Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Banyai AT t-online.de (Michael Banyai)]

I suppose you miss the point Marianne. You use the stratum where the Theran 
pumice was found as a marker for the date as the eruption took place. But 
since there is more than only Theran pumice in Tel ed Dab´a, and we can not 
suppose that all these vulcanos erupted at the same time, the stratum of the 
occurence of this pumice is chronologically irelevant for the eruption. The 
way how the pumice may have found its way to Tel ed Dab´a is open to 
conjecture, but it is clear it is not the direct result of the eruption.

The stratum is only a datum ante quem for the eruption. Should you consider 
it to be a date for the eruption itself, the same should be valid for the 
rest of the foreign provenance pumice. I don´t beleave you would take in 
consideration the simultaneous eruption of various vulcanos in this part of 
the world, all the pumice being washed down till to the Egyptian coast. Being 
this said,  ought all this pumice be the object of trade which somehow 
brought it together at Tel ed Dab´a, where it was probably used for 
hygienical or other purpose.

This doesn´t mean the eruption didn´t touch Egypt. Quite on the contrary, I 
have found reflections of this event in Egyptian literary sources, but from a 
previous age.

Best regards,

Bányai Michael
Stuttgart