The Mystery of the Ancient Volcano That May Have Inspired Atlantis

The latest controversy in a bitter archaeological dispute involves—I kid you not—a literal olive branch.

The olive branch comes from the Greek island of Santorini, where a volcano erupted more than three millennia ago, spewing gas, ash, pumice, and boulders into the sky. Once depleted, the volcano collapsed in on itself. So violent was the eruption, some have speculated, that it ended the once prosperous Minoan civilization, instigated a volcanic winter as far away as China, and inspired the 12 plagues of Exodus as well as the myth of Atlantis—claims that are to varying degrees controversial. But nothing is as controversial, it turns out, as the debate over when the Santorini volcano actually erupted.

The olive in Santorini under several feet of pumice from that ancient eruption. It looked as if it had been buried alive. They got excited. Because trees grow a new ring every year, the variation in carbon-14 from year to year can be “wiggle matched” to historical levels of carbon-14 in the atmosphere. Using this method, Friedrich