turn out that volcanic signals presently dated earlier in the 17th century BC by the
GISP2 team will in fact be found to correlate with those dated c.1644BC and c.1636BC in the Dye-3 and GRIP ice-cores. As
noted, the dating of the GISP2 ice-core at this period is less than convincing. Baillie (1996) has previously wondered about the
signal at 1669BC and Grudd et al. 2000 point to the very large 1695BC signal as another possibility for consideration (and redating).
See News section for post 1999 situation.
References:
Baillie, M.G.L. 1996. Extreme environmental events and the linking of the tree-ring and ice-core records. In J.S. Dean, D.M.
Meko and T.W. Swetnam (eds.), Tree rings, environment and humanity: proceedings of the international conference, Tucson,
Arizon, 17-21 May, 1994: 703-711. Tucson: Arizona.
Clausen, H.B., Hammer, C.U., Hvidberg, C.S., Dahl-Jensen, D., Steffensen, J.P., Kipfstuhl, J. and Legrand, M. 1997. A
comparison of the volcanic records over the past 4000 years from the Greenland Ice Core Project and Dye 3 Greenland ice cores.
Journal of Geophysical Research 102 C12: 26,707-26,723.
Grudd, H., Briffa, K.R., Gunnarson, B.E. and Linderholm, H.W. 2000. Swedish tree-rings provide new evidence in support of a
major, widespread environmental disruption in 1628 BC. Geophysical Research Letters 27:2957-2960.
18 of 36
Hammer, C.U. 2000.What can Greenland ice core data say about the Thera eruption in the second millennium BC? In M. Bietak
(ed), The synchronisation of civilisations in the eastern Mediterranean in the second millennium BC. Proceedings of an
international symposium at Schloß Haindorf, 15th-17th of November 1996 and at the Austrian Academy, Vienna, 11th-12th of
May 1998: 35-37. Contributions to the Chronology of the Eastern Mediterranean I. Wein: Österreichischen Akademie der
Wissenschaften.
Zielinski, G.A. and Germani, M.S. 1998. New ice-core evidence challenges the 1620s BC age for the Santorini (Minoan) eruption.
Journal of Archaeological Science 25: 279-289.
4. Tree-ring evidence for low Mesopotamian chronology. Warren notes the evidence based on dendrochronological work by
Kuniholm et al. (the Aegean Dendrochronology Project) in support of the low Mesopotamian chronology (or one in the region of
the low Mesopotamian chronology). Warren ties this to the site of Alalakh, and states that the finds of White Slip at this site are in
accord with a general low chronology and a low Thera eruption date. **BUT SEE NOW MANNING ET AL. 2001 IN SCIENCE
294:2532-2535 - NEW DATA AND ANALYSIS NOW FAVOUR A MESOPOTAMIAN CHRONOLOGY AROUND THE
RANGE OF THE MIDDLE CHRONOLOGY (WITH A LOW-MIDDLE CHRONOLOGY PERHAPS A LIKELY FINAL
RESULT) - SEE NEWS section item 5**
This is nonsense. The dendrochronological data, and the relation of this to the Babylonian chronology, and the link of this, and
Thera, to the site of Alalakh, are dealt with in some detail in A test of time chapters V.4 and VII. Warren stresses Alalakh level
VIB. The relevant level is VII. Warren notes the Cypriot White Slip I and Base Ring I from Alalakh level VIB, but these are
mature-late Late Cypriot I products, typical of Late Cypriot IB. They are not comparable with the early White Slip I bowl from
pre-eruption Thera. As Warren himself notes (p.901 and n.83), it is possible that Late Cypriot II White Slip II in fact occurs first
in Alalakh level VIB. White Slip II correlates with the Late Minoan IIIA1 period (and onwards) in the Aegean. This is much later
than the Late Minoan IA eruption of Thera. The Late Minoan IA period would have been contemporary with Alalakh level VII in
the main (Alalakh level VIA is very difficult to interpret). Among other things in strong support of this linkage, the Niemeiers
have shown that Alalakh level VII produced fragments of frescoes comparable with those from pre-eruption Late Minoan IA
Thera.
References:
Kuniholm, P.I., Kromer, B., Manning, S.W., Newton, M., Latini, C.E. and Bruce, M.J. 1996. Anatolian tree-rings and the absolute
chronology of the east Mediterranean 2220-718BC. Nature 381: 780-783.
Niemeier, W.-D. 1991. Minoan artisans travelling overseas: the Alalakh frescoes and the painted plaster floor at Tel Kabri
(western Galilee). Aegaeum 7: 189-201.
Niemeier, W.-D. and Niemeier, B. 1998. Minoan frescoes in the eastern Mediterranean. Aegaeum 18: 69-98.
Dendrochronological sample (Gordion 3e) from the Midas Mound
tumulus, Gordion
19 of 36
Porsuk 3 sample, with the pin marking relative ring 854 and
the first of three years of extraordinary growth
News of relevance AD2000 onwards
?1-3: added AD2000
4-8: added AD2002-2004
9: added 28 April AD2006 (NEW)
1. News re: Provenance of volcanic glass shards in the GISP2 ice-core, and general problem of provenance of Thera
eruption products
Research published in 1999 and 2000 on the subject of the characterisation of Theran versus other Aegean volcanic glass
products provides important new information with regard to this issue. In particular, this work makes it very clear that the
claims of Zielinski and Germani (1998) – that the volcanic glass shards from the 1623BC layer of the GISP2 ice-core are not
from the Thera/Santorini eruption – are NOT supported. It is found instead that within measurement errors only potassium is
slightly different for the volcanic glass shards from the 1623BC layer of the GISP2 ice-core compared to Thera/Santorini
glass, and that, in overall terms, the volcanic glass found in the 1623BC layer of the GISP2 ice-core cannot be distinguished
from Thera/Santorini volcanic glass. See Schmid et al. (2000). This finding provides very strong support to the case in A test
of time chapter V.3.
In general, the work at the Atominstitut der Österreichischen Universitten (see also Peltz et al. 1999) (and much subsequent work –
most recent review published in Agypten und Levante vol. XIII of 2003) clearly demonstrates that a narrow one-off consideration of
major element distributions, as used for the non-provenance claims by Zielinski and Germani (1998), are NOT a sufficient nor
suitable evidential basis. The analytical range of Theran Bo eruption products must be established and considered before sensible
provenance work may be attempted. Apart from elsewhere in the world, several other eruptions in the region of Thera produced
chemically very similar products. Trace elements must also be considered if a specific provenance case is to be made on a rigorous
basis.
Schmid et al. simply state (p. 148) of the claim of Zielinski and Germani that ‘This suggestion is not supported by the results
obtained from the separated glass fraction’. Schmidt et al. make two points very clear: first, within measurement errors, only
potassium is slightly different for the volcanic glass shards from the c. 1623 BC layer of the GISP2 ice-core when compared to Thera
eruption glass; and, second, in rigorous overall terms, the volcanic glass found in the c. 1623 BC layer of the GISP2 ice-core cannot
be distinguished from Thera eruption volcanic glass.
I thank Max Bichler for sending me copies of these papers.
NB. 2002. As noted above in Postscript item 3, Southon (2002) offers an analysis indicating that there is a significant and serious
dating error - of c.80 years! - in the GISP2 ice-core directly relevant to the 17th century BC section. It would seem likely that the socalled '1695' BC layer of the GISP2 ice-core may be the one relevant to the 1644BC volcanic signal in the Dye 3/GRIP ice-cores.
Which, if any, signal equates with Thera is another matter (see no. 4 below). Existing disputes over the successful or non-successful
provenancing/discrimination of volcanic products supposedly relevant to Thera from the GISP2 ice-core are thus probably totally
irrelevant to the Thera debate, and the relevant layers need to be identified and studied anew once the chronology is resolved.
References:
Peltz, C., Schmid, P. and Bichler, M. 1999. INAA of Aegean pumices for the classification of archaeological findings. Journal of Radioanalytical
and Nuclear Chemistry 242: 361-377.
Schmid, P., Peltz, C., Hammer, V.M.F., Halwax, E., Ntaflos, T., Nagl, P. and Bichler, M. 2000. Separation and analysis of Theran volcanic glass by
INAA, XRF and EPMA. Mikrochimica acta 133: 143-149.
