Today's episode will focus on three main topics, all related to the Minoan Civilization in the Aegean. First, we'll talk in detail about the exquisite Fleet Fresco found in the West House at Akrotiri. Then we'll consider the volcanic eruption that buried Akrotiri, destroyed much of Thera, and effected large swaths of the Bronze Age Aegean. We’ll finish up by looking at the arguments of those who claim that the Minoan Civilization was Plato's basis for Atlantis when he discussed Atlantis in Timaeus and Critias. Hop aboard for this fact filled episode about the Bronze Age Minoans!

Episode Transcript

When we concluded last time we’d just barely brushed the surface of our discussion about the island of Thera, or, Santorini as it’s now called. Thera measures in at a scant 28 square kilometers, which is microscopic in comparison to Crete’s 8,300 square kilometers. But, despite its diminutive size, Thera will play a large role in our episode today and it’s a fitting picture of the events that fell upon the Minoans round about the year 1600 BCE.

Before we zoom out to look at the island itself and some of the big picture issues and events, we’ll begin with our focus trained in on one specific room in one specific building in one specific town on Thera. The town is Akrotiri; or, that’s the name of the modern Greek village that sits on a hill near our town anyway. The town we’re focused on is a Bronze Age Minoan settlement that sits on the coast of Thera, as it did in the 17th century BCE. The building we’re focused on is known as the West House, and our room in question is on the building’s second story, a room known to the archaeologists who labeled it as Room 5.

Had any of us had the privilege of entering Room 5 around, say, 1650 BCE, we may have chanced to see some artists at work painting the room’s beautiful frescoes. It’s also just as likely that the paintings had already been completed, but either way, our focus would have been drawn to one particular fresco that tells an intriguing story. It would have wrapped around three of the room’s four walls, a continuous 39 foot (12 m) fresco, and, in contrast to its length, it would have only been about a foot and a half tall, around 43 centimeters.

Now, before we start to talk about the content of the fresco, the Akrotiri Fleet Fresco we’ll call it, I think it necessary to give a short background of the discovery and context of the fresco first. The West House, also known as the Admiral’s House, was excavated by a Greek archaeologist named Spyridon Marinatos over the course of the 1971 and 1972 digging seasons on Thera. When he got to Room 5, which was buried under meters of pumice and ash, something we’ll take a look at a bit later on, the upper parts of the second story walls were collapsed. This was a bit of a problem, because the Fleet Fresco was painted along the upper part of those very walls. Well, it was painstaking work, but the wall pieces had collapsed inward, so the fresco was still there, albeit in a fragmented state. The images of the fresco that are now famous are images of the reconstructed entirety, so its important to at least keep in the back of our minds that we don’t have the entire original. There are gaps from what Marinatos found that were filled in, so this will influence how we interpret the paintings and what they were intended to depict. That all being said, the paintings are marvelous nonetheless, and they provide us with some interesting points to discuss in relation to Minoan maritime capabilities and practices.

On either extreme end of the fresco sits a separate town, each one situated amidst the mountainous shorelines that are common to Cycladic islands. In the town on the left, the people stand stationary, eyes turned toward the sea as they follow the departing fleet that sails for the horizon. In the town on the right end of the fresco, the townspeople look in the opposite direction, still toward the same sea, but back toward the arriving fleet of Minoan ships. It was this second town’s depiction that had suffered more damage when the fresco was originally recovered, but even in the fragmentary image that existed before restoration, a few of the townspeople seem to be in motion, rushing to the harbour to welcome the arriving fleet. Others in the harbour town simply go about their business, returning from the shore to bring their day’s catch of fish to market. Beyond the human inhabitants of the two towns, the fresco also depicts wildlife. On a mountaintop above the first town, a lion chases three deer amidst the trees. In the sea between our two unnamed towns, pairs of dolphins playfully leap from the water in between the sailing ships.

