Separate lives: The ahmose tempest stela and the theran eruption

Journal of Near Eastern Studies

Volumn 57, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 1-28

  Wiener, Malcolm H ^a   Allen, James P ^b  

^a Institute for Aegean Prehistoryx   (United States)

^b METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61449488800     PISSN: 00222968     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/468596     Document Type: Article

References (76)

1. C. Vandersleyen, "Une tempête sous le règne d'Amosis," Revue dgyplologie (RdE) 19(1967): 123-59 (hereafter cited as "Tempête"); "Deux nouveaux fragments de la stèle d'Amosis relatant une tempête," RdE 20 (1968): 127-34 (hereafter "Fragments")
2. H. Goedicke, "The Chronology of the Thera/Santorin Explosion," in High, Middle or Low Acts of the Second International Colloquium on Absolute Chronology, Schloß Haindorf/Langenlois, 12.-15. August 1990, Ägypten und Levanle 3 (1992): 57-62
3. E. N. Davis, "A Storm in Egypt during the Reign of Ahmose," in D. A. Hardy and A. C. Renfrew, eds., Thera and the Aegean World III, vol. 3, Chronology (London, 1990), pp. 232-35
4. K. P. Foster and R. K. Ritner, "Texts, Storms, and the Thera Eruption," JNES 55 (1996): 1-14 (hereafter "Thera Eruption").
5. M. H. Wiener, The Chronology of the Late Bronze Age from Egypt to the Aegean: Science, Texts, Interconnections (forthcoming) (hereafter Chronology); idem, "The Absolute Chronology of Late Helladic III A2," in M. S. Balmuth and R. H. Tykot, eds., Sardinian Stratigraphy and Mediterranean Chronology (forthcoming).
6. Vandersleyen, "Tempête"; idem, "Fragments"; W. Helck, Hstorische-biographische Texte der 2. Zwischenzeit und neue Texte der 18. Dynastie, Kleine ägyptische Texte (Wiesbaden, 1975), pp. 104-10. The fragments in Vandersleyen's second article were first published, in photograph, by Abdul-Qader Muhammad, "Recent Finds," ASAE 59 (1966): 148-49, p1. 5. Two other studies have relied essentially on Vandersleyen's translation: Davis, "A Storm in Egypt" and S. W. Manning, The Absolute Chronology of the Aegean Early Bronze Age (Sheffield, 1995), pp. 200-216.
7. Vandersleyen, "Tempête," pp. 123; "Fragments," pp. 127-28.
8. Vandersleyen, "Fragments," figs. 1-2, shows a drawing of this fragment joined to the uppermost one ("a") of the overall photographs and drawings published in "Tempête," pls. 8-9 and 8A-9A. The arrangement of signs in Fragment "a," however, is slightly different in the two drawings. No photograph of Fragment "a" has been published.
9. The two faces in the photographs published by Vandersleyen, "Tempête," pls. 8-9, are relatively square to the camera, but the top is slightly farther from the camera than the bottom. The photographs of the fragments published by Abdul-Qader Muhammad, "Recent Finds," pl. 5, are both tilted horizontally and were shot at an angle so that one side is farther from the camera than the other.
10. The reconstructed shape of the stela above the highest preserved fragment is conjectural; the overall height is based on Vandersleyen's estimate ("Fragments," p. 127). The scene above the text on both sides was drawn from the photograph, as was the general physical outline of the fragments. The column lines and hieroglyphs of the text were placed directly over their originals on the photographs, but both have been "regularized," since they were intended only to gauge the size of lacunae and restored text and not as an accurate paleographic reproduction. The drawing and hieroglyphs were produced using commercial software (CorelDraw) and a font developed by the Metropolitan Museum's Department of Egyptian Art. In the drawings, filled signs in the text reproduce the extant inscription of each side (partially preserved signs are shown whole), signs in outline represent text restored from that preserved on the opposite side, and signs in dotted line indicate conjectural restorations.
