Broken pieces of this stele were found in the 3rd Pylon of the temple of Karnak at Thebes between 1947 and 1951 by French archaeologists. It was restored and published by Claude Vandersleyen in 1967 and 1968. The part of the stele that describes the storm is the most damaged part of the stele, with many lacunae in the meteorological description. The other parts of the stele are much better preserved. Here are some descriptions of the storm.
unleashed, without...... more than the roar of the crowd;... was powerful... on the mountains more than the turbulence of the
cataract which is at Elephantine. Each house,... each shelter that they reached...
... were floating in the water like the barks of papyrus of the royal residence for... day...
with no one able to light the torch anywhere. Then His Majesty said 'How these surpass the power of the great god and the wills of the divinities!' And His Majesty descended
in his boat, his council following him. The at the east and the west, silent, for they had no more clothes on them...
after the power of the god was manifested. Then His Majesty arrived in Thebes... this statue; it received what it had desired.
His Majesty set about to strengthen the Two Lands, to cause the water to evacuate without his, to provide them with silver,
with gold, with copper, with oil, with clothing, with all the products they desired; after which His Majesty rested in the palace - life, health, strength.
It was then that His Majesty was informed that the funerary concessions had been invaded, that the sepulchral chambers had been damaged, that the structures of funerary enclosures had been undermined, that the pyramids had collapsed
all that existed had been annihilated. His Majesty then ordered the repair of the chapels which had fallen in ruins in all the country, restoration of the...
One interpretation is that the stele is propaganda put out by the pharaoh, to cover up the supposed depredations of officials of the embattled 17th Dynasty drawing upon the financial resources of the temples during the escalating conflict with the Hyksos.
The argument has been made that there was "a meteorological event of far-reaching proportions, one of the major aftereffects, we strongly suspect, of the Thera eruption" and that the stele reflects an eye-witness account of the eruption. Others argue that given the description in the stele, this is unlikely. Archaeologists have traditionally placed the date of the Theran eruption at approximately 1500 BCE. Radiocarbon dates, including analysis of an olive branch buried beneath a lava flow from the volcano that gave a date between 1627 BCE and 1600 BCE, suggest an eruption date more than a century earlier than suggested by archaeologists. Thus, the radiocarbon dates and the archaeological dates are in substantial disagreement. In 2014, Nadine Moeller and Robert Ritner offered a new translation of the Tempest Stela. They believe the unusual weather patterns described on the slab were the result of a massive volcano explosion at Thera. They also suggest that the Egyptian pharaoh Ahmose I ruled at a time closer to the Thera eruption than previously thought; in the conventional but disputed Egyptian chronology he ruled from. Additional scientific research published in 2018 also suggests a correlation. Volcanic eruptions are frequently accompanied by earthquakes. Egypt is one of few African nations that is occasionally hit by strong earthquakes. So it is possible that Egypt was affected by the atmospheric effects of the Minoan eruption and was struck by an earthquake.