Southon, J. 2002. A first step to reconciling the GRIP and GISP2 ice-core chronologies, 0-14,500 yr B.P. Quaternary Research 57:32-37.
Zielinski, G.A. and Germani, M.S. 1998. New ice-core evidence challenges the 1620s BC age for the Santorini (Minoan) eruption. Journal of
Archaeological Science 25: 279-289.
2. Two new books that form basic references:
(i) Druitt, T.H., et al. 1999. Santorini Volcano. Geological Society Special Memoir 19. Bath: Geological Society. (the new definitive
basic reference to the geology and geochemistry of the volcano)
(ii) Friedrich, W.L. 2000. Fire in the Sea : Volcanism and the Natural History of Santorini. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3. New tree-ring evidence from Sweden indicates the widespread and important nature of the 1628BC environmental (and
perhaps volcanic) event:
An article published in 2000 provides more evidence relevant to the important and widespread environmental event in 1628BC in the
northern hemisphere. The cause could be a large volcanic eruption. The authors speculate about a link with Thera (cf. logic of
Kuniholm et al. 1996). However, this now may not be the case: see NEWS items 4 and 5 below.
References:
Grudd, H., Briffa, K.R., Gunnarson, B.E. and Linderholm, H.W. 2000. Swedish tree-rings provide new evidence in support of a major, widespread
environmental disruption in 1628 BC. Geophysical Research Letters 27:2957-2960.
20 of 36
4. Tephra shards in the GRIP ice-core – NOT Theran:
The story: Over the course of AD2000-2003 it was suggested and proposed that volcanic glass shards said to be chemically
consistent with a Thera, Minoan eruption, provenance had been found in the GRIP ice-core in a layer associated with a major
volcanic eruption signal. This layer was preliminarily dated c. 1636 BC and is correlated with the c. 1644 BC volcanic signal in the
Dye 3 ice-core (see Hammer et al. 2001; Hammer 2000; Clausen et al. 1997; for the Dye 3 acid signal, see Hammer et al. 1987).
The Dye 3 core is regarded as a very precisely dated ice-core, and thus the date for the GRIP signal and the analysed tephra shards is
considered to in fact be c. 1644 BC. Hammer (2000) mentions the find of the tephra particles (stated as in the 1645 BC layer of the
GRIP ice-core), and in a ‘Note added in proof’ (p.37) wrote after analysis of the tephra that ‘the preliminary interpretation strongly
suggest the ashparticles to be from the Thera eruption’. In an ‘Extended abstract for the Haindorf Castle SCIEM Conference April
[sic] 2001’, entitled ‘Recent ice core analysis strengthens the arguments for a mid 17th century BC eruption of Thera’ by C.U.
Hammer, G. Kurat, P. Hoppe and H.B. Clausen, the above position is described in more detail. The 1636 BC GRIP major volcanic
signal is said to be identical with the c. 1645 BC Dye 3 major volcanic signal and the tephra analysed is stated to be: ‘of very similar
composition to the Thera pumice and glass. Not only has the tephra the same bulk mineral composition as Thera, but also the REE
[Rare Earth Element] composition closely resembles the abundance of rare earth elements in the Thera ash; including an Europium
anomaly’. The authors further observe that the volcanic acid deposition of the 1645 BC signal is also consistent with a mid-latitude
northern hemisphere eruption (e.g. Thera, and not some other suggested candidates like Aniakchak in Alaska), and that the chemical
composition clearly rules out other proposed candidates like Avellino. Then in 2003 came an actual publication after a long wait by
the field: Hammer et al. 2003. This paper argued that the chemistry of the volcanic glass shards c.1645BC was compatible with a
Thera eruption source. This would be a sensation if true.
The reality now: The data published by Hammer et al. (2003) do NOT provide a secure Theran provenance for the volcanic glass.
Indeed, the data rather clearly indicate that the volcanic shards are NOT from Thera and perhaps instead from the Aniakchak volcano
(Pearce et al. 2004; Eastwood et al. 2004; n.d.; Pearce pers. comm. 2005). Thus on current evidence and analysis the c.1645BC
volcanic signal in the GRIP/Dye 3 ice-cores probably has nothing to do with Thera – Thera must therefore be dated from other
evidence. In a paper published 15 November 2003, Keenan also argued that these glass shards were not from Thera on the basis of a
statistical analysis. He found that the chemical analysis of the volcanic glass found in Greenland is significantly different from the
chemical analysis of volcanic glass from Thera itself. He argued that the majority of the bulk chemistry is not compatible even at
very low probability levels (or the other way around: there is a very high probability that they are different). The rare earths are less
decisive – but this is irrelevant in view of the clear differences in the major chemistry. The analysis of Keenan clearly reaches the
correct conclusion, and is supported by the work of Pearce et al. However, the actual methods used by Keenan are not strictly
appropriate and the very high probabilities he cites may well not be realistic. One may refer to the critical comments of Pearce et al.
n.d. who write:
“Recently, KEENAN (2003) employed t-tests on the standard errors of the analyses of HAMMER et al. (2003) (standard error =
standard deviation / √number of analyses) to show that the Minoan Bo-1 sample and the A1340-7 glass cannot be the same. This
approach, where the numbers of analyses are large (i.e. n=174 for the ASEM analyses of the ice-core glass) may however reduce the
errors to unattainably small values, far less that the true analytical reproducibility attainable by multiple analyses of homogeneous
materials (PEARCE et al., 1997). In doing so, when comparing different materials, the standard error approach may enhance the
apparent differences between samples.”
The key issue is that the very strong force of Keenan’s analysis rests on the significant reduction in errors employed because of the
large sample sizes (n=38 and n=174 respectively for the Thera Bo glass and Greenland glass respectively). But this logic is only
realistic IF the variance of the set of measurements is comparable to the individual variance of one single measurement (where a ChiSquared test can be employed). However, Hammer et al. (2003) simply do not provide the data in their publication to allow this to be
judged. But one might be concerned to read on their p.89 about how the small sizes and irregularities of the particles prevented an
ideal calibration of the analytical scanning microscope. Thus could all 174 Greenland shards and/or all 38 Theran shards really be
treated as effectively identical? We simply do not know. The extreme error reduction approach requires a ‘yes’ answer to be valid.
This does not suddenly mean Keenan’s case is not correct (and Pearce et al. n.d. conclude likewise, noting, after their critical
comments above re Keenan’s analysis, that: “Nonetheless, the conclusions of KEENAN (2003) agree with those here based on
acceptable variations in composition between comparable tephra beds, i.e. the glass from the GRIP ice-core is not the same as the
glass from the Minoan eruption of Santorini”). But the overwhelming probabilities Keenan cites might be somewhat less decisive in
reality.
The conclusion at present? The particles analysed from the 1645BC layer of the GRIP ice-core do not appear to be Theran on the
available evidence. But more details on the analyses and new better controlled analyses are desirable. New work is now underway
(e.g. Peter M. Fischer and Martin J. Whitehouse “Quantitative SIMS (IMS1270) of particles from the GRIP Greenland ice core and
Thera”, presentation to the workshop “Ashes & Ice”. VERA Laboratory, University of Vienna, 8-10 July 2004: see http://www.nhmwien.ac.at/sciem2000/ashes/Prog.html). This work, ironically, seems to lead to questions concerning whether some of the tiny
particles recovered from the 1645BC GRIP ice-core layer are even of volcanic origin (Peter Fischer, pers. comm.), and thus
potentially leaves everything back in limbo. This new work certainly indicates that a much more comprehensive programme of
research is necessary, in which a number of the acid spikes in the Greenland ice are studied in order to see where definite volcanic
glass can be recognized, and then whether these can be analysed to yield compatible source volcanic eruptions. We need much more
than a one-off study of one acidity spike to create confidence and robust conclusions.
This does not mean that analyses of tephra finds in ice-cores cannot in the future identify Theran products and offer a precise date.
21 of 36
We must hope for analyses of ice c.1700-1450BC to see if Thera eruption products can be identified. It remains the case that the
major sulphur-based acidity spikes in the Greenland ice-core record are likely records of major volcanic eruptions (as e.g. Clausen et
al. 1997), but at present the ability to provenance these eruptions must await further work.
References:
Clausen, H.B., Hammer, C.U., Hvidberg, C.S., Dahl-Jensen, D., Steffensen, J.P., Kipfstuhl, J. & Legrand, M. 1997. A comparison of the volcanic
records over the past 4000 years from the Greenland Ice Core Project and Dye 3 Greenland ice cores. Journal of Geophysical Research
102:26707-26723.
Eastwood, W.J., Pearce, N.J.G., Westgate, J.A., Peece, S.J. and Perkins, W.T. 2004. Tephra geochemistry confirms the caldera-forming eruption of
Aniakchak, not Santorini, at 1645 BC. PAGES News 12(3):12-15.
Hammer, C.U. 2000. What can Greenland ice core data say about the Thera eruption in the second millennium BC? In M. Bietak (ed), The
synchronisation of civilisations in the eastern Mediterranean in the second millennium BC. Proceedings of an international symposium at
Schloß Haindorf, 15th-17th of November 1996 and at the Austrian Academy, Vienna, 11th-12th of May 1998: 35-37. Contributions to the
Chronology of the Eastern Mediterranean I. Wein: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Hammer, C.U., Clausen, H.B., Friedrich, W.L. & Tauber, H. 1987. The Minoan eruption of Santorini in Greece dated to 1645 BC? Nature
328:517-9.
Hammer, C.U., Kurat, G., Hoppe, P. & Clausen, H.B. 2001. Extended abstract presented to the SCIEM2000 - EuroConference, Haindorf, Lower
Austria, 2 to 7 May 2001.
Hammer, C.U., Kurat, G., Hoppe, P., Grum, W. & Clausen, H.B. 2003. Thera eruption date 1645BC confirmed by new ice cor data. In M. Bietak
ed., The synchronisation of civilisations in the eastern Mediterranean in the second millennium B.C. II: 87-94. Vienna: Verlag der
Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Keenan, D.J. 2003. Volcanic ash retrieved from the GRIP ice core is not from Thera. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 4(11) 15 Nov. 2003.
1097, doi:10.1029/2003GC000608.
Pearce N. J. G., Perkins W. T., Westgate J. A., Gorton M. P., Jackson S. E., Neal C. R., and Chenery S. P. 1997. A compilation of new and
published major and trace element data for NIST SRM 610 and NIST SRM 612 glass reference materials. Geostandards Newsletter 21: 115144.
Pearce, N., Westgate, J., Preece, S., Eastwood, W. and Perkins, W. 2004. Identification of Aniakchak (Alaska) Tephra in Greenland Ice Core
Challenges the 1645 BC Date for Minoan Eruption of Santorini. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 5(3): Q03005
doi:10.1029/2003GC000672.
Pearce, N.J.G., Westgate, J.A., Preece, S.J., Eastwood, W.J., Perkins, W.T. and Hart, J.S. n.d. Aniakchak tephra (Alaska), not the Minoan tephra
(Santorini), at 1645 BC. Manuscript in press for M. Bietak (ed.), SCIEM 2000 EuroConference 2 publication.
5. Revision of absolute date placement of the Anatolian prehistoric Bronze-Iron dendrochronology:
Papers published in the 21 December 2001 issue of Science have a critical bearing on the topic of mid-second millennium BC
chronology (Kromer et al. 2001; Manning et al. 2001). These papers are also accessible on-line via:
http://www.arts.cornell.edu/dendro/. These papers revise and replace the dating suggested in Kuniholm et al. (1996). In summary, the
Bronze-Iron dendrochronology is placed about 22 years earlier than proposed in 1996. At 95% confidence level the dating proposed
has a +4/-7 year total error. This new dating tends to support the Middle or low-Middle Mesopotamian chronology (and not the Low
chronology as the 1996 dating suggested) - which in turn supports, or more comfortably permits, 'higher' dates in Cyprus and the
Aegean (via for example correlations at Alalakh). The extraordinary growth anomaly in the Anatolian tree-ring sequence identified
in the 1996 paper is now dated c.1650BC and not c.1628BC. Thus it appears no longer possible to associate this growth anomaly
with tree-ring growth anomalies absolutely dated 1628/1627BC in North America and Europe (cf. item 3 above). **This thus revises
statements made in Test of Time based on the 1996 paper AND supersedes discussion in Manning 2001 at page 71**.
Manning et al. (2003) offered additional data further confirming the near-absolute placement of the Aegean Bronze-Iron
dendrochronology.
22 of 36
Bronze-Iron Tree-ring Chronology Relative Years
450
600
750
900
1050 1200 1350 1500 1650 1800
3800
3750
3600
3600
3450
3400
3200
3150
3000
3000
14
C Age BP
3300
2850
2800
2700
2600
2550
At present the relationship of
radiocarbon samples from the
Aegean Dendrochronology
Project versus the IntCal98
radiocarbon calibration curve
is shown in the figure to the
left.
Blue data are IntCal98
Red data are Aegean
dendrochronology samples
2400
2400
-2000
-1800
-1600
-1400
-1200
-1000
-800
-600
Calendar Date BC
What about tree-ring data and Thera? See below no. 8.
For the current extent of the Aegean dendrochronological record, see Newton, M.W. and Kuniholm, P.I. 2004. A
Dendrochronological Framework for the Assyrian Colony Period in Asia Minor. TÜBA-AR (Türkiye Bilimler Akademisi Arkeoloji
Dergisi), vol. 7 (2004) pp. 165-176.
References:
Kromer, B., Manning, S.W., Kuniholm, P.I., Newton, M.W., Spurk, M. & Levin, I. 2001. Regional 14CO2offsets in the troposphere: magnitude,
mechanisms, and consequences. Science 294:2529-2532.
Kuniholm, P.I., Kromer, B., Manning, S.W., Newton, M., Latini, C.E. and Bruce, M.J. 1996. Anatolian tree-rings and the absolute chronology of
the east Mediterranean 2220-718BC. Nature 381: 780-783.
Manning, S.W. 2001. The chronology and foreign connections of the Late Cypriot I period: times they are a-changin. In P. Åström (ed.), The
chronology of Base Ring ware and Bichrome wheel-made ware: 69-94. Konferenser 54. Stockholm: The Royal Academy of Letters, History
and Antiquities.
Manning, S.W., Kromer, B, Kuniholm, P.I. & Newton, M.W. 2001. Anatolian tree-rings and a new chronology for the east Mediterranean BronzeIron Ages. Science 294:2532-2535.
Manning, S.W., Kromer, B., Kuniholm, P.I. and Newton, M.W. 2003. Confirmation of near-absolute dating of east Mediterranean Bronze-Iron
Dendrochronology. Antiquity 77 (295): http://antiquity.ac.uk/ProjGall/Manning/manning.html.
6. New radiocarbon evidence in support of the 'higher' Aegean LBI chronology (SEE NOW ALSO NEWS ITEM NO. 9):
A paper by Marketou et al. (2001) reporting and discussing new radiocarbon determinations from Trianda, Rhodes, provides
additional evidence in strong support of a 'high' and long Aegean LMIA to LMIB period chronology very much consistent with the
chronology proposed in A test of time. The paper provides evidence for a long LMIB phase.
A further paper, by Manning et al. (2002), presents preliminary news of new radiocarbon determinations from several Aegean sites
from the LMIA and LMIB periods, and these too clearly support a 'high' and long Aegean LMIA to LMIB chronology.
Since then, a subsequent paper with more data and more thorough analysis indicates the same conclusions: Manning and Bronk
Ramsey (2003).
More dates have since been run – including new data on short-lived samples from the Akrotiri Volcanic Destruction Level itself and
a dendro-wiggle-match on an oak sample from Miletos found buried under Theran tephra– and papers to appear starting in 2004 will
further add to the analysis and the dating case. As outlined in a poster presentation by Bronk Ramsey and Manning at the 18th
International Radiocarbon Conference in September 2003 at Wellington, New Zealand, current evidence obtained by their NERC
project on New Palace chronology indicates a date RANGE at 95% confidence for the volcanic destruction level at Thera within the
period c.1663 to 1599BC using the IntCal98 radiocarbon calibration curve (this range will vary slightly using the new, available
March 2005, IntCal04 radiocarbon calibration curve). Further work is in progress (see now below News no.9).