11. For the h, see Vandersleyen, "Tempête," p. 132; the left-hand "leg" of the h and the right-hand end of the n are visible in the first line of the fragment published by Vandersleyen, "Fragments," p. 131, fig. 3: cf. the photograph in Abdul-Qader Muhammad, "Recent Finds," pp. 148-49, pl. 5d.
12. Leb. 102 = Wb. IV, 495, 15 šnj bštw (which Vandersleyen cites in "Tempête," p. 132) means "look for (i.e., plot) rebellion"; see The Epigraphic Survey, The Battle Reliefs of King Sety I, Reliefs and Inscriptions at Karnak 4, OIP 107 (Chicago, 1986), pls. 6, 4-5; 15A, 12.
13. For the sound of a storm, see Shipwrecked Sailor 57 and Book of the Dead 39, 6 (hru·qrj); for that of the wind, see Coffin Texts I 269i (hrw t3w).
14. Where they are not otherwise documented, the grounds for the conclusions here and in the following paragraphs can be found in the notes following the translation.
15. Vandersleyen, "Tempête," p. 151; idem, "Fragments," p. 132.
16. "Storm of r[ain]" (11. 7 F, 8 B); "flooded areas" (11. 13 F, 15 B); "[their corpses] floating on the water like skiffs of papyrus, (even) in the doorway and the private apartments (of the palace)" (11. 9 F, 10-11 B).
17. "[Dark]ness in the western region and the sky beclouded without [stop]" (11.7 F, 8-9 B); "no torch could give light throughout the Two Lands" (II. 10 F, 12 B).
18. "[Loud]er than [the sound of] the subjects, strong[er than . .. , howling(?)] on the hills more than the sound of the cavern in Elephantine" (11. 7-8 F, 9-10 B).
19. See Vandersleyen, "Tempête," p. 155 and n. 4.
20. Storms associated with flooding of the Nile are recorded in ancient times as occurring in Punt and Nubia: A. Lloyd, "Once More Hammamat Inscription 191," JEA 61 (1975): 54-55.
21. Vandersleyen, "Tempête," pp. 140, 143, 148-49;
22. Foster and Ritner, "Thera Eruption," pp. 5-6.
23. Foster and Rimer, "Thera Eruption," p. 7.
24. Vandersleyen, "Tempête," p. 140. See, however, p. 24 below.
25. cnh, "surely, he who is there (in the necropolis) will be a living god."
26. Vandersleyen, "Tempête," pp. 147, 153;
27. Foster and Ritner, "Thera Eruption," p. 7.
28. Cf. Helck, Texte der 2. Zwischenzeit, p. 93,1. 18- p. 94, 1. 1 (Second Kamose Stela) "the damage they did inside this part of Egypt" (p3 hdt jr.sn m hn t3 kmt); similarly (retrospectively), Urk. IV, 390, 7-8.
29. For w3 r w3s used of temples, see Urk. IV, 765, 13
30. H. M. Stewart, Egyptian Stelae, Reliefs and Paintings from the Petrie Collection, pt. 2 (Warminster, 1979), pl. 15.1, 3; similarly, w3 r fh: Urk. IV, 386, 4;
31. w3 r stp and w3 r mrh: Urk. IV, 2027, 5-6. For pth used intransitively, see Wb. I, 566, 2-3.
32. This can be seen as another argument in favor of dating the text to Ahmose's first regnal year.
33. Foster and Ritner, "Thera Eruption," pp. 2-3, 5, and 7.
34. N. N. Ambraseys, C. P. Melville, and R. D. Adams, The Seismicity of Egypt, Arabia and the Red Sea: A Historical Review (Cambridge, 1994)
35. M. Barazangi, "A Summary of the Seismotectonics of the Arab Region," in K. Cidlinský and B. M. Rouhban, eds., As- sessment and Mitigation of Earthquake Rise in the Arab Region (Paris, 1983), pp. 43-58
