The Santorini Pottery Problem

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By Daniel Gregg

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1632 BC Thera Eruption
1632 BC Exodus
1632-1622 Egypt Recovery Period; Minoan Migration
1622 Apepi consolidates power in Avaris
1622-1600 
1575 Ahmose I and New Kingdom Reconquest

Archaeologists have been going back and forth for years over the date of the Thera eruption. The problem is this. The pottery style found buried by the Eruption (Late Minoan 1A) is closely related to the style of pattery found in the context of the Hyksos Pharaoh Apepi. And so it is assumed that the eruption was contempoary with Apepi's reign, rather than just before it.

Here is the solution. The Thera Eruption occurred in the last year of Sheshi in 1632 BC. Egypt was devastated, and the Nile delta depopulated when Israel departed. During the recovery period, while still consolidating power, Sheshi's sucessor Apepi encouraged the Minoans fleeing their devastated lands in Crete to settle in Egypt. So the Minoan elites and their artisans migrated. They brought with them the very pottery styles they had been manufacturing in Crete from the time of the Eruption. And they reproduced this massively in Egypt using the Minoan style with local Egyptian clay.

Because the styles matched, it was assumed that the eruption was contemporary with the style. And because the Minoans migrated, the style vanished sooner in Crete than it did in Egypt. But Crete is only to be dated by Egypt, so the Apepi height of the style placed the same type of pottery at Thera at too low a date. In fact, the makers of the pottery had migrated and reproduced the same type of pottery in their exile from Crete. Overlooking this anthropological fact is what created the problem of a debate over the eruption of Thera ca. 1628 vs. 1540. And now the consensus is creeping backward toward the earlier date. It is ca. 1592 BC right now.