The islands of Santorini, Greece are a large volcano, a remnant of a catastrophic eruption during the late Bronze Age. This eruption not only formed the modern geography of Santorini, but forced the islanders to abandon their home and sent tsunamis across the eastern Mediterranean.
Sometime during the mid-second millennium BC, Santorini erupted. It was one of the biggest volcanic events in human history. In the past 800 years only Mount Tambora in Indonesia has erupted with such force, and Tambora was responsible for a global “year without a summer” in 1816. The eruption sent devastating tsunamis across the eastern Mediterranean that smashed into the Minoans on Crete, at the time one of the world’s most advanced civilisations.
