Mudbrick EA 32689 (British Museum) from the Temple of Ahmose at Abydos, showing the stamped prenomen (throne name) Nebpehtire of Pharaoh Ahmose. Its radiocarbon dates support a low chronology for the beginning of the 18th Dynasty. Credit: H.J. Bruins, 2018 © The Trustees of the British Museum, London. Shared under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

The first study granted access to artifacts in British museums for radiocarbon dating has examined the transition between the Second Intermediate Period and the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt.

One of the most powerful volcanic eruptions of the past 10,000 years occurred on the Greek island of Thera (Santorini) in the Aegean Sea, yet its precise date, sometime in the late 17th or 16th century BCE, has long been debated. Volcanic ash from the eruption spread widely across the eastern Mediterranean, leaving behind clues that have puzzled archaeologists for decades. A central question has been how this major geological event aligns with the established timeline of Egyptian rulers.

Researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the University of Groningen have now provided new evidence through the first radiocarbon dates linked to King Ahmose, the pharaoh who reunified Upper and Lower Egypt and founded the New Kingdom.

Shabti UC 40179 from ancient Thebes, which can be related to the beginning of the 18th Dynasty. Its radiocarbon date supports a low chronology for the reigns of Nebpehtire Ahmose and his son Amenhotep I. Credit: H.J. Bruins (2017), published with permission from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology (University College London) under a CC BY license.

Their analysis indicates that the eruption took place earlier, during the Second Intermediate Period, before the rise of the New Kingdom. The findings strongly support a “low” (younger) chronology for the start of the 18th Dynasty, an adjustment that has significant implications for understanding Egypt’s interactions with neighboring cultures across the region.

Their findings were recently published in PLOS One.

Rare museum access for sample collection

Prof. Hendrik J. Bruins of the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research at BGU’s Sde Boker Campus and Prof. Johannes van der Plicht of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands were granted exceptional permission to collect artifact samples for radiocarbon testing at the British Museum and the Petrie Museum in London. Under museum supervision, they sampled a mudbrick from the Ahmose Temple at Abydos (British Museum), a linen burial cloth associated with Satdjehuty (British Museum), and six wooden stick shabtis from Thebes (Petrie Museum).

The eastern Mediterranean region and Egypt, showing the location of the Thera (Santorini) volcano and other places mentioned in the text. Credit: Based on Mapcarta, the open map with CC BY license © OpenStreetMap, Mapbox, and Mapcarta

They discovered that, contrary to traditional archaeological understandings, the volcanic eruption did not occur during the Egyptian New Kingdom, but occurred earlier, during the Second Intermediate Period. Radiocarbon dates of the Santorini eruption are significantly older than the first-ever radiocarbon dates concerning Pharaoh Ahmose and the other artifacts investigated of the 17th to early 18th Dynasty.

“Our findings indicate that the Second Intermediate Period lasted considerably longer than traditional assessments, and the New Kingdom started later,” says Prof. Hendrik J. Bruins.

Reference: “The Minoan Thera eruption predates Pharaoh Ahmose: Radiocarbon dating of Egyptian 17th to early 18th Dynasty museum objects” by Hendrik J. Bruins and Johannes van der Plicht, 10 September 2025, PLOS ONE. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0330702

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