36. R. D. Adams and M. Barazangi, "Seismotectonics and Seismology in the Arab Region: A Brief Summary and Future Plans," Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 74 (1984): 1011-30
37. J. A. Jackson and D. P. McKenzie, "Active Tectonics of the Alpine-Himalayan Belt between Western Turkey and Pakistan," Geophysical Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 77(1984): 185-264.
38. The authors note the possible biases in the data; information is obviously better during periods free from conflict and reporting would at most times have been better from Lower Egypt than Upper Egypt. See Ambraseys, Melville, and Adams, The Seismicity of Egypt, pp. 42-43. The earthquake of 26 June 1926, with an epicenter in the eastern part of the Hellenic Arc, was felt in southwest Greece and Crete (as well as many parts of Italy) and caused the collapse of some adobe houses and some deaths in the Delta, but it was barely perceptible in Luxor (ibid., pp. 83-84). An earthquake of 12 September 1955 caused some damage in the Delta and was perceptible in both Athens and Luxor (ibid., p. 88). The major earthquake of 9 July 1956, which killed over forty and destroyed great numbers of the houses on Thera, was not felt in Egypt, however (Washington Post, 10 July 1956;
39. Times [London], 10 July 1956 and 11 July 1956;
40. The New York Times, 11 July 1956 and 12 July 1956;
41. Life, 23 July 1956).
42. C. Doumas, "Archaeological Observations at Akrotiri Relating to the Volcanic Destruction," in Hardy and Renfrew, eds., Thera and the Aegean World III, vol. 3, p. 48.
43. Ibid.
44. P. M. Warren, "The Minoan Civilisation of Crete and the Volcano of Thera," Journal of the Ancient Chronology Forum 4 (1990-91): 29-30
45. C. Doumas, "The Stratigraphy of Akrotiri," in C. Doumas, ed., Thera and the Aegean World: Papers and Proceedings of the Second International Scientific Congress, Santorini, Greece, August 1978, vol. 1 (London, 1978), pp. 781-82
46. Doumas, "Archaeological Observations at Akrotiri," pp. 48-49;
47. J. Keller, T. Rehren, and E. Stadlbauer, "Explosive Volcanism in the Hellenic Arc: A Summary and Review," in D. A. Hardy, J. Keller, V. P. Galanopoulos, N. C. Flemming, and T. H. Druitt, eds., Thera and the Aegean World III, vol. 2, Earth Sciences (London, 1990), p. 14.
48. T. Marketou, "Santorini Tephra from Rhodes and Kos: Some Chronological Remarks Based on the Stratigraphy," in Hardy and Renfrew, eds., Thera and the Aegean World III, vol. 3, pp. 100-113 at 107.
49. See also Marketou, "New Evidence on the Topography and Site History of Prehistoric Ialysos," Archaeology in the Dodecanese (Copenhagen, 1988), pp. 27-33.
50. Marketou, "Santorini Tephra from Rhodes and Kos," p. 105;
51. D. Ninkovitch and B. C. Heezen, "Santorini Tephra," in W. F. Whittard and R. Bradshaw, eds., Submarine Geology and Geophysics: Proceedings of the 17th Symposium of the Colston Research Society (London, 1965), pp. 413-53
52. D. J. Stanley and H. Sheng, "Volcanic Shards from Santorini (Upper Minoan Ash) in the Nile Delta, Egypt," Nature 320 (1986): 733-35
53. D. G. Sullivan, "The Discovery of Santorini Minoan Tephra in Western Turkey," Nature 333 (1988): 552-54;
54. Keller et al., "Explosive Volcanism in the Hellenic Arc," pp. 13-26
55. F. Ruichard, S. Carey, M. A. Arthur, H. Sigurdsson, and M. Arnold, "Tephra from the Minoan Eruption of Santorini in Sediments of the Black Sea," Nature 363 (1993): 610-12. I am grateful to P. Kuniholm for providing some of these citations.