23 of 36
Christopher Bronk Ramsey and the new Oxford accelerator (2003)
Miletos oak sample (72 rings present). Photo: Peter Ian Kuniholm.
C14INTCAL98
C14Miletos
C14Gordion
3500
14
C Age BP
3400
3300
3200
-1700
-1600
Calendar Date BC
-1500
Wiggle match of 7
sequential 10-year
samples dissected from
an oak chair from
Miletos (shown as red
data points – vertical
errors show the
radiocarbon date errors,
horizontal red bars
show the approximate
wiggle-match dating
range) against IntCal98
(blue). The almost
absolute wigglematched (versus
IntCal98) EMRCP
Gordion calibration data
for the period are shown
in cyan. The cutting
date is estimated to be
placed between c.16671644BC against the
IntCal98 calibration
curve.
Publication of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit data referred to in the previous paragraph has appeared in:
Bronk Ramsey, C., Manning, S.W. and Galimberti, M. 2004. Dating the volcanic eruption at Thera. Radiocarbon 46(1) 325-344.
Interested readers should consult this publication for both (i) the evidence, and (ii) its analysis. (For further discussion of the Miletos
wiggle-match sample, see also in: Galimberti M., Bronk Ramsey C. and Manning S.W. 2004. Wiggle-match dating of tree ring
sequences. Radiocarbon 46:917-924.)
At present (AD2003) there are 23 normally (standard) and fully pretreated radiocarbon samples from short-lived samples which have
been published (16 from Oxford = OxA [see in Bronk Ramsey et al. 2004], 4 from Copenhagen [Friedrich et al. 1990] = K, 3 from
Heidelberg = Hd [Hd7092-6795 on ‘Peas’; Hd6059-7967 on ‘grains’; Hd6058-5519 on ‘grains’ – Hubberten et al. 1990). The
consistent weighted average age of this significant set (and without any further analysis or constraints based on other information)
offers the following calibrated age estimate for the Akrotiri volcanic destruction level (using IntCal98 and the OxCal 3.10 software):
24 of 36
Atmospheric data from Stuiver et al. (1998);OxCal v3.10 Bronk Ramsey (2005); cub r:4 sd:12 prob usp[chron]
Radiocarbon determination
3500BP
R_Combine All OxA, K & Hd for final VDL : 3350±9BP
68.2% probability
1682BC (13.5%) 1668BC
1661BC (21.6%) 1648BC
1640BC (33.1%) 1620BC
95.4% probability
1687BC (87.1%) 1603BC
1565BC ( 8.3%) 1534BC
X2-Test: df=22 T=27.4(5% 33.9)
3450BP
3400BP
3350BP
3300BP
3250BP
3200BP
1800CalBC
1700CalBC
1600CalBC
1500CalBC
1400CalBC
Calibrated date
Manning presented a paper on subsequent (still in progress) work at a workshop in Vienna in January 2004. This adds another 5
VDL data. This presentation will be written up for publication in due course and will represent the end of the 2000-2004 New Palace
dating project.
Some additional comments and modifications/revisions of previous statements and a review of the general topic to the beginning of
2004 will also appear in a paper by Manning for the M. Bietak edited SCIEM 2000 EuroConference 2 publication.
IntCal04? This new improved calibration curve was made available in March 2005 – published in Radiocarbon vol. 46 (3) of
2004. For the datasets, see IntCal04
How does this change things? This new curve incorporates additional and revised datasets and so is more robust. It also incorporates
a new more sophisticated, and appropriate, statistical treatment of all the constituent data in order to derive the standard curve
proposed for calibration. This curve is somewhat more smoothed than the ‘ragged’ IntCal04 curve. See the figure below comparing
the two curves over the second millennium BC interval.
3800
3700
Radiocarbon Age BP
3600
3500
IntCal04
IntCal98
3400
3300
3200
3100
3000
2900
2800
-2000 -1900 -1800 -1700 -1600 -1500 -1400 -1300 -1200 -1100 -1000
Calendar Date BC
You will observe that the two datasets are largely very similar. The key difference is that the more extreme ‘wiggles’ in the IntCal98
curve (blue) have been smoothed somewhat in IntCal04 (red). The early 17th century BC offers a good example of this. No radical
25 of 36
changes thus occur in the later Holocene period because of the new calibration curve.
For the Thera dating issue, the new curve has two effects: (i) it smoothes out the dramatic wiggles in the 17th century BC, and (ii) it
tightens (and lowers a little bit) the dating band in the mid 16th century BC. The figure below shows the portion of the calibration
curves of relevance in more detail:
3600
IntCal04
IntCal98
Radiocarbon Age BP
3500
3400
3300
3200
3100
-1700
-1600
-1500
Calendar Date BC
With IntCal04, a radiocarbon age greater than ca.3320BP offers the vast majority of its dating probability in the 17th century BC,
whereas one less than 3320BP starts to offer more, and as one moves lower to 3310BP, etc., progressively more and more probability
in the 16th century BC. 3320BP is the rough ‘divide’ between a likely ‘high’ Thera eruption date, and the ‘low’ or conventional date
range. The figure below shows the respective calibrated calendar date ranges using IntCal04 for a range of radiocarbon ages across
the Thera relevant period, from 3380 to 3300 BP with an error of +/-10 radiocarbon years BP (the approximate error on the large set
of data available from Akrotiri for the destruction level).
26 of 36
We can observe that radiocarbon ages from 3370BP down to 3330BP clearly or strongly favour a 17th century BC date range, a date
of 3320BP starts to be ambiguous with around equal chances either way, and a date from 3310BP and lower starts to more and more
strongly favour a 16th century BC date (and only allows the last couple of decades of the 17th century BC at the most).
A radiocarbon-based solution to the Thera controversy is thus asking for considerable precision from the method. Only a ca.30
radiocarbon year variation on the Oxford average value in Bronk Ramsey et al. (2004) would mean these data no longer strongly
support a ‘high’ Thera eruption date in the 17th century BC. We are thus trying to resolve information at the limits of currently
available precision. Small problems in sample pre-treatment or the calibration data or laboratory accuracy (offset issues) could see a
change. Known age tests indicate less than a 10 radiocarbon year error component in the Oxford measurements across the period of
the work reported in Bronk Ramsey et al. (2004), and the pattern of data from surrounding periods provides a coherent analysis in
support of the ‘high’ chronology (as in that paper), but we must still be very aware of the fine balance and the potential for additional
concerns. While at present radiocarbon seems to support (or favour) the 17th century BC, further work is clearly required in order to
test this position and to try to investigate remaining concerns. For the AD2006 situation, see News no.9 below.
To see what a radiocarbon-based chronology looks like against the calibration curve (in this case IntCal98), we can look at the next
figure (a slightly modified version of Manning and Bronk Ramsey 2003:Figure 5):
Radiocarbon Age BP
3500
MM
LMIA
Earlier LMIB
(interpolated no direct data)
3400
Close LMIB
Destruction
range Chania,
Myrtos-Pyrgos
End late LMIB
(into earlier LMII?)
(Ayia Irini, Trianda,
Mochlos)
3300
3200
3100
Most likely date range
for close of LMIB
destructions at Chania,
Myrtos-Pyrgos
LMIIIA
LMII
(modified by
archaeo-historical
information)
3000
INTCAL98 +/- 1σ
-1800
-1700
-1600
-1500
-1400
-1300
Calendar Date BC
Radiocarbon data, analysis and interpretation in Manning and Bronk Ramsey 2003 and Bronk Ramsey et al. 2004 shown in
schematic and approximate terms against the IntCal98 radiocarbon calibration curve.
27 of 36
Santorini VDL likely tpq
from short-lived samples,
Manning et al. 2006
3500
LMIA
Knossos LMII
destruction
3300
Santorini eruption
date range from
Friedrich et al.
