From the AGU Geophysical Research Letters: Recent geodetic unrest at Santorini Caldera
Key Points
- Santorini is deforming appreciably for the 1st time since its last eruption
- A dense GPS network has unprecedented data coverage
- Activity is centered in the region that blew-out in the 1650 BC Minoan Eruption
In 1650 B.C.E., a series of massive volcanic eruptions decimated the ancient seafaring Minoan civilization. Over the next 4 millennia, the largely subaquatic Santorini caldera had a series of smaller eruptions, with five such events within the past 600 years, and ending most recently in 1950. From the air, the Santorini caldera appears as a small cluster within the larger collection of Greek islands in the southern Aegean Sea. Following a 60-year lull, Santorini woke up on 9 January 2011 with a swarm of low-magnitude earthquakes.
A GPS monitoring system installed in the area in 2006 gave Newman et al. a stable background against which to compare the effects of the reawakened volcano. By June 2011 the regional GPS stations showed that they had been pushed 5-32 millimeters (0.2-1.3 inches) farther from the caldera than they had been just six months earlier. Following these initial results, the authors bolstered the GPS network and conducted a more extensive survey in September 2011, which confirmed that the land near the volcano was swelling. Continued monitoring from September through January 2012 showed the expansion was accelerating, reaching a rate of 180 mm (7 in) per year.
Using a model that interpreted the source of the deformation as an expanding sphere, the authors suggest that the expansion is due to an influx of 14.1 million cubic meters (498 million cubic feet) of magma into a chamber 4-5 kilometers (2.5-3.1 miles) below the surface. The authors suggest that the ongoing expansion is not necessarily the signal of an impending eruption, adding that the recent swelling represents only a fraction of that which led to the Minoan eruption. However, they warn that even a small eruption could trigger ash dispersion, tsunamis, landslides, or other potentially dangerous activity.
Source: Geophysical Research Letters, doi:10.1029/2012GL051286, 2012 http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2012GL051286.
Title: Recent Geodetic Unrest at Santorini Caldera, Greece
Authors: Andrew V. Newman: School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA;
Stathis Stiros, Fanis Moschas, and Vasso Saltogianni: Department of Civil Engineering, University of Patras, Greece;
Lujia Feng: Nanyang Technological University, Earth Observatory of Singapore, Singapore;
Panos Psimoulis: Institute of Geodesy and Photogrammetry, Switzerland;
Yan Jiang: University of Miami, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, USA;
Costas Papazachos, Dimitris Panagiotopoulos, Eleni Karagianni, and Domenikos Vamvakaris: Geophysical Laboratory, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.
Abstract:
After approximately 60 years of seismic quiescence within Santorini caldera, in January 2011 the volcano reawakened with a significant seismic swarm and rapidly expanding radial deformation. The deformation is imaged by a dense network of 19 survey and 5 continuous GPS stations, showing that as of 21 January 2012, the volcano has extended laterally from a point inside the northern segment of the caldera by about 140 mm and is expanding at 180 mm/yr. A series of spherical source models show the source is not migrating significantly, but remains about 4 km depth and has expanded by 14 million m3 since inflation began. A distributed sill model is also tested, which shows a possible N-S elongation of the volumetric source. While observations of the current deformation sequence are unprecedented at Santorini, it is not certain that an eruption is imminent as other similar calderas have experienced comparable activity without eruption.
I wonder whether the Germans would tax us for any extra CO2 released be the beast…
Maybe the EU could get some money back via Carbon-tax when Santorini blows?
Year 1. Candidate: For it’s sheer uniqness: England winning the World Cup!!!! in ’66
But being as where on this, they should drop the AD as being from the birth of christ, as we know it’s at least 4 years too late, but his death on the cross, for which we know the exact time and date.
Now we know what Greece did with all that bad debt.
“TheBigYinJames says:
April 17, 2012 at 12:24 am
Isn’t Santorini the most likely candidate for the fall of Atlantis legends? I remember seeing it on TV.”
I saw something along those lines also. If I remember correctly, the connection made was in thinking that Plato got the idea from the Egytians who had a story about a great civilization being destroyed suddenly by the sea. The show thought that was refering the Minoans being destroy by the sea, the result of Sanorini’s eruption.
