Tempest Stela, World’s oldest weather report found in Egypt

Archaeologists in the first week of April 2014 discovered a 3500-year-old inscription on a stone block in Egypt and claimed that it is the oldest weather report of the world. The discovery has been named as Tempest Stela and it is being considered that this would provide new evidence about the chronology of events in the ancient Middle East.

The discovery is a calcite block stone that measures six feet in size. The text marked on it is presented in horizontal lines and is copied on both sides of a calcite block.

Nadine Moeller and Robert Ritner, two scholars of the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute who have translated the 40-line inscription said that this discovery illustrates about the unusual weather patterns. They also claims that the patterns on the calcite block were the result of a massive volcano explosion at Thera, at present it is island of Santroini in the Mediterranean Sea.  

Archaeologists claims that this discovery is a new translation suggests that the pharaoh Ahmose of Egypt ruled at a time close to the Thera eruption. They also claimed that the Stela dates back to the reign of the pharaoh Ahmose, the first pharaoh of the 18th dynasty.

The research was published in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies.