WHAT IF Troy was destroyed by an earthquake? What really brought down the walls of Jericho or the Colossus of Rhodes? These are some of the questions Stanford University geophysicist Amos Nur raises in "Apocalypse: Earthquakes, Archaeology, and the Wrath of God" (Princeton University Press: 324 pp., $26.95), a book that posits seismicity -- rather than invaders or social forces -- as the prime dynamic behind the fall of ancient civilizations.
Admittely, this isn't something I've noticed very much, a strong anti-earthquake bias going around. I haven't read the book, so perhaps Nur is taking the idea to a hitherto unknown scale of destruction. Seems like a pretty straightforward archaeological problem.