To Scottish Sceptic: Well said. It is truly silly to try to remove the references BC and AD after they’ve been used for well over 1000 years just because some now don’t like to what the original references refered.
Hello Myrrh,
I don’t believe we’ve electronically conversed before. I read your informed and colourful posts with great interest, as they never failed to disappoint. “Never say never,” I guess.
“If I recall, and it is rather a long time since I took part in discussions about G-D, BCE/ACE variation came from the Jews who tend to get apoplectic whenever Christ is mentioned and the common use of BC/AD offended them because they knew what it meant.” For as long as I’ve been around, Myrrh, I’ve never met a single Jew who has been offended by the use of AD or BC or “whenever Christ” is mentioned. Most, in fact, use those terms without qualms. Before we continue, let me rest your mind that there is, never was and likely never will be a Jewish conspiracy to rip out those dearly beloved terms from the grasps of Christian children. But if you say you found yourself in a den of apoplectic brethren of mine, let me apologise on their behalf; they have no business demanding you use BCE/ACE as you have no business demanding they use BC/AD. Fair enough?
“..you have your own calendar, why not use that when writing to a Jewish audience?” Gosh, sorry about that one, Myrrh, didn’t know there was shortage, a “peak calendar” crisis as it were. The Hebrew Calendar is used fairly frequently in my Orthodox digs, especially regarding festivals and such and in scholarship is typically reserved for theological topics and classical Jewish lit, where such dates make more sense to the specialized readers. Secularism being the norm for all of us now, it would be rather awkward in modern scholarship or daily use. Si fueris Romae, Romano vivito more…
Regardless, it seems there are plenty now who use the BCE/ACE who are neither Jewish or religious in any way. Some atheists and secularists avail themselves of the term and I imagine that folks from other religions do too. It’s the kind of thing that happens in an intellectually free society where neither Crown nor Church have much say in such matters anymore. In search of the “missing heat,” the hidden cause of the astounding turbulence here over the BCE/ACE, I’m guessing that some are trying to push the “new” use as a politically correct, “culturally sensitive” measure of some sort, and trying to force it on every one. Well, Myrrh, just for the record, that would be assinine and wrong….must I apologize for them too? Need I send you a pair free tickets to the Fiddler on the Roof? I can’t bear responsibility for the opinions of groups I’m not even aware of, nor for your poor choice of Jewish debating partners, and while I feel for a climate wars comrade’s suffering, I’m not about to change the way I annotate my dates…that would be as relevant to anything out there as the date of the Big Bang to this discussion.
@Nerd:
There’s pretty good evidence for sand slurry based sawing of rocks in ancient times. Needs a plate (can be most anything, even rope) to drag the sand, and critters to move the copper slab or ‘whatever’ through the groove. Add sand and water and time…
More interesting is the evidence that they knew how to take sand and lye and make ‘liquid stone’:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/12/22/liquid-stone/
A process we have recreated in reduced form as cement, and in 1/2 way there form as a kind of poured stone. (One of the links has Egyptian style busts reproduced in modern liquid stone that is claimed to be indistinguishable from real stuff). It would explain a lot of the “impossible cuts” of square inside corners et al. Oh, and one builder tomb has an inscription claiming he knew the secret of liquid stone…
@All:
So now we’re adding ACE to the list? BC BCE AD CE ACE? Anno Domini (year of our Lord) is itself off by about 4 years from the actual birthdate, so doesn’t really reference Christ as a time marker. But hey, if you want to use a different system, there are dozens of them. Islamic, Judaic, Chinese, etc. etc. No need to screw up this one. So I’m sticking with BC and AD (as they ARE easier to tell one from the other and find via google-foo). And when someone says BCE to me I respond with “So, you are one of those folks promoting Before Christian Era?”… I’ve also encouraged several religious folks as they proselytize at my door to call it that as well. Christian Era is soo much easier to remember than Anno Domini…
I explored that all a bit here:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/oct-nov-dec-8-9-10-tenth-eleventh-twelfth-months/
And found that the Ethiopians had it closer than The West. So IF we’re going to screw around with it, we likely ought to swap over to theirs while we’re at it.
BTW, as long as we’re changing things, those roman emperors don’t need praise any more and it offends me. So lets take those extra days off their months and give them back to February.