2006 and the
olive branch
they date
3200
14
C Age (yrs BP)
3400
3100
3000
Likely date range
for close of LMIB
destruction at
Myrtos-Pyrgos
Conventional
Chronology
-1800
-1700
LMII
LMIB
LMIA
LMIA
-1600
LMII
LMIB
LMIB LMII
-1500
-1400
-1300
Calendar date BC
AD2006: current state of radiocarbon data, analysis, and interpretation as in Manning et al. 2006 in News no. 9 (version of Figure 3
in that paper). Black radiocarbon calibration curve = IntCal04; orange calibration curve = IntCal98.
To end: we can look at again at the R_Combine All OxA, K & Hd for final VDL analysis shown above using IntCal98, but now
with IntCal04, as a best current summation from good-quality published evidence.
The smoothed and slightly ‘tightened’ IntCal04 calibration curve acts to concentrate the dating probability in the mid to late 17th
century BC.
Radiocarbon determination
Atmospheric data from Reimer et al (2004);OxCal v3.10 Bronk Ramsey (2005); cub r:1 sd:12 prob usp[chron]
3450BP
R_Combine All OxA, K & Hd for final VDL : 3350.31±9.09267BP
68.2% probability
1665BC (29.3%) 1646.8BC
1644.2BC (38.9%) 1620.5BC
95.4% probability
1684.4BC (95.4%) 1614.7BC
X2-Test: df=22 T=27.4(5% 33.9)
3400BP
3350BP
3300BP
3250BP
1800CalBC
1700CalBC
1600CalBC
1500CalBC
Calibrated date
References:
Bronk Ramsey, C., Manning, S.W. and Galimberti, M. 2004. Dating the volcanic eruption at Thera. Radiocarbon 46(1) 325-344.
Friedrich, W.L., Wagner, P. And Tauber, H. 1990. Radiocarbon dated plant remains from the Akrotiri Excavations on Santorini, Greece. In D.A.
Hardy and A.C. Renfrew (eds.), Thera and the Aegean World III. Volulme Three: Chronology: 188-196. London: The Thera Foundation.
28 of 36
Hubberten, H.-W., Bruns, M., Calamiotou, M., Apostolakis, C, Filippakis, S. And Grimanis, A. 1990. Radiocarbon dates from the Akrotiri
Excavations. In D.A. Hardy and A.C. Renfrew (eds.), Thera and the Aegean World III. Volulme Three: Chronology: 179-187. London: The
Thera Foundation.
Galimberti M., Bronk Ramsey C. and Manning S.W. 2004. Wiggle-match dating of tree ring sequences. Radiocarbon 46:917-924.
Manning, S.W. & Bronk Ramsey, C. 2003. A Late Minoan I-II absolute chronology for the Aegean – combining archaeology with radiocarbon. In:
Bietak, M. (ed.), The synchronisation of civilisations in the eastern Mediterranean in the second millennium BC (II). Proceedings of the
SCIEM2000 EuroConference Haindorf, May 2001: 111-133. Wien: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Manning, S.W., Bronk Ramsey, C., Doumas, C., Marketou, T., Cadogan, G. and Pearson, C.L. 2002. New evidence for an early date for the Aegean
Late Bronze Age and Thera eruption. Antiquity 76:733-744.
Marketou, T., Facorellis, Y. & Maniatis, Y. 2001. New Late Bronze Age chronology from the Ialysos region, Rhodes. Mediterranean Archaeology
and Archaeometry 1(1):19-29.
7. Upwards revision of scale of sulphur products produced by the Thera eruption?
The standard existing literature argues that the Thera eruption had a relatively low sulphur yield and that it accordingly could not
have been responsible for one of the very large sulphur-derived acid signals in the Greenland ice (e.g. at c. 1645 BC as reported and
suggested by Hammer et al. 1987) (see e.g. Sigurdsson et al. 1990; Pyle 1990). These 'low' estimates were derived from petrologic
analyses of erupted products, and the view that the volatiles (including SO2) produced by an eruption cannot have exceeded those
which could have been dissolved into the pre-eruption melt. They may be correct. However, two sets of new work suggest that
Thera's sulphur-production either, could have been, or should have been, much larger than previously thought.
1. General observation. A major re-think of volatile production from large explosive volcanic eruptions has occurred in the last
decade thanks especially to the analysis of the great Pinatubo eruption in AD1991. Here, as at El Chichn in 1982, volatiles (CO2, H2O
and SO2) were present far in excess of saturation, and so far in excess of any estimates made by petrologic analyses of the erupted
products. These volatiles were in a discrete bubble phase. This bubble phase formed at least 5-10 km below the ground (i.e. at depth)
and not merely in the top few kilometres of the Earth's crust and contained very large amounts of volatiles. Is this a common
phenomenon and so likely relevant to Thera? In a 10 years on from the Pinatubo eruption perspective article in Science, Newhall et
al. (2002) conclude 'yes', writing on p. 1241 that:
'Work since the Pinatubo eruption suggests that many, perhaps all, large explosive eruptions are of magma that contains a
substantial bubble phase at depth'. [my italics]
If so, this should include Thera (and the work of Michaud et al. - see next paragraph (2) - indicates this). Thus the very small
estimates of volatile yield for the Thera eruption made in the 1980s on the basis of petrologic analyses are very likely massive
underestimates and totally irrelevant (note: novel still experimental work may indicate a route to new petrological techniques that
could eventually yield more reliable estimates of the sulphur yield of silicic magmas like Thera: Scaillet et al. 1998). Instead, the
Thera eruption may/must have produced a significant volatile yield. If so, then within the broad ‘Thera-must-date-somewhere-hereballpark’ c.1700-1450 BC, it is more likely to be one of the recognised volcanic signals noted in ice-cores. The 1645BC signal in the
GRIP ice-core has now been ruled out on current data (Pearce et al. 2004; n.d.; Keenan 2003) – but cf. new work of Fischer and
Whitehouse mentioned above in no. 4. Thus attention will shift to the various other signals.
2. Specific evidence. Michaud et al. (2000), and also an as yet unpublished case arguing for a significant increase in eruption scale
(and hence sulphur production) based on field observations by Professor R.S.J. Sparks, argue that the Minoan eruption of the Thera
volcano may very well have released a much greater amount of sulphur-based products than previously thought (Sparks pers. comm.,
2001; see also S.E. Dunn and F. W. McCoy Jr. ‘Modelling the climatic effects of the LBA eruption of Thera: new calculations of
tephra volumes may suggest a significantly larger eruption than previously reported.’ Poster presentation at the American
Geophysical Union’s Chapman Conference on Volcanism and the Earth’s Atmosphere, Fira, Santorini, 17th – 21st June 2002).
There are admittedly problems with the Michaud et al. (2000) model. They determine a high maximum sulphur yield for the eruption
(as much as some 33-49 times previous estimates) from analysis of some mafic material from the eruption, but this material is in fact
found only in very small quantities (see Druitt et al. 1999 - the main Minoan magma is low in sulphur as determined in previous
studies). They argue that this sulphur-rich material indicates there was a large amount of non-erupted sulphur-rich basalt involved in
the eruption process, and thus that there was a sulphur-rich vapour phase present in the pre-eruption magma chamber (the mechanism
believed to explain large sulphur releases not detected by petrologic analysis for several recent volcanic eruptions, such as Pinatubo:
see Gerlach et al. 1996; Newhall et al. 2002:1241 and refs.). However, while all this is possible to probable, and the mafic material
may indeed suggest that a sulphur-rich basalt magma was involved in the formation of the Minoan magma chamber, this process
occurred over several thousand years (up to about 17,000 years). It is therefore likely that some, to much, of this sulphur will have
leaked out and not have been retained until the eruption. Therefore, the extremely large sulphur yield calculated by Michaud et al.
(2000) is surely a massive over-estimate. Nonetheless, their data do point clearly to the likelihood of the presence of a pre-eruption
sulphur-rich vapour in the magma chamber, and therefore to a (significantly) larger total sulphur release than the minimum
calculated previously solely from the Minoan magma. Further work is needed.
8. Conclusions, November 2003/start 2004. A significant body of new (and developing AD2004-2006) radiocarbon evidence (see
no. 6 above) supports the mid-later and especially later 17th century BC as the most likely date range for the Thera eruption (e.g.
