Explosive Santorini

In the morning the Ruby Princess anchored off Santorini. Our excursion group met in the Princess Theater at 8:00 AM. Our guide was a woman named Katerina, “Katie.” She took us all over the island. We especially enjoyed the free time we had photographing the town of Oia (pronounced EE-ya) on the north of the island. She brought a very interesting presentation at the archaeological museum, which related that there has been found a tree trunk destroyed in the eruption of the thirteenth century B. C. Carbon-14 tests place the eruption sometime around 1630 B. C. I have been trying to figure how such a date might fit in with the Exodus from Egypt. Pharaonic chronological records, as I recall from seminary, place the date of the Exodus sometime around 1240 B. C. Still, the notion that the Thera (“Fera” is the pronunciation of this word by its Muslim conquerors, who were unable to pronounce the “th” sound) eruption caused the Red Sea to recede, then to destroy the Egyptian Army in a tsunami are intriguing. Karen and Bob Crone from Atlanta were assigned to our table.Read more