HJ Bruins, 2018 The Trustees of the British Museum, Londres
\A destructive volcanic eruption, a mystery and a new key: after all, we were wrong about the New Kingdom of Egypt.
This is the first study to gain access to artefacts in British museums for radiocarbon dating, and examines the transition between the Second Intermediate Period and the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt.
One of most powerful volcanic eruptions of the last 10,000 years It occurred on the Greek island of Thera (Santorini) in the Aegean Sea, but its precise date, somewhere between the late 17th and 16th centuries BC, has long been debated. But the authors of the new published in PLOS One help to decipher the mystery.
A central question has been how this important geological event fits into the established chronology of Egyptian rulers. Now, the researchers’ analysis indicates that the eruption occurred earlierduring the Second Intermediate Period, before the rise of the New Kingdom. The findings strongly support a “lower” (more recent) chronology for the beginning of the 18th dynasty.
Scientists thus discovered that, contrary to traditional archaeological understanding, the volcanic eruption did not occur during the Egyptian New Kingdom, but rather earlier, during the Second Intermediate Period.
“Our results indicate that the Second Intermediate Period lasted considerably longer than traditional assessments, and the New Kingdom began later”, says researcher Hendrik J. Bruins.
