The Minoan Eruption of Santorini Radiocarbon dated to 1613 ± 13 BC - geological and stratigraphical considerations

Description

Walter L. Friedrich¹ and Jan Heinemeier

The Minoan eruption of Santorini is one of the strongest experienced by mankind in the Bronze Age. Its enormous strength was a result of a long period of volcanic inactivity which can be evidenced at the Akrotiri excavation and on the site where the olive trees were growing. The eruption produced a huge fan of tephra (pumice and ashes) over the eastern part of the Mediterranean. This tephra provides a valuable time marker: all objects that are in direct and undisturbed contact with the tephra are synchronous. Thus, dating this tephra layer is of paramount interest for the chronology of the Aegean world, Egypt and the Levant. Due to ideal finds of two olive trees  (a second tree was excavated in 2007) buried alive in the pumice of the Minoan eruption, it is now possible to provide the most direct radiocarbon date of the eruption: 1613 ± 13 BC (Friedrich et al. 2006).

Both trees were alive when they were buried by the pumice of the eruption. They were standing upright, and olive leaves were found close to their bases. Close to the tree found in 2007 a piece of Akrotiri-style pottery was discovered by N. Sigalas. Both trees were preserved by charring, and the latter was also partly pyritised. Since the trees were growing at an altitude of 150 m above sea level and at a distance of more than 2.5 km from the active volcanic zone on Santorini, it is unlikely that the radiocarbon values published in 2006 could have been affected by old CO2.