When we assign tentative dates of 765 B.C. and 755 B.C. to the destructions by earthquake and fire of Troy VI and VIIa we are admittedly only guessing. The fact that the names of the participants in the Trojan war occur in documents from the time of Tudhalias IV suggests only that this reign immediately preceded the great war. The determination made by the latest excavators of Troy, that level VIII dates from late in the 8th century, provides a terminus ad quem for that same war, supported by the fact that the Homeric age which postdates the war is reasonably securely situated in that same late 8th century time frame. Having said that, we are certain that the dates are accurate within five years. Our confidence is undergirded by evidence from elsewhere in near eastern world, where these same two elements, destruction by earthquake and fire, occur in near succession in roughly the same time frame. It is imperative that we examine each occurance of these tandem destructions as they occur elsewhere in continguous cultures in the same time frame - Hattusas, Ugarit, Syria, Assyria, Israel and Egypt. It is the combined weight of evidence from each of these locations that suggests they are part of a common phenomenon. But before we begin we should state explicitly what we are looking for.

The fact that a series of natural disasters followed by attacks by marauding warfaring peoples occur in the same time frame in geographically remote regions of the near east suggests both a common cause for the natural disasters and a similar cause and effect relationship between the disasters and the ensuing mass migration of warfaring peoples. Whether we are talking about the marauding hordes who dealt the final blows to Ugarit, the rebels who plagued Syria in the days of the prophet Amos, or the sea peoples who invaded Egypt for the first time under the successors to Ramses II, we are dealing with the same phenomenon. All of these "migrations" took place in conjunction with a series of widespread natural disasters, which suggests that the participants were opportunists, taking advantage of a devastation first wrought by nature. The natural disaster precipitated the warfare. We cannot prove this to be the case, but the assumption is reasonable.

A second conclusion can be reached from the material we are about to examine. If we are correct that the natural disasters occurred in the identical time frame in regions separated by many hundreds of miles, then the common cause, if any, must have been some catastrophic event - and if localized (a reasonable assumption) then it must have been centered in the Mediterranean, perhaps on or near the island of Crete. How else can we explain the facts, soon to be presented, that its effects reached as far south and east as Lybia and Sicily/Sardinia (where rebels were driven to invade Egypt) and as far north and east as Hattusas and Assyria (where ash blocked out the sun for months). Countries bordering on the eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean, i.e. Achaea, Troy, Ugarit, Syria, Israel, Egypt, Lybia, Sicily, were all either recipients of or participants in the resulting widespread aggression of warfaring peoples.

While the cause of these widespread natural disasters must ultimately remain undetermined - since we have no certain proof of either its nature or its location - we venture to propose one possible source, needless to say one fraught with controversy. Tentatively, and without prejudice, we suggest that the culprit we seek was the volcanic island of Santorini, known also as Thera, supposedly destroyed in an eruption of unprecedented intensity sometime in the middle of the second millenium B.C. It should not surprise the reader of this revision that we should claim that the dating for the extinction of this volcanic isle needs to be moved forward in time along with the Egyptian 18th dynasty which is said to be contemporareous with it. That it should still be alive and active in the early 8th century is perhaps surprising, but not beyond reason. A brief history of the island is in order before we proceed.

The island known as Santorini lies approximately 75 miles (125 km) north of Crete. According to the traditional history it was an important constituent of the Cretan Minoan confederacy until that civilization ended, supposedly in the early part of the 15th century B.C., at a time when Egypt was ruled by its 18th dynasty. The island, known also by the name Thera, was volcanic, its central peak rising to a height of around 5000 feet (1600 m) According to prevailing scholarly opinion a series of eruptions, culmating in a cataclysmic explosion, destroyed a major part of the island around the year 1470 B.C. The explosion not only destroyed a major part of the island, including much of the Minoan population both there and on Crete, but so weakened the Minoan civilization that it soon succumbed to an invasion of Mycenaean Greeks and vanished from history.

The final vocanic eruption of Thera is the stuff of legends. The explosion has been favorably compared to that of Krakotoa, east of Java in 1883 of the present era. That recent massive upheaval send giant tidal waves throughout the south pacific and filled the atmosphere with ash that spread throughout the world, influencing climate for generations. Santorini, according to the experts, "was about 4 times larger than Krakotoa, and probably at least twice as violent. The fury of Santorini's final explosion is inferred from geologic core samples, from comparison to the detailed observations made on Krakotoa in 1883, and from the simulaneous obliteration of almost all Minoan settlements." One author (unidentified) summarizes the event as follows:

In summer, circa 1470 BC, Santorini exploded. Volcanic ash filled the sky, blotted out the sun, and triggered hail and lightning. A heavy layer of volcanic ash rained down over the Aegean, covering islands and crops. Earthquakes shook the land, and stone structures fell from the motion. When the enormous magma chamber at Santorini finally collapsed to form the existing caldera, enormous tsunamis (tidal waves) spread outward in all directions. The coastal villages of Crete were flooded and destroyed. The only major Minoan structure surviving the waves and earthquakes was the palace at Knossos, far enough insland to escape the tidal waves. But in the days that followed, volcanic ash covered some settlements, and defoliated the island. Buildings were completely covered in volcanic ash by the cataclysmic explosion. In famine from the ash, with the bulk of their civilization washed away, the remaining Minoans were overrun by Mycaeneans from Greece, and Knossos finally fell. (emphasis added)

What was left in the aftermath of the great explosion was the jagged edge of the once proud and majestic volcano, the central caldera now covered by the Aegean sea, the rim less than a third the height of the original peak. A quick glimpse of the site immediately raises a question: What must have been the effects on contiguous areas of the ancient near east, indeed on the world, as this mountain turned to ash polluted the atmosphere and obliterated the sun for days and weeks or even months and years following? The event must have had severe consequences beyond those already noted for the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations. But when precisely did this monumental event take place?

In spite of multiple claims to the contrary, it is not known when the Minoan civilization ended, nor precisedly when the Mycaenean civilization began, even within the chronological schema proposed by the traditional history. Certainly the archaeological results from excavations on Crete provide no definitive answer. Santorini adds little to the overall picture. From excavations at Acrotiri, a Minoan center of population on the rim of Santorini, artifacts linked to the Egyptian 18th dynasty have been found, as they have also on Crete. But that only proves that the destruction at Acrotiri, and the demise of the Minoan civilization, postdates the beginning of the 18th dynasty, and for the revised history that implies that the date of the Santorini eruption must lie after the beginning of the first millenium B.C. If it is dated early in the 10th century, where we have positioned the beginning of the 18th dynasty, then we can cease regarding the Santorini eruption as the cause of the natural disasters that jarred the Mediterranean world in the 8th century B.C. Even if that should be the case, all is not lost, since our discussion has focussed attention on what we believe was the ultimate cause of the 8th century phenomenon. We would simply have to focus our attention elsewhere in the Mediterranean world for a gigantic volcanic eruption of comparable size.

Having said that, we protest strongly that we are not compelled to date the end of the Minoan civilization during the early 18th dynasty, nor are we obliged to accept the claim that the massive eruption that destroyed Santorini actually caused the end of the Minoan civilization. There is absolutely no evidence that either statement is true. It should be noted in this regard that seismic activity at Santorini did not cease with the massive upheaval which destroyed much of the island mountain. Other eruptions have taken place well into modern times. Nor was the massive upheaval the first eruption at the site. Even the experts claim that the inhabitants of the volcanic island were well aware of the vagaries of their mountain and that it had been violently active for decades before the great explosion. Many inhabitants had vacated the cities before the massive eruption occurred. The volcano may well have had violent and destructive phases over the previous several hundred years. It is entirely possible that the experts have minconstrued the evidence, and that the massive upheaval of which we have been speaking followed the destruction of Acrotiri (the result of an eruption of lesser intensity) by upwards of two hundred years. It simply does not follow that all of the cities excavated from the rubble of the island were destroyed at the same time. The matter needs further looking into, but not at this time by this author. Such an investigation lies far beyond the purvue of this historical reconstruction.

We continue to believe that subsequent research will support our initial suggestion that Santorini was the epicenter and ultimate cause of the events we now set about to describe.

We also assume throughout the following discussion that the Thera volcano was active decades before its violent eruption around the year 765 B.C., causing widespread alarm and destruction in countries bordering on the the Mediterranean. The prophets in Israel warned the population of impending doom in the days immediately preceding the great upheaval. Merenptah in Egypt sent famine relief to Hatti as its climate apparently changed and crops failed. Fear gripped the near eastern world. Then came the explosion to end all explosions.

We believe that the earthquake which destroyed Troy VI was a side effect of the great Santorini eruption, though it may well have been triggered by an earlier outburst. If so, then the eruption must also have wrought havoc on the eastern shores of Mycenae, destroying crops and property, disrupting social stability, and precipitating aggressive military action, such as that directed against Troy. It remains to be seen whether the eruption that destroyed Acrotiri and other Minoan cities and the military action that wiped out the remnants of Minoan civilization (assuming the historicity of that event) belong to this same time period or resulted from an earlier phase of volcanic activity at Santorini. In 765 B.C. we are less than 150 years removed from the end of the 18th dynasty. The end of the Minoan culture must be located sometime in this relatively narrow temporal window of opportunity. More than that we cannot say.