One of the biggest problems with Aegean art and archeology has to deal with dating the artifacts.

Archeologists are not always able to find materials that are possible to date, which is why they rely on a relative system for identification of when the items were created. The explosion of the volcano on the island of Thera is one of the very helpful events for dating of the pieces of art and other discoveries, but there are still more unknowns than knowns.

One of the techniques used to solve this issue is called dendrochronology. It analyzes the spaces between growth rings of the trees and offers an unusually precise way to date when certain events have occurred. For example, discoveries of tree ice cores in Greenland and tree rings found in California and Ireland suggest that the eruption of the volcano has occurred somewhere between 1650BCE and 1625BCE.

This is the reason why some books about this region and its art don’t use dates at all. The dating of the artifacts and events from this part of the world will most likely change in the future when new methods for dating artifacts appear.