Santorini is a volcanic island in the Aegean Sea whose heart was torn out by a violent eruption around 1500 BC. Volcanic ash buried, almost intact, the First Pompeii-a Minoan city at a site called Akrotiri. Sixty miles to the south of Santorini lies the island of Crete where the Minoan civilisation came to an abrupt end around the time of the great explosion. Was it the eruption on Santorini that caused the end of that brilliant Minoan civilisation on Crete? New discoveries on Santorini provide a clue to one of the greatest riddles of Aegean archaeology. Magnus Magnusson investigates.