Provenancing of archeological pumice finds from North Sinai

Abstract

Seven pumice samples from excavations in North Sinai have been investigated with respect to their geochemical composition. This type of volcanic rock has been used as an abrasive and thus has been an object of trade since antiquity. With the help of Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis, six of these Bronze Age samples could be correlated to their volcanic sources on the islands of Santorini, Nisyros and Giali (Greece) using the typical element concentrations ("chemical fingerprint"). The source of one pumice sample remains unidentified excluding, however, the Santorini eruption as a possible source. The concluding section of this article discusses the possible contribution, however indirect, of the pumice from Sinai and elsewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean to the controversial issue of the accurate date of the "Minoan" eruption of Santorini.

The Chronology of Tell El-Daba: A Crucial Meeting Point of14C Dating, Archaeology, and Egyptology in the 2nd Millennium BC

“…An important time marker in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC is the cataclysmic volcanic eruption of Thera/Santorini, which has been traced by "fingerprinting" of tephra in various regions of the eastern Mediterranean (e.g. Steinhauser et al 2006Steinhauser et al , 2010Bruins et al 2008;Sterba et al 2009). Despite numerous efforts to pin down this date through archaeological evidence linked to the Egyptian chronology and by 14 C dating, no consensus between both methods has yet been reached (Baiter 2006;Friedrich et al 2006Friedrich et al ,2009Manning et al 2006Manning et al , 2009aBietak and Höflmayer 2007;Wiener 2009;Bruins 2010;Bietak 2012).…”

Radiocarbon dating of the Theran eruption

“…The investigators note that if the Aegean Long Chronology were correct, it would indeed be most peculiar a phenomenon that pumice from the Minoan Santorini eruption were abundantly available along the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean, yet for some reason had been left unnoticed and unused by the local inhabitants for 100-150 years (Steinhauser et al, 2010), to which we may add that it would also be peculiar if so valuable a substance with 14 known uses in antiquity, and especially useful in metallurgy (Wiener and Allen, 1998), was ignored for a century before traders brought it to all the Egyptian, Levantine, Cypriot and Aegean sites where it is attested , as suggested by Manning (1999) (cf. also Bietak, 2004).…”

“…The traditional chronology is based on Egyptian and Near Eastern textual/historical and astronomical records and numerous archaeological interconnections, now buttressed by analyses of pumice from the Theran eruption found in connection with Egyptian New Kingdom material. The oscillation of the calibration curve in the relevant period with peaks at c. 1615 and 1530 BC complicates the effort to date the eruption of the Theran volcano by radiocarbon measurements alone (Wiener, 1998(Wiener, , 2001(Wiener, , 2003a(Wiener, , 2003b(Wiener, , 2006(Wiener, , 2009a(Wiener, , 2009b(Wiener, , 2009cManning et al, 2009;Friedrich et al, 2009;Steinhauser et al, 2010).…”