Poseidon's horses: Plate tectonics and earthquake storms in the Late Bronze Age Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean

In light of the accumulated evidence now published, the oft-denigrated sugg estion that major earthquakes took place in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterr anean areas during the late 13th and early 12th centuries BC must be recons idered. A new study of earthquakes occurring in the Aegean and Eastern Medi terranean region during the 20th century, utilizing data recorded since the invention of seismic tracking devices, shows that this area is criss-cross ed with major fault lines and that numerous temblors of magnitude 6.5(enoug h to destroy modern buildings, let alone those of antiquity) occur frequent ly. It can be demonstrated that such major earthquakes often occur in group s, known as "sequences" or storms," in which one large quake is followed da ys, months, or even years later by others elsewhere on the now-weakened fau lt line. When a map of the areas in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean re gion affected (i.e. shaken) by 20th century AD earthquakes of magnitude 6.5 and greater and with an intensity of VII or greater is overlaid on Robert Drews' map of sites destroyed in these same regions during the so-called "C atastrophe" near the end of the Late Bronze Age, it is readily apparent tha t virtually all of these LBA sites lies within the affected ("high-shaking" ) areas. while the evidence is not conclusive, based on these new data we w ould suggest that an "earthquake storm" may have occurred in the Late Bronz e Age Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean during the years 1225-1175 BC. This "storm" may have interacted with the other forces at work in these areas c. 1200 BC and merits consideration by archaeologists and prehistorians.