I worked up a decent calendar system that uses 12 months of 30 days each, with ONE holiday on each of the equinox days and summer solstice while the winter solstice gets 2 most years, and 3 in leap years. It is roughly based on the early calendar found in the Bible but with a couple of bits ‘fixed up’. (Expanded from 360 days to 365 plus a leap year day)
The ancient Egyptians used a calendar that reset each year based on Sirius rising day, so never got out of sync. I proposed doing the same for determining when to add the leap day, but Wayne Jackson came up with a very simple way to calculate leap years that works for many thousands of years, so I’ve called it “Smith’s Calendar – Jackson’s Leap”:
So if we’re going to monkey around, how about we do those fixes too? Then we get all the months the same size and a calendar that stays in sync with the seasons every year for a few million years with a simple formula (or can just have Sirius Rising tell you when to add a day).
We also get to take as a holiday each of the key equinox and solstice days without needing to call them things like “Easter” or “Passover” or…
We could even set the “start date” to something convenient like, oh, the first atomic bomb blast. That way folks would easily be able to mark BB AB via radioactive markers in ice, sediments, etc…
Or we could just leave everything alone and not mess with it…
Per Atlantis:
I’ve read the Plato. Looks to me like that puts it outside the Mediterranean, likely up near Britain (the account has large walls of ice / mountains around the city, so not in the middle of a warmish sea…) and timing is about the last ice age glacial end. My guess is that it’s under about 300 to 400 foot of water between Spain and Britain somewhere.
There are other older cultures out there. IMHO, they got whacked by the catastrophic effects of a large rock hitting the ice sheet of North America in the Younger Drias event, followed by catastrophic water rise globally. We’re just now finding the bits in the dirt and more under the water.
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/01/06/gobekli-tepe/
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/persia-dig-older-than-mesopotamia/
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/an-ancient-european-culture-rediscovered/
So, as Atlantis was at sea level, and the folks about 5,000 years ago said it was a “truly old” culture “hoary with age”. I’d place it at about 400 feet down, near the old glacial edge of about 12,000 (BP? BC? BCE? BB? …)
As to the topic of the thread:
There’s pretty good evidence for cyclical volcanic destruction in more or less sync with cooling cycles on earth ( I’d mention that they sync somewhat with solar cycles, but Lief would erupt and Anthony would get a headache 😉 so let’s just say they seem to sync with lunar orbital periods (that only indirectly connect to solar cycles and planets via Orbital Resonance…)
http://www.pnas.org/content/97/8/3814.full
So I’d suggest looking at that (peer reviewed published) paper on lunar cycles vs the Earth and see how well it plots up against past periods of high volcanic activity. About then, you can ask if a tide in a liquid like magma might matter. Then you can move away from the coastline and any volcano regions…
FWIW, in the 1700’s there was a great quake in Japan and significant volcanism. There was also a great quake in Cascadia and more volcanism there, too. IFF there’s any predictive ability to the notion that those are linked: Somewhere in the next couple of decades we ought to see Mt. Fuji erupting again and a great quake in Cascadia.
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/1707-hoei-49-days-fuji/
That the European volcanoes are waking up fits too…
There is so much in ancient history that is not well known, and some that is really messed up as far as dates are concerned. I deal with this on a regular basis on other blogs, and at times it gets rather tiring.
We don’t know when Jesus was executed: could be as early as 24 AD, or as late as 33 AD (depends on whether the 15th year of Tiberius was counting his co-regency with Augustus, or not). His birth, 4 or 7 BC?
By about 300 BC if our historians are within a decade of accuracy, they are doing well.
By 800 BC, if within a century — OK.
Were the Tel Amarna letters from about 1300 BC, or after 900 BC which would fit archaeological findings better?
What makes it worse are all the factions fighting for their dates to be considered correct for bragging rights, starting with the Egyptians while under Greek rule before the Romans.
So when did ancient Thera blow up to become Santorini? If it was connected with the Exodus of Israel from Egypt, then it happened about 1450 BC. But the professional historians will scream bloody murder because it ruins their nice little models.
So let’s not argue about history. Too little is known. Too much is suppressed for political reasons.
I found that עם הארץ / οι πολλοι reference amusing. I trust them more than many of the intellectual elite.
It will be interesting to see what happens with this present expansion.
