The argument has been made that there was " a meteorological event of far-reaching proportions , one of the major aftereffects , we strongly suspect , of the Thera eruption " and that the stele reflects an eye-witness account of the eruption . Others argue that given the description in the stele , this is unlikely . Archaeologists have traditionally placed the date of the Theran eruption at approximately 1500 BCE . Radiocarbon dates , including analysis of an olive branch buried beneath a lava flow from the volcano that gave a date between 1627 BCE and 1600 BCE ( 95 % confidence interval ) , suggest an eruption date more than a century earlier than suggested by archaeologists . Thus , the radiocarbon dates and the archaeological dates are in substantial disagreement
Thera eruption
Minoan eruption
Tempest Stele