if they made it out of sea alive this would make sense. it is also possible that they all sailed towards Crete but were caught by the tsunami while at sea and they were all dispersed there :(
Another Thera/Santorini curveball: the dating of Egyptian dynasties. The 2nd reunification of Egypt into the New Kingdom was under the pharaoh Ahmose. His reign is still conventionally dated as 1539–1514 BCE approx. However, there is also the famous Ahmose "Tempest Stele" that describes what many conjectured could only be the Egyptians experiencing the distal effects of the Santorini eruption. But if confirmed definitely, this would place Ahmose's reign up to about a century earlier than generally thought.
Corfu would fit the Scheria description relatively well, but that identification, much as it was accepted since the Classical era, still does not really make any sense at all. Reason: way too close to Ithaka & thus basically in Odysseus' own back yard. And if literally any place in the Mediterranean can be ruled out, Odysseus' own back yard is the one place Scheria simply cannot be.
Santorini: the redating of the Thera eruption basically upended all that we thought we know about the Minoans (I do not think they were separate - or at the veey least separable - from the Minoans at all (minor correction: nearly everyone gets it wrong that Evans invented the name "Minoans'; he actually took it from a German scholar called Karl Hoeck), even Herodotus himself notwithstanding. But my thinking there is informed by the observation that Santorini, being round and at just the right latitude, was the perfect place for a main solar temple before the eruptions buried it. If nothing of the sort is ever found, then there goes my conjecture too.
The standard story is that Santorini blew up around 1500 BCE & weakened the Minoans to such an extent that the Mycenaeans took over within a half century: standard dating is around 1450 BCE. But the Santorini dating at least a century earlier, and likely more, put an end to that story pretty conclusively.
We are thus now left with dregs of the old explanation and surprisingly little idea how to even begin reassembling those into a coherent story. 150-170 years seems way too long for the eruption having enabled the Mycenaean context. Worse still, it is now not even certain whether the earthquake swarms that were thought to have temporarily smashed the Minoan settlements (only for the Minoans to rebuild them even grander) can be treated as a separate event, as they are now close enough that they may or may not overlap with the Santorini eruption itself. Plus there is a second, undersea volcano, called somewhat confusingly Kolumbo, close to Santorini - its eruptive history largely unknown. Much there still to learn.
I have also seen both Akrotiri and Pompeii. Unless new finds change this (only 5% had ever been excavated and even that has been a nightmare to preserve...), most eruptions do not merely happen out of the blue. Just look at the relatively recent Santorini earthquake swarms: those would generally tend to (and did!) make people flee quite effectively even using Bronze Age technology. Tsunami did devastate northern Crete, but it only appears to have managed half a kilometer or so inland, which was devastating for coastal settlements but was hardly the cauterizing cataclysm as imagined earlier.
if they made it out of sea alive this would make sense. it is also possible that they all sailed towards Crete but were caught by the tsunami while at sea and they were all dispersed there :(
The romantic in me wants them to have survived and inspire the myths of the Iron Age. 🙃
they are both likely options. maybe one day they will find proof of one or the other
My money is on “they made it to Corfu” 😃😆
Another Thera/Santorini curveball: the dating of Egyptian dynasties. The 2nd reunification of Egypt into the New Kingdom was under the pharaoh Ahmose. His reign is still conventionally dated as 1539–1514 BCE approx. However, there is also the famous Ahmose "Tempest Stele" that describes what many conjectured could only be the Egyptians experiencing the distal effects of the Santorini eruption. But if confirmed definitely, this would place Ahmose's reign up to about a century earlier than generally thought.
Corfu would fit the Scheria description relatively well, but that identification, much as it was accepted since the Classical era, still does not really make any sense at all. Reason: way too close to Ithaka & thus basically in Odysseus' own back yard. And if literally any place in the Mediterranean can be ruled out, Odysseus' own back yard is the one place Scheria simply cannot be.
Santorini: the redating of the Thera eruption basically upended all that we thought we know about the Minoans (I do not think they were separate - or at the veey least separable - from the Minoans at all (minor correction: nearly everyone gets it wrong that Evans invented the name "Minoans'; he actually took it from a German scholar called Karl Hoeck), even Herodotus himself notwithstanding. But my thinking there is informed by the observation that Santorini, being round and at just the right latitude, was the perfect place for a main solar temple before the eruptions buried it. If nothing of the sort is ever found, then there goes my conjecture too.
The standard story is that Santorini blew up around 1500 BCE & weakened the Minoans to such an extent that the Mycenaeans took over within a half century: standard dating is around 1450 BCE. But the Santorini dating at least a century earlier, and likely more, put an end to that story pretty conclusively.
We are thus now left with dregs of the old explanation and surprisingly little idea how to even begin reassembling those into a coherent story. 150-170 years seems way too long for the eruption having enabled the Mycenaean context. Worse still, it is now not even certain whether the earthquake swarms that were thought to have temporarily smashed the Minoan settlements (only for the Minoans to rebuild them even grander) can be treated as a separate event, as they are now close enough that they may or may not overlap with the Santorini eruption itself. Plus there is a second, undersea volcano, called somewhat confusingly Kolumbo, close to Santorini - its eruptive history largely unknown. Much there still to learn.
I have also seen both Akrotiri and Pompeii. Unless new finds change this (only 5% had ever been excavated and even that has been a nightmare to preserve...), most eruptions do not merely happen out of the blue. Just look at the relatively recent Santorini earthquake swarms: those would generally tend to (and did!) make people flee quite effectively even using Bronze Age technology. Tsunami did devastate northern Crete, but it only appears to have managed half a kilometer or so inland, which was devastating for coastal settlements but was hardly the cauterizing cataclysm as imagined earlier.