Kev-in-Uk says:
…Seriously, as a geologist, I simply cannot see how they can assess previous expansion without very detailed geological mapping and cross sections, fault measurements, etc, and even then, using a lot of guestimation!
Well, yeah, guestimation is involved. According to GVP, Thera ejected somewhere on the order of 9.9 x 10^10 m³ of material, based on samples and the distribution found around Med.
That gives you a ballpark estimate of how much material was in the original chamber… again, with some assumptions. Using the relatively simple Mogi model, you can get an idea of the offset for points along a line of sites at set distances from the top of the “chamber.”
If the observed offsets are nowhere near what the estimated offsets were prior to 1610… then it’s a pretty safe assumption that the current inflation is far smaller than what preceded Thera.
BCE/BC/AD?
To avoid any morre arguments, how about simply reverting back to the supposed date of the foundation of Rome AUG.
Either that or the date that sex was invented, which was , as all educated people know was in 1963, between the conclusion of the Lady Chatterley trial and the launch of The Beatles first LP…
sarc off.
Armagh Observatory says:
April 17, 2012 at 5:19 pm
“BCE/BC/AD?”
1610 BC. (my lapse really illustrated that other topic)
>>>Isn’t Santorini the most likely candidate for the fall of Atlantis
>>>legends? I remember seeing it on TV.”
Quite likely actually.
a. The form of a flooded-nested-caldera, like Santorini, conforms exactly with the descriptions of the concentric rings of sea and land in Atlantis.
b. The Atlantis story harks to the Bronze Age, the time of Santorini.
c. Santorini did sink beneath the waves in one dramatic day.
d. The story of floating islands, would conform to pumice rafts.
e. Plato did not necessarily say Atlantis was bigger than Asia and Africa. Change one letter, and it reads ‘between Asia and Africa’.
As an aside, the same eruption most probably caused the ash fall over Egypt, mentioned by Moses. “take ash from the fire and throw it into the air, and it will become like ash across the land of Egypt” See ‘Tempest and Exodus’.
Re: BCE and BC. They may get away with that. But what are they going to do about 2012?
2012 since… what, exactly?☺
Smokey says:
April 17, 2012 at 6:04 pm
Re: BCE and BC. They may get away with that. But what are they going to do about 2012?
2012 since… what, exactly?☺
_________________
Not that it matters, Smokey. It is 2012 after all, so we’re all gonna die.
/ <— sarc tag
Smokey says:
April 17, 2012 at 6:04 pm
Re: BCE and BC. They may get away with that. But what are they going to do about 2012?
2012 since… what, exactly?☺
——————————–
There you have it, squabble resolved. Year one of the Mayan calendar and since the Great Gleickian Fall. Anno Lapsis Petrvs Gliccvs?
Earthquakes? I blame fracking.
(after all, the Greens do.)
Oh no! Santorini is the most beautiful place in the world. I visited there in 2009 and would love to go back sometime. I can only hope that the geologists are right and that the expansion that is taking place is not a sign of an impending eruption of any kind.
Ed Mertin says:
April 17, 2012 at 12:04 am
————-
Pretty cool. My son is disturbed by reports that Yellowstone is overdue.
What do you suggest I tell him?
Thank you
Silver Ralph says:
April 17, 2012 at 5:58 pm
>>>Isn’t Santorini the most likely candidate for the fall of Atlantis
>>>legends? I remember seeing it on TV.”
Quite likely actually.
——–
Ok, a candidate perhaps, but have you seen the National Geographic show on the exploration of a site in a National Preserve on the East coast of Spain that has the same properties? Likely destroyed by a Tsumani. This building pattern is replicated in many places in southern Spain.
OK,
one last comment…
Melamed says:
April 17, 2012 at 3:42 pm
There is so much in ancient history that is not well known, and some that is really messed up as far as dates are concerned. I deal with this on a regular basis on other blogs, and at times it gets rather tiring.
We don’t know when Jesus was executed: could be as early as 24 AD, or as late as 33 AD (depends on whether the 15th year of Tiberius was counting his co-regency with Augustus, or not). His birth, 4 or 7 BC?
By about 300 BC if our historians are within a decade of accuracy, they are doing well.
By 800 BC, if within a century — OK.
Were the Tel Amarna letters from about 1300 BC, or after 900 BC which would fit archaeological findings better?
What makes it worse are all the factions fighting for their dates to be considered correct for bragging rights, starting with the Egyptians while under Greek rule before the Romans.
So when did ancient Thera blow up to become Santorini? If it was connected with the Exodus of Israel from Egypt, then it happened about 1450 BC. But the professional historians will scream bloody murder because it ruins their nice little models.
————
“Professional historians” and “nice little models”. Not a lot of people trying to rock that ship. Then again, not a lot of people are going to be expected to pay more than extra trillions of dollars worldwide because of those disagreements.
Perhaps we can gloss over the difference of a few years in potential history, but to do so in the climate curriculum, we don’t have that luxury. Except in the most exact reconstruction of ice cores (years,) We are looking at tens, hundreds and thousands of years of data sources, we are searching for climate clues. Let’s get it right for science and the people, not for the grant payers and climate science tag along Sycophants.
So, I’d love to know which variant proves true. Are we at 4 or 7 BC birth or at 24 or 33AD for death?
Has anyone in these curricula heard of the concept of Cosmology and the study of everything? Versus this apparent continual spiral into such condensed studies such that we lose all touch with the reality of today? Its worth an exploration.
Can’t we try to get it right for the correct reasons?
what the original references refered.
Peter Kovachev says:
April 17, 2012 at 2:16 pm
Hello Myrrh,
“If I recall, and it is rather a long time since I took part in discussions about G-D, BCE/ACE variation came from the Jews who tend to get apoplectic whenever Christ is mentioned and the common use of BC/AD offended them because they knew what it meant.”
For as long as I’ve been around, Myrrh, I’ve never met a single Jew who has been offended by the use of AD or BC or “whenever Christ” is mentioned. Most, in fact, use those terms without qualms. Before we continue, let me rest your mind that there is, never was and likely never will be a Jewish conspiracy to rip out those dearly beloved terms from the grasps of Christian children. But if you say you found yourself in a den of apoplectic brethren of mine, let me apologise on their behalf; they have no business demanding you use BCE/ACE as you have no business demanding they use BC/AD. Fair enough?
I was just giving the history of it – what goes into ‘politically correct’ thinking is that someone, somewhere, sometime, decides that something is ‘politically incorrect’. The change to BCE came from very traditional Jews who still go apoplectic whenever Christ is mentioned, as I was reliably informed, as if it wasn’t obvious, through many discussions I had about G-D in the past with these and other more generally traditional Jews. Notice my spelling… It’s in academe where their views about this was first introduced. And, they didn’t demand I used it, it was just part of the information I gathered from discussions with all kinds of Jews – even those who were told they weren’t Jews because their mother wasn’t.
“..you have your own calendar, why not use that when writing to a Jewish audience?”
Gosh, sorry about that one, Myrrh, didn’t know there was shortage, a “peak calendar” crisis as it were.
Perhaps I should have added a smiley.
The Hebrew Calendar is used fairly frequently in my Orthodox digs, especially regarding festivals and such and in scholarship is typically reserved for theological topics and classical Jewish lit, where such dates make more sense to the specialized readers. Secularism being the norm for all of us now, it would be rather awkward in modern scholarship or daily use. Si fueris Romae, Romano vivito more…
So why not stick to BC/AD…?
Regardless, it seems there are plenty now who use the BCE/ACE who are neither Jewish or religious in any way. Some atheists and secularists avail themselves of the term and I imagine that folks from other religions do too. It’s the kind of thing that happens in an intellectually free society where neither Crown nor Church have much say in such matters anymore. In search of the “missing heat,” the hidden cause of the astounding turbulence here over the BCE/ACE, I’m guessing that some are trying to push the “new” use as a politically correct, “culturally sensitive” measure of some sort, and trying to force it on every one. Well, Myrrh, just for the record, that would be assinine and wrong….must I apologize for them too? Need I send you a pair free tickets to the Fiddler on the Roof? I can’t bear responsibility for the opinions of groups I’m not even aware of, nor for your poor choice of Jewish debating partners, and while I feel for a climate wars comrade’s suffering, I’m not about to change the way I annotate my dates…that would be as relevant to anything out there as the date of the Big Bang to this discussion.
