Volcanic explosion
Three and a half thousand years ago, the tiny Aegean island of Thera was devastated by one of the worst natural disasters since the Ice Age - a huge volcanic eruption.
This cataclysm happened 100km from the island of Crete, the home of the thriving Minoan civilisation. Fifty years after the eruption, that civilisation was in ruins. Did the volcano deliver a death blow to the Minoans? It's a whodunnit that has haunted historians and scientists for decades.
The lost world of the Minoans has intrigued people for thousands of years. Their palace at Knossos was vast and elaborate, with Europe's first paved roads and running water. The ancient Greeks wove its magnificence into their myths; it was the home of King Minos and his man-eating bull, the Minotaur, which roamed the palace labyrinth.
In the 1900s, British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans excavated and restored the ruins at Knossos. Beautiful and delicate frescoes of bulls and dolphins revealed a highly artistic civilisation and a people who apparently lived in harmony with nature.
Early 20th-century archaeologists knew of the devastating volcano and some concluded it must have snuffed out the Minoan civilisation almost instantly. But was it really as simple as that?
Beautiful and delicate frescoes of bulls and dolphins revealed a highly artistic civilisation and a people who apparently lived in harmony with nature.
For a start, they discovered little ash had fallen on Crete - as luck would have it, the prevailing winds took the volcano's ash in the opposite direction. Then archaeologists found clay tablets that proved the Minoan civilisation survived for about 50 years after the eruption. So if the volcano killed the civilisation, what accounted for this long gap?
Vulcanologist Floyd McCoy, from the University of Hawaii, has been inspired by volcanoes since his childhood on the volcanic islands of Hawaii. His passion is the most romantic volcano of all time - Thera. He went on a journey of discovery, gathering evidence from other scientists around the globe, to try answer this question: was there a connection between the eruption of Thera and the end of the Minoans on Crete?
His journey started on the island of Thera. It was home to thousands and a flourishing trading post for the Minoans until disaster struck. So massive was the volcano it had an extraordinary effect, preserving forever the town of Akrotiri.
Mysteriously, no skeletons have ever been found on the island. Akrotiri's chief archaeologist, Christos Doumas, believes the people of Akrotiri didn't survive, and that the bodies are still to be uncovered, huddled at the harbour where they were trapped by the eruption as they waited to escape. He believes it's highly unlikely that scores of boats were waiting in the harbour to save them.