What caused a depression and the decline of so many rich
Mediterranean kingdoms around the end of the Bronze Age?
Eric H. Cline is the author of 1177 B.C. The Year
Civilization Collapsed. Susan Kristol has written a review in the Weekly
Standard (May 12,2014).
The catastrophe was apparently the final volcano eruption
after a string of earthquakes on the island of Santorini, then called Thera
which decimated Akrotiri.
I remember viewing a program about this disaster that
claimed agriculture was harmed around the world for two years due to the
resulting climate change.
If you go on Wikipedia, the mass of geographical data
suggests that this was the world record for catastrophic volcano eruptions.
But, is Wikipedia correct?
Archaeologists have frequently guessed the date of the
eruption as about 1500 B. C.; but perhaps these guesstimates are changing.
We can argue about the dates, but what are the lessons to be
learned? If this was actually Plato’s Atlantis, his suggestion was too much
high living is disastrous.
Most Minoans certainly enjoyed a lively and sophisticated life
as indicated by their art. The citizens of Akrotiri were able to figure out the
oncoming disaster and fled.
That survival was not part of Plato’s story, so perhaps this
was not Atlantis; perhaps he made it all up. Knowing about the impending
Doomsday they left.
That was more than the people of Pompeii could
discern. Is there no way to control volcanos and other disasters of Nature? Can
we forecast disasters?
Deb Stelton