I’m sorry you felt this was some kind of attack on Jews and I certainly wasn’t directing blame on you personally nor had I in mind any of your imaginative extrapolation so no offence taken. As I said, I was merely giving the history of its appearance, but,
and so now adding by extension, why it is inapplicable to continue justifying its use as being “It’s the kind of thing that happens in an intellectually free society where neither Crown nor Church have much say in such matters anymore.” , because, it was deliberately conceived by a particular religious interest that pushed its use into academe using just such phrasing, that interest is still ‘Church’. I hope now you have been informed of its genesis you will more circumspect and think before gliby repeating the meme introduced to smooth its passage into mainstream.. Your sense of humour does you credit, but it is misplaced here.
Silver Ralph says:
April 17, 2012 at 5:58 pm
>>>Isn’t Santorini the most likely candidate for the fall of Atlantis
>>>legends? I remember seeing it on TV.”
Quite likely actually.
a. The form of a flooded-nested-caldera, like Santorini, conforms exactly with the descriptions of the concentric rings of sea and land in Atlantis.
b. The Atlantis story harks to the Bronze Age, the time of Santorini.
c. Santorini did sink beneath the waves in one dramatic day.
d. The story of floating islands, would conform to pumice rafts.
e. Plato did not necessarily say Atlantis was bigger than Asia and Africa. Change one letter, and it reads ‘between Asia and Africa’.
===========
I recall a programme some time ago which put Atlantis in South America – it’s what is in Plato’s descriptions, such as continent not island, which rule out a lot of the choices.
Here, http://www.atlantisbolivia.org/atlantisboliviapart1.htm
I think part of the problem of working out where it is comes from a generation of historians who thought there was no intercontinental travel in the ancient world. There’s been much to change this perception recently, analysis of language and so on, and among this some interesting finds in Egypt which found cocaine in some mummies, this is specific to the Americas. Of course, lots and lots of arguments about it, fascinating in itself:
http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/ethnic/mummy.htm
And also, lots and lots of odd ball claims for ancient visitors to the Americas, some here: http://www.oocities.org/age_of_giants/anomalies/mediterranean_america.html
But one does seem to have legs: “Greeks in Ancient America Metcalf Stone
In the late 1960s a man named Manfred Metcalf found a stone in Georgia that bears an inscription that is very similar to ancient writing from the island of Crete in The Aegean Sea. The stone eventually found itself in the capable hands of Cyrus Gordon who stated
“After studying the inscription, it was apparent to me that the affinities of the script were with the Aegean syllabary, whose two best known forms are Minoan Linear A, and Mycenaean Linear B. …We therefore have American inscriptional contacts with the Aegean of the Bronze Age, near the south, west and north shores of the Gulf of Mexico. This can hardly be accidental; ancient Aegean writing near three different sectors of the Gulf reflects Bronze Age transatlantic communication between the Mediterranean and the New World around the middle of the second millennium B.C.”
Fort Benning, Georgia, Professor Stanislav Segert, professor of Semitic languages at the University of Prague, has identified the markings as a script of the second millennium before Christ, from the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete!”
Also watched some time ago a fascinating look at Exodus/Santorini by the Naked Archeologist –
http://newagearchaeology.weebly.com/biblical-links.html
Who puts the date of the Exodus back to 1500s and produced connections such as this:
“By now Jacobovici has correlated the Pharaoh named Ahmose, the Hyksos expulsion, the Exodus, and the Santorini eruption all to 1500 BCE. He then explores possible scientific explanations for the Biblical story of Moses’ ten plagues, and the parting of the sea.
…
In 1992, perfectly preserved Minoan paintings were discovered at Avaris, proving that in Biblical times this city was populated not only by Israelites, but also by people from ancient Greece, indicating that there was commerce between the Hyksos and the Minoans on the island of Santorini. Jacobovici concludes that some of the people who followed Moses in the Exodus, or Hyksos expulsion, did not follow him to the Promised Land, but instead boarded ships and sailed to Greece. In 1972, while digging among the ashes of Santorini in Greece, archaeologists made a startling discovery linking this area of the world with the Exodus. They found Minoan style wall paintings and a map depicting an ancient journey from Egypt to Greece, which may be the oldest map in the world. It depicts an ancient Egyptian city which is believed to Avaris.”