The Tempest Stele (alt. Storm Stele) was erected by Ahmose I early in the eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, circa 1550 BCE. The stele describes a great storm striking Egypt during this time, destroying tombs, temples and pyramids in the Theban region and the work of restoration ordered by the king.[1]
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There are Egyptologists who believe the stele to be propaganda put out by the pharaoh, the "tempest" being the depredations of officials of the embattled seventeenth dynasty of Egypt drawing upon the financial resources of the temples during the escalating conflict with the Hyksos.[1] This would constitute an official re-writing of history, for which there are other parallels, such as Hatshepsut's Speos Artemidos, which records "storms" that similarly destroyed temples, which she restored during her reign, while pointedly cursing the Hyksos and "toppling what had been made" there.[2][3]
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". [4] Others argue that given the description in the stele, this is unlikely.[5]