Do any of our classically/archeologically informed readers know whether Charles Pellegrino's Unearthing Atlantis is remotely worth reading? It wandered its way home from the library and MrsDarwin has been skimming it.
On the one hand, we'd be interested to read something solid about the Minoan excavations on Thera/Santorini, and I'd heard the book mentioned somewhere, which was why I picked it up. However, some of the bits MrsDarwin has been reading aloud to me covering other historical periods (he provides a whirlwind tour of medieval and classical history which is so ignorant as to be comical) suggest to me that he doesn't know what he's talking about. And I gather he signs on to the theory that the explosion of Thera was the source of the plagues of Egypt in Exodus -- a theory which fits neither Biblical nor archeological chronologies, and indeed is off by 200-400 years from the dates I've seen for Exodus.
Given all that, I'm deeply skeptical of his apparent claim (not having finished the book) that Minoan civilization was centered on Thera rather than Crete, and that it fell as a direct result of the Thera irruption.
Is there indeed any reason to think Thera was the center of Minoan civilization? Or is this guy simply smoking History Channel crack?
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