1663-1599BC as the overall 95% confidence range from Bronk Ramsey et al. 2004 using IntCal98; or a total range of c.16841615BC using the 23 date set summarised in the final figure above using IntCal04). A date for the Thera eruption in the mid-16th
29 of 36
century BC is unlikely but possible and a date after c.1530/1520BC is extremely unlikely. The new radiocarbon evidence for the
volcanic destruction is significantly more precise than, but otherwise totally compatible with, previous data from two earlier projects
(one from the same laboratory but employing a different accelerator, and one from a different laboratory). Thus the radiocarbon case
seems strong. A date in the 17th century BC is about 10 times more likely than one in the 16th century BC on current data. A number
of scholars conceive of archaeological linkages and culture relations which are, or could be, compatible with this dating (as in a Test
of Time). For a subsequent discussion of what some of this means in archaeological terms, and for further consideration of how in
particular the ‘high’ chronology may work with the Cypriot sequence, and its associated sequences, see various parts of the study:
Manning, S.W., Sewell, D.A. and Herscher, E. 2002. Late Cypriot IA maritime trade in action: underwater survey at MaroniTsaroukkas and the contemporary east Mediterranean trading system. Annual of the British School at Athens 97:97-162. The only
other position potentially compatible with the radiocarbon evidence is what A test of time called the ‘compromise early chronology’,
where the eruption of Thera is placed c.1570-1540BC. This ‘compromise’ position makes the archaeological linkages much easier to
accept for many, but relies on what at present are very low probability levels from the radiocarbon evidence – it is a compromise –
trying to fit in at the margins of both sets of evidence (radiocarbon and conventional analysis of the archaeological linkages).
Ice-cores – irrelevant at present (one day volcanic products both well-dated and offering good provenance compatibility with Thera
will be discovered – but not yet). See no. 4 above
Tree-rings re Thera – irrelevant at present. There is no positive link (just plausible hypothesis) to link either the ring 854 unique
growth anomaly in the Aegean Dendrochronology Project record, or the 1628/27BC growth anomalies attested in several northern
hemisphere dendrochronologies, with a volcanic eruption, yet alone Thera in particular. (The same objection of no causal connection
affects any attempt to select arbitrarily and propose some other tree ring growth anomaly, for example in the 16th century BC.) The
original logic based on several apparent ‘packages’ of contemporary (or plausibly contemporary) ice-core AND tree-ring evidence
(hence linking a definitely volcanic signal with the absolutely dated tree-ring event) has been shown to not exist with subsequent
work/data given refined dating of the relevant ice-core signals (e.g. Manning and Sewell 2002; Hammer 2000; Hammer et al. 2003).
This conclusion has NOTHING to do with the near absolute dating of the Anatolian Bronze-Iron dendrochronology as reported in
no. 5 above.
Both the last paragraphs significantly revise viewpoints and statements in A test of time. Today, radiocarbon is the only currently
relevant, direct, and independent science-dating source for the Thera eruption.
Against this is ranged (i) skepticism of the radiocarbon data with suggestions of some error or effect maybe leading to a significant
error in dates derived, and (ii) the conventional interpretation model of the archaeological linkages.
I do not regard (i) as substantiated with regard to recent work on Aegean radiocarbon. Even when fairly generous allowance is made
for possible unlikely problems, the data still indicate good support for the date range of the ‘high’ chronology (see Manning & Bronk
Ramsey 2003:esp. 124-129). Suggestions that up-welling in the Mediterranean caused a significant systematic offset also are not
substantiated by the evidence (Manning et al. 2002). I do not underestimate the worth and challenge of the conventional
archaeological synthesis, however. Some will also argue that the Theran pumice occurring in Egypt and the Levant in New Kingdom
contexts (mainly Tuthmosid is the current assessment at Tell el-Dab‘a) cannot be explained away (postscript no.2 and Test of Time
chapter IV.4). Here various challenges and problems remain to be addressed and overcome if the ‘high’ chronology (or an eventual
compromise earlier chronology somewhere in between) is to become accepted.
At present the radiocarbon-led position and the conventional archaeological synthesis are at odds. This work favours the former. It is
based on independent, direct, dating on the contexts/items in question. There are no step-wise logic transfers, nor debated stylistic
judgements, nor unquantifiable timelags.
For a general review of the state of play and the key evidence and debates as of the start of 2004, see the paper by Manning for the
M. Bietak (ed.), publication of the SCIEM2000 EuroConference 2. Details will be posted when available. This paper suggests that
the radiocarbon and high/compromise high chronology is in fact not quite as far apart from, and in conflict with, the conventional
archaeological viewpoints and data analysis as it might seem.
Work in AD2004-2005 by a couple of teams, and likely to be published in AD2006, using additional radiocarbon evidence will even
more clearly and strongly support a later 17th century date range as very likely. We thus perhaps approach the ‘end-game’ when close
resolution of the Thera date may call for review of other associated views and syntheses.
See now no. 9 below.
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9. New news of 28 April 2006 (and new conclusions as there – see papers cited below)
NEW NEWS!
► “Santorini Eruption Radiocarbon Dated to 1627-1600 B.C.” by Walter L. Friedrich,
Bernd Kromer, Michael Friedrich, Jan Heinemeier, Tom Pfeiffer, and Sahra Talamo, Science
312, 28 April 2006: 548. (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/312/5773/548)
Note also there are significant Supporting Online Material
Precise and direct dating of the Minoan eruption of Santorini (Thera) in Greece, a global
Bronze Age time marker, has been made possible by the unique find of an olive tree, buried
alive in life position by the tephra (pumice and ashes) on Santorini. We applied so-called
radiocarbon wiggle-matching to a carbon-14 sequence of tree-ring segments to constrain the
eruption date to the range 1627-1600 B.C. with 95.4% probability. Our result is in the range
of previous, less precise, and less direct results of several scientific dating methods, but it is a
century earlier than the date derived from traditional Egyptian chronologies.
► “Chronology for the Aegean Late Bronze Age 1700-1400 B.C.” by Sturt W. Manning,
Christopher Bronk Ramsey, Walter Kutschera, Thomas Higham, Bernd Kromer, Peter
Steier, and Eva M. Wild, Science 312, 28 April 2006: 565-569.
(http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/312/5773/565). Note also there are
significant Supporting Online Material
Radiocarbon (carbon-14) data from the Aegean Bronze Age 1700–1400 B.C. show that the
Santorini (Thera) eruption must have occurred in the late 17th century B.C. By using carbon14 dates from the surrounding region, cultural phases, and Bayesian statistical analysis, we
established a chronology for the initial Aegean Late Bronze Age cultural phases (Late
Minoan IA, IB, and II). This chronology contrasts with conventional archaeological dates
and cultural synthesis: stretching out the Late Minoan IA, IB, and II phases by 100 years
and requiring reassessment of standard interpretations of associations between the Egyptian
and Near Eastern historical dates and phases and those in the Aegean and Cyprus in the mid–
second millennium B.C.
► “New Carbon Dates Support Revised History of Ancient Mediterranean” by Michael
Balter, Science 312 (issue 5773) 28 April 2006: 508-509.
(http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/312/5773/508)
The data in the above two studies appears to establish a date for the Thera/Santorini eruption in the late 17th century BC for
several reasons:
1.
2.
The high-precision 14C wiggle-matching of the last growth ring of an olive branch killed by the eruption (and found
stratified in (initial) Plinian pumice fall on Santorini/Thera) to 1627-1600BC at 95.4% confidence by Friedrich et al. 2006
should define either the year of the eruption, or the year before. This is clear and precise evidence. The supporting online
material with the Friedrich et al. paper shows that this conclusion is robust.
