“Tempest Stela of Ahmose”: World’s Oldest Weather Report
Temptest Stela: A 40-line inscription on a 3,500-year-old and 6-foot-tall calcite stone block from Egypt. This is being considered as one of the oldest weather reports. It describes rain, darkness and the “the sky being in storm without cessation, louder than the cries of the masses”. It dates back to the reign of the Pharaoh Ahmose, the first pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty and whose rule is considered as the start of the New Kingdom, a time when Egypt’s power reached its height.
Linguists Dr Robert Ritner and Dr Nadine Moeller from the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute affirmed that the unusual weather patterns described on the slan were result of a volcano explosion at Thera (the present-day island of Santorini in the Mediterranean Sea).
How this discovery could re-write the chronology of events in the ancient Middle East?
The evidence from Tempest Stela may shift Pharaoh Chronology. Temptest Stela describes the outcome of the Thera’s volcanic explosion, the accurate dating of the Temptest Stela itself and reign of Pharaoh Ahmose. This discovery is a new translation suggests that the Pharaoh Ahmose of Egypt ruled at a time close to the Thera’s volcanic explosion. The reign of Pharaoh Ahmose is at present considered to be about 1550 B.C. but with this discovery it could actually be 30-50 years earlier.
Thus, this new discovery would provide an improved understanding of the role of the environment in the development and destruction of empires in the ancient Middle East. Now, the fresh chronology will help clarify how Pharaoh Ahmose rose to power and superceded the Canaanite rulers of Egypt –the ‘Hyksos’.