The Puzzle of the Minoan Erupti-News from Santorini and Egyptn

Description

Walter L. Friedrich, University of Aarhus and Walter Kutschera, University of Vienna

Two olive trees that were buried alive by the Minoan eruption of Santorini give us a direct and precise radiocarbon date of the catastrophic event: The volcano erupted 1613 ± 13 (calendar years) BC. The information of an olive branch with 72 growth rings was used for radiocarbon dating using wiggle matching technique. A second olive tree was excavated in July 2007, which is not yet analysed. It was only 9 meters away from the first found. The olive trees were close to a man made wall from the Bronze Age, giving us the impression that there formerly was an olive grove close to a settlement, situated on a terrace of the caldera rim of that time. The trees were still in situ standing upright and in life position when they were covered by the pumice of the eruption.

Radiocarbon dating from archaeological sites on Santorini and from surrounding islands, and from the Tell el-Daba site in the Nile Delta supports the date from the olive tree. However, archaeological evidence linked to the Historical Chronology of Ancient Egypt suggests that the eruption must have happened after the beginning of the New Kingdom in Egypt (1530 BC). This finding constitutes a serious conflict between the methods of Science and those of the Humanities. Both sides have strong arguments. We will mainly discuss the science aspects of the dating, but we will also attempt to include the archaeological evidence as well.