Biblical Hebrew Forum

[MarianneLuban AT aol.com]

In a message dated 8/21/2004 12:43:50 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
Banyai AT t-online.de writes:


> I suppose you will take account by the point made by Sturt Manning 
> concerning the chemical composition of the Tel ed Dab´a pumice. It comes 
> not only 
> from Thera but from several other sources, so it is obviously brought to 
> Egypt 
> by trade and not the result of a contemporary eruption. Cris Bennett has 
> formulated Mannings conclusions in short (I quote to your benefit):
> 
> > The most direct connection alleged between the Thera eruption and Egypt 
> > is 
> > the pumice found at Tell el-Daba. I was interested to see on Manning's > 
> website (http://www.rdg.ac.uk/~lasmanng/testoftime.html) that analysis of > 
> this pumice indicates that in fact it comes from several different sources, 
> > 
> including Thera, indicating that it most likely came to Tell el-Daba in 
> trade... (concerning the supposed chronological conection between Thera and 
> 18-th 
> dynasty) Manning's position is that (I quote from the website) "the key 
> Late 
> Minoan IA period was not ..... contemporary (even in part) with the New 
> Kingdom (18th Dynasty) of Egypt." 

Well, Manning has a right to his chronological conclusions--but how any 
pumice from Thera came to Tel el-Daba can only be conjecture on his part.  
Following the final cataclysmic explosion on Thera, the island was 
uninhabited for the 
next 200 years.  See Marinatos and Doumas, the two main excavators at 
Santorini (Thera).  Plus, nearby islands also suffered considerably from the 
effects 
of the blast--so who do you suppose would be the people doing all the trading 
in pumice with the Egyptians?  Pumice from Thera has been found all the way 
to 
the Black Sea--so that some can have been washed up in Egypt is hardly a 
far-fetched notion.