tragic summer haiku d’été – Thera erupts = Théra éclate

tragic summer haiku d’été – Thera erupts = Théra éclate

Thera erupts 
so very far away –
Knossos walloped



Théra éclate,
tellement lointaine –
Knossos détruit

Richard Vallance

In 1370 B.C., the volcano at Thera erupted in a massive explosion, and even though it was far away from Knossos, it set off an earthquake which utterly destroyed the city.

En 1370 av. J.-C., le volcan à Théra a éclaté dans une explosion massive. En dépit de la grande distance entre Théra et Knossos, le volcan a déclenché un tremblement de terre qui a entièrement détruit la ville.

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Beautifully illustrated Mycenaean Linear B tablet on 5 carpenters who owe the tax collector

This is a beautifully illustrated Mycenaean Linear B tablet on 5 carpenters who owe the tax collector:



The illustrations at the top are (left) several designs for Minoan houses (Knossos). Notice that many of them are 3 stories high, which is unusual for the ancient world, except for Rome, with its shabby multi-storied insulae (islands) or apartment buildings, which frequently collapsed. Such can scarcely be said of the Minoan houses, which were built to withstand earthquakes. You can see this for yourself from the top left picture, where the windows in the last 2 houses on the bottom display the heavy wooden beams, both vertical and horizontal, used to reinforce the windows. A cute clay model of a Minoan house at Knossos appears at the top right. The Minoans at Knossos were just as fussy about their typical beautifully fluted Minoan columns and sturdily reinforced doors, as can clearly be seen in these two photos I took when I was in Knossos on May 2, 2012:





I am particularly impressed by the text in Mycenaean Greek, which is easily rendered into Archaic Greek.