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GGG Ping.

Interesting that they picked neutron activation analysis to do the analytical work. I assume they did so because it is (or can be) “non-destructive”, so they get the original piece back, if slightly radioactive. These days NAA is considered “ancient” elemental analysis technology, with ICPMS (inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy) being the method of choice for multi-element trace analysis.

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Thanks blam.




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	Gods Graves Glyphs	Thanks Blam. The eruption of the volcanic island Santorini, about 1,600 B.C., represents a particular time indicator. It was so powerful, that the entire Minoan culture was obliterated. When we find today this layer of ashes respectively pumice in various archaeological excavations, this offers immediately a time marker and enables us to synchronize different cultures. This also enables us to determine which rulers were in power in different locations at a certain time," states Steinhauser. When a pumice lump from Santorini is found in an excavation, we can at least say that the Santorini volcano must have already erupted, and the time of the eruption corresponds consequently to the maximum age of the excavation discovery place. That's fascinating. The ash layer generally attributed to the Santorini eruption averages just millimeters in thickness in eastern Crete, and the only place where ashfall can be measured in feet is, AFAIK, on tiny Santorini itself. There's literally no connection between the decline in Minoan civilization and any kind of natural disaster (the sites were burned, decades after the supposed eruption, when the Mycenaeans took over). Sturt Manning, a strong advocate of a supereruption on Thera in the 17th century BC, wrote (in 2000, in a revision), "The Tell el-Dab'a3 samples have now been identified as related to the Kos volcano (Peltz et al. 1999)." Tell el-Dab'a is the Egyptian site where artifacts made of pumice were assumed by everyone (since no one had bothered to check) to have come from the alleged supereruption of Thera. I'd also note that the Kos eruption so referred to took place 10s of 1000s of years ago, and so one has to wonder why anyone would write that the Greeks had an exclusive supply of pumice at all. :') To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are Blam, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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