A large-scale 14C study by Manning et al. 2006 examining data from the MBA/LMIA transition through to the close of
LMII defines: (i) a firm and well-dated terminus post quem date range for the Thera eruption about 1671-1644 BC at 95.4%
confidence (from a wiggle-match of an oak sample found covered by Theran ash at Miletos in western Turkey, which thus
sets a terminus post quem for the eruption), and (ii) a date range for the volcanic destruction level (VDL) at Akrotiri on
Thera about 1660-1612BC at 95.4% confidence employing the IntCal04 dataset and 1661-1605BC employing the IntCal98
dataset (this date is for the last harvest of seeds stored at Akrotiri before the human population fled and/or the eruption, and
so could either date the eruption, or sets a very, very, short terminus post quem). This VDL range is entirely compatible with
the olive branch dating of Friedrich et al. – the two independent studies thus mutually reinforce each other. The study finds
that other LMIA data are compatible with this chronology, and that LMIB and LMII data follow appropriately. The paper
and the supporting online material show that this chronology is robust and varies only very slightly (a few years) under
various different conditions.
It is important to note that one possible problem with 14C data from Santorini which has sometimes been suggested in some past
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literature can be discounted as a result of these two new studies (see in those two studies, and below). This is the suggestion that
perhaps volcanic (14C depleted) CO2 emitted by the volcano or by thermal springs in the Santorini area somehow (in a significant
way) affected the dates for the Akrotiri volcanic destruction level. Why can this argument be discounted?
(a) Because the Aegean 14C data from areas other than Thera/Santorini (and not plausibly volcanic CO2 effected even if this is an
issue) are consistent with and very similar to the data from Santorini/Thera for contexts which are regarded as approximately or
closely contemporary in archaeological terms (for example from the Manning et al. 2006 study and using IntCal04 we find that the
weighted average 14C age for a short-lived late LMIA twig from Trianda on Rhodes is 3353±25BP, calibrated calendar age range
~1685-1617BC at 1σ versus the weighted average age for the mature/late Late Minoan IA volcanic destruction level at Akrotiri on
Thera from short-lived samples of 3345±8BP, calibrated calendar age range ~1664-1616BC at 1σ);
(b) Because the 14C data from Santorini show none of the characteristics one would expect (from a number of examples in the
scientific literature) if they were in fact so affected (i.e. there are NO big offsets for some samples growing very near a vent/spring,
or as affected by fumaroles or other degassing mechanisms, disappearing to no measurable effect for other samples growing
elsewhere) and instead the available data offer a large and very coherent/consistent picture (see Manning et al. 2006:566-567 and
Fig.2) – further, since the data involved consist of several different plant species and come from different find-spots at Akrotiri (and
so we must assume likely different fields and different farmers), it is also unlikely they could have all been consistently affected –
thus the tight age range observed rules against any significant contamination applying;
(c) Because if one looks at the NON-Santorini 14C data from LMIA to LMII, and then asks these data to define where the Akrotiri
VDL should lie, then, as shown in Manning et al. 2006 Table 1 and Fig.S5, the other NON-Santorini 14C data require a date range
entirely consistent with the Akrotiri VDL date range found WITH the Santorini/Thera data (just the range is a little more
precise/narrow with the additional Santorini/Thera data included): see the also the extended version of Manning et al. 2006 Table 1
below. Thus there can be no substantial volcanic CO2 effect – this is also more or less clear from the fact that the early Late Minoan
IA through Late Minoan II data, in their archaeological sequence, in Manning et al. 2006 fit very nicely to the standard northern
hemisphere mid-latitude 14C record (as shown in Manning et al. 2006) – demonstrating there can be no substantial offset in operation
within the datasets; and finally
(d) Because the radiocarbon history applicable specifically to Santorini/Thera over a seven decade period leading right up to the
eruption as recorded in the olive branch analysed by Friedrich et al. 2006 does not support any substantive/relevant/significant
volcanic/thermal CO2 effect because the 14C measurements by Friedrich et al. show that locally acquired atmospheric 14C levels (the
delta 14C record from the 14C age BP data reported given their absolute age placement against either IntCal04 or IntCal98) were
constant (or even very slightly rising in the last 50 years) (i.e. the OPPOSITE of a substantive volcanic/thermal CO2 impact, which
would have caused significantly lowered local levels because of its depleted nature, if present and significant). This tree was
unquestionably growing on central Thera, thus its total failure to exhibit any observable evidence of the impact of significant
volcanic (or other) source depleted 14CO2 in the decades leading up to the eruption (and instead its very nice agreement with the
standard northern hemisphere mid-latitude 14C record) points to the absence of any general, widespread (and certainly island-wide),
substantive/relevant volcanic CO2 effect operating on Thera in the years before the eruption. The fact that the olive branch offers
radiocarbon ages for its last year of growth and the eruption in the last three decades of the 17th century BC, compatible with the
other Akrotiri VDL data (and the wider LMIA to LMII 14C sequence in Manning et al. 2006) in turn supports the validity of those
other data as argued in (a) to (c) above.
Table. An extended version of Manning et al. 2006 Table 1 follows. See that paper for original table and for the references cited (the
numbers in parentheses). This extended table below adds in the modeled ages, and especially the Akrotiri volcanic destruction level
(VDL) age range, with NO Santorini data included against the IntCal98 14C calibration dataset (and well as the outcome against
IntCal04 as shown in the Manning et al. 2006 publication). These analyses demonstrate that the modeled placement for the VDL is
entirely complementary with the data from Santorini/Thera, hence no substantive offset effect applies to the Santorini LMIA data which may therefore be used with confidence. Finally, in addition, two other added rows in the extended version of Table 1 below
illustrate the robustness of the date ranges and conclusions in the Manning et al. 2006 paper against any possible minor error factors
or issues which might possibly be suggested. Outcomes for the Model 1 analyses in the Manning et al. 2006 paper versus both
IntCal04 and IntCal98 are shown where an additional hypothetical 10 14C years have been added to the laboratory quoted errors for
all data from plant matter of less than 10 years growth such as might reasonably much more than cover any possible issues of
regional or inter-annual/seasonal variation, or local issues (such as very minor volcanic or thermal CO2 effect), etc. (this is in effect
allowing for a huge 3 to 5‰ additional unknown error factor(s) across the relevant samples – a much smaller 1‰, or 8 14C years,
increase for annual or sub-annual samples versus the calibration curve datasets could be considered as fair given statements in the
literature – this produces typically a 0.5 to 2.0 range increase only in the errors on the relevant 14C measurements and has thus no
noticeable effect on calculated ranges – I hence consider the much larger hypothetical error increase below to demonstrate that such
issues are irrelevant in any substantive way). We can see from the outputs in the two ‘Ditto with extra 10 14C yrs uncertainty added to all
short-lived samples’ rows of the table below, that even such an extraordinary extra error allowance (for which there is no justification)
makes relatively little or no substantive change to the date ranges found and that the data found remain entirely consistent with the
calendar age ranges and the conclusions stated in the Manning et al. 2006 paper.
Table caption otherwise: Typical Bayesian analysis outcomes for Model 1 (average 10 runs). The 2σ, 95.4%, confidence calibrated
calendar date ranges BC calculated by the analysis shown in Fig. 2 [see Manning et al. 2006] are listed for a number of the key
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transitions or events/phases within the LMIA to LMII archaeological sequence. The 1σ (68.2% confidence) ranges with IntCal04
(22) are also shown in the first row of data in italics. Data rounded to the nearest whole year. Typical data given (each computer run
of the model varies very slightly, with variation usually ≤ 2 years; quoted probabilities also vary slightly by run). Results against the
IntCal98 14C calibration dataset, which was derived from similar underlying data but by a different modeling procedure (23), are also
shown – the outcomes are very similar, which demonstrates the robustness of the conclusions irrespective of such minor changes in
calibration dataset. We further show results for: (i) Model 1 without any data from Santorini included, and the VDL calculated as an
event within the sequence (Fig. S5). [both IntCal04 – as in Manning et al. 2006; and here below with IntCal98 also] The modeled
placement for the VDL is entirely complementary with the data from Santorini, demonstrating that no offset effect applies to the
Santorini data which may therefore be used with confidence. (ii) Model 1 adding the Santorini olive tree wiggle-match information
(29 [=Friedrich et al. 2006]) (eruption event 1627-1600BC at 2σ). The bottom row shows the conventional archaeologically derived
dates (1-6) for comparison.
