Dating pharaoh Ahmose, first king of dynasty 18 – by c14 methodology. At https://phys.org/news/2025-10-radiocarbon-dating-egyptian-artifacts-thera.html … this is a peculiar one that we may suppose will quickly be contradicted. The article highlights the disparity with a 17th or 16th century date for the Thera [Santorini] volcanic eruption on an island just north of Crete, in comparison with the C14 dates for Ahmose. The latter was achieved via mudbrick from the Ahmose Temple at Abydos, a linen in a burial, and 6 wooden shabti sticks. All of them came from the British Museum. The date from Ahmose suggests he lived quite a long bit after the Thera volcano – yet it is thought it erupted in his reign, or shortly before he defeated the Hyksos. It may even have been one of the reasons he was able to turn the tables on the otherwise powerful Hyksos invaders ensconced in the delta. A tsunami wave running up the delta and pushing the flow of the Nile into reverse, flooding the countryside. This is of course just one idea for his successful military campaign. However, don’t expect Egyptologists to jump to attention because of these new dates. These are artifacts gathering dust in a museum – and not exactly the best material to obtain a C14 derived date. Egyptologists have at their fingertips a carefully created history of Egypt based on inscriptions and known reign lengths. In order for this new idea to work it means extending the Second Intermediate Period – and although some historians might favour that idea, many others would not. What is really required is a new C14 project to arrive at a more reliable dating of the whole of dynasty 18. Not just the reign of Ahmose. Not only that archaeologists need to get a grip with anomalies in the C14 methodology. Anomalies that led to the calibrated model of dating by C14. We have a problem as a known date for the conquest of Nineveh in ancient Assyria is contradicted by a succession of C14 dates – of around, or up to 150 years too old. If this relates to old carbon belched out by the Thera volcano that means the actual date for the eruption may also be up to 150 years out of kilter. It just so happens this coincides with the so called Hallstart anomaly in Europe – a plateau in C14 dates that make it difficult for European archaeologists to date artifacts. A period surprisingly similar in time to the 150 year anomaly in western Asia. In other words, was the calibration method a device simply to hide this anomaly?
Having said that we have no evidence that old carbon would have reached Egypt – even though calibration was applied to Egyptian dating results. Is the anomaly between the date achieved for Ahmose comparable to the 150 year anomaly at Nineveh? As far as is known the eruption created a cloud of material that went west over what is now Turkey and further east. That would include Assyria. Egypt, on the other hand, could have been affected by a Mediterranean tsunami wave generated by the Thera volcano. This is not a necessity as the other possible location for Thera, favoured by some Egyptologists, is the late reign of Hatshepsu or early reign of Thutmose III. This is because pumice was discovered in a workshop of the latter’s reign that had arrived in Egypt from Thera. It copuld have arrived on the tide. It was used for various processes and could have been commonly found in the delta for a lengthy period of time – possibly all the way back to the reign of Ahmose. Lots of mileage in this story yet.