When Thera erupted again, the explosion was so powerful that it destroyed Akrotiri, burying the settlement (and the island that shared the volcano’s name) in some 200 feet of ash and pumice stone. The timing of the disaster is the subject of intensedebate, but scholars generallydate it to between 1620 and 1530 B.C.E. The event was one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history: Thera released about four times more volcanic material than the infamous Krakatau eruption, which killed upwards of 36,000 people in what is now Indonesia in 1883.
[...]
The ash cloud formed by the Thera eruption completely transformed the island’s lush, humid environment into an arid one. Ash from the volcano was so widespread that it rained down as far as modern-day Egypt and Israel. Layers of sand and pebbles found between archaeological deposits suggest that multipletsunamis also contributed to the destruction.
But the biggest fallout of this cataclysmic event happened when a portion of the volcanic caldera collapsed into the sea a few days after the eruption, forever changing the landscape of Santorini. This plummet into the depths of the Aegean Sea has become the stuff of legends. Some claim that Akrotiri is the lost city of Atlantis, which the Greek philosopher Plato described centuries later, around 360 B.C.E. Most modern scholars, however, agree that Plato created the tale of the sunken island as an allegorical device.
[...]
Much like the Roman city of Pompeii, which was destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 C.E., Akrotiri was preserved beneath the ash. “Everything was absolutely annihilated and completely encapsulated on the island,” says Lefteris Zorzos, an archaeologist whose research focuses on the prehistoric landscape of Santorini. This created a rare time capsule that provides an unprecedented look into the daily life of this Middle Bronze Age Cycladic civilization, so called after the Aegean islands where the culture flourished between about 3000 and 1000 B.C.E.
[...]
Under the leadership of Marinatos and his successor, Christos Doumas, archaeologists have excavated sites across Akrotiri down to the bedrock, allowing scientists to study the island’s stratigraphy as far back as 6,500 years ago. Zorzos estimates that the ongoing excavations have uncovered only about 10 percent of the settlement. The rest is still preserved beneath layers of ash and sediment.
Surprisingly, researchers have yet to recover the remains of any Akrotiri residents killed by the eruption, suggesting that the majority, if not all, of the settlement’s inhabitants made it out alive after receiving warning of the impending disaster. (Excavations in Turkey have, however, revealed the skeletons of a teenager and a dog believed to be victims of a post-eruption tsunami, testifying to the event’s far reach.) Comparatively, archaeologists excavating the ruins of Pompeii continue to find victims’skeletons (or the cavitiesleft behind by bodies trapped in volcanic ash) nearly 2,000 years after Vesuvius’ eruption.
[...]
In total, archaeologists have identified and researched 35 buildings across Akrotiri. The settlement’s ancient residents “didn’t have access to forests or concrete, and still they are building three- and four-story-high buildings using limited wood, volcanic stones, mud and vegetation,” Zorzos says. “It’s phenomenal to think of how much they were able to achieve without access to modern tools.”
[...]
Frescoes in excellent condition adorn the walls of many homes and public buildings in Akrotiri. “Every house had a fresco with a distinct ritual characteristic, and many of them are female-centered,” Nikolaidou says.
From the article:
[...]
[...]
[...]
[...]
[...]