56. Foster and Ritner, "Thera Eruption," p. 2.
57. D. C. Polz, "Spanning One Thousand Years in the 'Life' of the Theban Necropolis," Backdirt, Newsletter of the Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles (Spring-Summer 1996): 2. See Goedicke, "The Chronology of the Thera/ Santorin Explosion," p. 61
58. cankhamun," JEA 25 (1939): 8-17.
59. Foster and Ritner, "Thera Eruption," p. 10, n. 51.
60. B. Kemp, "Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period, c. 2686-1552 B.C.: The Second Intermediate Period in Egypt," in B. G. Trigger, B. J. Kemp, D. O'Connor, and A. B. Lloyd, eds., Ancient Egypt: A Social History (Cambridge, 1983), p. 159.
61. Dieter Arnold, personal communication. The Stela may perhaps also refer to the damage done in the former Hyksos-allied towns between Gebelein and Hermopolis by the campaign of Kamose: L. Habachi, The Second Stela of Kamose and His Struggle against the Hyksos Ruler and His Capital, Abhandlungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Kairo, Ägyptologische Reihe 8 (Glückstadt, 1972), pp. 38 and 54-55.
62. Foster and Ritner, "Thera Eruption," p. 10.
63. M. Bietak, discussion in Wiener, ed., "Discussions," in Trade, Power and Cultural Exchange: Hyksos Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean World 1800-1500 B.C.: An International Symposium, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, November 3, 1993, Ägypten und Levante 5 (1995): 123-24 and personal communication of 10 January 1996, for which I (Wiener) am most grateful.
64. P. Warren, "The Aegean and the Limits of Radiocarbon Dating," in K. Randsborg, ed., Acta Archaeologica (forthcoming).
65. Bietak, in "Discussions," Ägypten und Levante 5 (1995): 123-24.
66. S. W. Manning, The Absolute Chronology of the Aegean Early Bronze Age: Archaeology, Radiocarbon and History, Monographs in Mediterranean Archaeology 1 (Sheffield, 1995), p. 31.
67. P. P. Betancourt and C. Davaras, "Excavations at Pseira, 1985 and 1986," Hesperia 57 (1988): 218
68. Wiener, in "Discussions," Ägypten und Levante 5 (1995): 121.
69. N. Platon, Pepragmena B' Diethnous Kretologikou Synedriou, vol. 1 (Athens, 1968), p. 223.
70. J. Shaw, letter to Wiener of 20 August 1996.
71. P. Faure, "Remarques sur la présence et l'emploi de la pierre ponce en Crète du Néolithique à nos jours," in A. Kaloyeropoulou, ed., Acta of the 1st International Scientific Congress on the Volcano of Thera, 15-23 September 1969 (Athens, 1971), pp. 422-29.
72. R. D. G. Evely, Minoan Crafts: Tools and Techniques, An Introduction, Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology, vol. 92/1. (Gothenburg, 1993), p. 112.
73. H. Pichler, comments in discussion following paper by H. C. Einfalt, "Stone Materials in Ancient Akrotiri A Short Compilation," in Doumas, ed., Thera and the Aegean World: Papers and Proceedings of the Second International Scientific Congress, Santorini, Greece, August 1978, vol. 2 (London, 1980), p. 304.
74. H. Blitzer, "Minoan Implements and Industries," in J. W. Shaw and M. C. Shaw, eds., Kommos I: The Kommos Region and Houses of the Minoan Town, Part 1, The Kommos Region, Ecology, and Minoan Industries (Princeton, 1995), p. 531.
75. Faure, Acta of the 1st International Scientific Congress on the Volcano of Thera, pp. 424-25.
76. 14C by short-lived samples; and (3) the interlaboratory variability of results, provide major problems for determining the date of the Theran eruption via radiocarbon analyses: see Wiener, Chronology (forthcoming).