Transition to
Mature LMIA
Felling
Date
Miletos oak
Akrotiri Volcanic
Destruction Level
(VDL)
Transition end
LMIA to LMIB
Myrtos-Pyrgos Close
of LMIB Destruction
Knossos LMII
Destruction
Model 1
IntCal04 (22)
1737-1673
1722-1695
1671-1644
1664-1652
1733-1657 (92.1%)
1655-1647 (3.3%)
1671-1644
1659-1572
1647-1644 (3.1%)
1642-1603 (65.1%)
1660-1572
1522-1456
1517-1491 (58.1%)
1475-1467 (10.1%)
1526-1452
1457-1399
1439-1414
Ditto with extra 10 14C yrs
uncertainty added to all
short-lived samples
Model 1 IntCal98 (23)
1660-1612
1656-1651 (11.3%)
1639-1616 (56.9%)
1660-1612
1733-1665
1669-1646
1661-1605
1660-1567
1522-1487 (65.3%)
1482-1451 (30.1%)
1489-1480 (3.6%)
1452-1394 (91.8%)
Ditto with extra 10 14C yrs
uncertainty added to all
short-lived samples
1732-1652
1668-1645
1661-1606
1660-1568
1523-1447
1492-1476 (6.0%)
1459-1390 (88.3%)
1329-1323 (1.1%)
Model 1 No Santorini data
IntCal04 (22)
1728-1643
1672-1645
1668-1585
1661-1553
1522-1456
1487-1481 (1.3%)
1457-1400 (94.1%)
Model 1 No Santorini data
IntCal98 (23)
1727-1641
1668-1645
1665-1582
1661-1547
1523-1487 (66.9%)
1482-1451 (28.5%)
1490-1479 (4.2%)
1452-1394 (91.2%)
Model 1 adding ref. 29 data
(Fig. S8) IntCal04 (22)
1737-1673
1671-1644
1654-1649 (3%)
1645-1611 (92.4%)
1626-1562
1522-1457
1487-1480 (1.5%)
1458-1400 (93.9%)
Conventional Chronology
(1-6)
1600/1580
1σ : 1633-1617
1525/1500
1520/1500/1480
1440/1430/1425
1489-1474 (4.1%)
1463-1394 (91.3%)
1400/1390
References:
Clausen, H.B. and Hammer, C.U. 1988. The Laki and Tambora eruptions as revealed in Greenland ice cores from 11 locations. Annals of
Glaciology 10: 16-22.
Clausen, H.B., Hammer, C.U., Hvidberg, C.S., Dahl-Jensen, D., Steffensen, J.P., Kipfstuhl, J. and Legrand, M. 1997. A comparison of the volcanic
records over the past 4000 years from the Greenland Ice Core Project and Dye 3 Greenland ice cores. Journal of Geophysical Research 102:
26,707-26723.
Devine, J.D., Sigurdsson, H., Davis, A.N., and Self, S. 1984. Estimates of sulfur and chlorine yield to the atmosphere from volcanic eruptions and
potential climatic effects. Journal of Geophysical Research 89: 6309-6325.
Druitt, T.H., Edwards, L., Mellors, R.M., Pyle, D.M., Sparks, R.S.J., Lanphere, M., Davies, M., and Barreirio, B. 1999. Santorini volcano. Memoir
of the Geological Society 19. London: Geological Society.
Gerlach, T.M., Westrich, H.R., and Symonds, R.B. 1996. Preeruption vapor in magma of the climactic Mount Pinatubo eruption: source of the
giant stratospheric sulphur dioxide cloud. In C.G. Newhall and R.S. Punongbayan (eds.), Fire and mud: eruptions and lahars of Mount
Pinatubo, Philippines: 415-433. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Hammer, C.U., Clausen, H.B., Friedrich, W.L. and Tauber, H. 1987. The Minoan eruption of Santorini in Greece dated to 1645 BC? Nature 328:
517-519.
Hammer, C.U. 2000. What can Greenland ice core data say about the Thera eruption in the second millennium BC? In M. Bietak (ed), The
synchronisation of civilisations in the eastern Mediterranean in the second millennium BC. Proceedings of an international symposium at
Schloß Haindorf, 15th-17th of November 1996 and at the Austrian Academy, Vienna, 11th-12th of May 1998: 35-37. Contributions to the
Chronology of the Eastern Mediterranean I. Wein: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Hammer, C.U., Kurat, G., Hoppe, P., Grum, W. & Clausen, H.B. 2003. Thera eruption date 1645BC confirmed by new ice core data. In M. Bietak
ed., The synchronisation of civilisations in the eastern Mediterranean in the second millennium B.C. II: 87-94. Vienna: Verlag der
Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Manning, S.W., Barbetti, M., Kromer, B., Kuniholm, P.I., Levin, I, Newton, M.W. & Reimer, P.J. 2002. No systematic early bias to Mediterranean
14
C ages: radiocarbon measurements from tree-ring and air samples provide tight limits to age offsets. Radiocarbon 44:739-754.
Manning, S.W. & Bronk Ramsey, C. 2003. A Late Minoan I-II absolute chronology for the Aegean – combining archaeology with radiocarbon. In:
Bietak, M. (ed.), The synchronisation of civilisations in the eastern Mediterranean in the second millennium BC (II). Proceedings of the
SCIEM2000 EuroConference Haindorf, May 2001: 111-133. Wien: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Manning S. W. and Sewell D. A. 2002. Volcanoes and history: a significant relationship? The case of Santorini. In R. Torrance and J.P. Grattan
(eds.), Natural Disasters and Cultural Change: 264-291. London: Routledge.
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Michaud, V., Clocchiatti, R., and Sbrana, S. 2000. The Minoan and post-Minoan eruptions, Santorini (Greece), in the light of melt inclusions:
chlorine and sulphur behaviour. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 99: 195-214.
Newhall, C.G., Power, J.A. and Punongbayan, R.S. 2002. Perspectives: Pinatubo eruption. "To Make Grow". Science 295:1241-1242.
Pyle, D.M. 1990. The application of tree-ring and ice-core studies to the dating of the Minoan eruption. In D.A. Hardy and A.C. Renfrew (eds.),
Thera and the Aegean world III. Volume three: chronology: 167-173. London: The Thera Foundation.
Scaillet, B., Clemente, B., Evans, B.W., Pichavant, M. 1998. Redox control of sulfur degassing in silicic magmas. Journal of Geophysical Research
103:23937-23949.
Sigurdsson, H., Carey, S., and Devine, J.D. 1990. Assessment of mass, dynamics and environmental effects of the Minoan eruption of Santorini
volcano. In D.A. Hardy, J. Keller, V.P. Galanopoulos, N.C. Flemming and T.H. Druitt (eds.), Thera and the Aegean world III. Volume two:
earth sciences: 100-112. London: The Thera Foundation.
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?Thera volcano/archaeology links on the Web
There are a great many internet sites that mention Thera (Santorini). Three of the most useful links are given below. These lead
on to many further links with both information and/or pictures of the volcano or island group.
‰One of the best sites for volcanoes in general (search
for Thera/Santorini) is:
http://volcano.und.edu/
‰Good site specifically on Thera/Santorini with
further information and photos and so on:
http://www.decadevolcano.net/santorini/santorini.htm
‰Jeremy B. Rutter's lesson on: Akrotiri on Thera, the
Santorini Volcano and the Middle and Late Cycladic
Periods in the Central Aegean Islands. (Note links to
bibliography and pictures.)
http://projectsx.dartmouth.edu/history/bronze_age/lessons/les/17.html
‰Finally, for two current views of Santorini volcano,
updated every 3 minutes, see:
http://www.santorini.net/volcano.html
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Cover Illustrations:
Detail of Saffron Gatherers Fresco from Akrotiri, Thera. Photograph with permission of the Thera Foundation.
Late Cypriot IA Proto White Slip sherd from Maroni Tsaroukkas, Cyprus.
Late Cypriot IA White Painted VI jug from Maroni Tsaroukkas, Cyprus.
Juniper sample 3E, 765 rings, from the Midas Mound Tumulus, Gordion. Photo by Peter Ian Kuniholm.
View of the lower part of the Minoan eruption pumice deposits in the Phira Quarry, Thera.
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