It’s a striking fresco, I’m sure even more striking in person, but let’s go ahead and point our discussion toward the ships that are depicted in the painting, as they give us our best insight thus far into the nautical technology that was used by the Minoans at this late point in their history, although similar ships had probably been used for centuries before it was set down in pigment. In all, the painting depicts 11 separate ships, although one is small enough it’s technically a boat. The ship leaving the port of the first town is smaller than the ships in the sea, as are the two ships that appear to be docked in harbour at the second town, so this lone small boat could also have been depicted smaller simply for the purpose of depicting it’s relative nearness to the town, as it is the nearest vessel to arriving at town number two’s harbour. All of the ships are of a similar shape, being constructed with long, graceful hulls that curve into bows that stretch above the masts of each ship. All of the ships are single-masted, with the mast located amidships, but only one ship has a sail unfurled and handled by a pair of sailors. Steering on these ships was accomplished via a pair of quarter rudders at the stern quarters of the hull, so essentially, all of these ships are identical in their main functional construction. The apparent difference between them is in the realm of decoration.

And as for decor, the ships again bear some commonalities. Each has a small structure near the stern that appears to serve as a small cabin for one person, the obvious assumption being that this is a single cabin for the captain or shipmaster alone. In addition to this small cabin, the ships also have, further forward, a canopy-like structure that occupies almost half the overall length of the ship. Beneath this canopy on each ship sit between 10 to 15 people who appear to be dressed in formal attire. The ships also have steersman and crew, but one aspect common to all the ships save one is the colorful decor ornamenting the ships themselves. These ships have animal figureheads at the stern (a maritime practice still common today) and the hulls are colorfully decorated while one particular ship, called the flagship by some, has lines rigged from fore to aft and decorated with colorful garland-like trimming. These decorations play some role in the various interpretations that have been proposed for the significance of the events depicted in the fresco and, I must warn you, the various proposed interpretations are quite divergent. A common interpretation has centered on the fleet as representing a religious or cultic procession, possibly due to the decoration and the relative inaction of the ships’ passengers. Others have interpreted it as a celebration of good relations between Cretans and Achaeans; still more as depicting Minoan ships returning to harbour after a naval triumph; and even more as perhaps showing the return of a fleet after a peaceful mission abroad.

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Ultimately we aren’t possessed of enough context or evidence to know for sure what the Minoan painters intended to depict through this fresco. It does still present us with an excellent example of their artistry and gives us perhaps the most concrete example of Minoan ships at sail, although we must interpret the ships through the artist’s perception of them, as the artistic eye doesn’t always opt for realism over beauty. Artistic license and all that, you know.

It bears mention in connection with the Fleet Fresco that there was found in the same Room 5 in Akrotiri another fresco that appears to have contained the depiction of at least one other ship. This fresco, sadly, was poorly preserved and so much has been lost. It’s even more so a shame because the pieces that we do have seem to indicate that the ship was similar to those of the Fleet Fresco, in form at least. It appears that this ship, like many of those from the Fleet Fresco, is under oar propulsion, but for some reason this ship bears a spearman toward the forward of the ship. Beneath him, in the water, contorted bodies writhe beneath the waves. The fragmentation of this fresco has made interpretation more challenging, and again, various proposals have been put forward: an attack on a coastal town where defenders have been killed and drowned; possibly a sea battle, or some have even thought that the bodies aren’t dead at all but are rather sponge divers at work in the waters near the shore.

When it’s all said and done, opinions still diverge on what both of these frescoes depict and even on whether they were intended to depict a single narrative or separate events. As I said a moment ago, though, they show us Minoan artistry at it’s height, in addition to giving us further evidence of their maritime prowess. Were it not for the next major event in the Minoan world the Fleet Fresco and the other lovely paintings from Akrotiri may not have been preserved for us to admire today. But, as we can see from the more well-known Pompeii and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, volcanic ash tends to preserve things quite well when those things are buried in dozens of meters of the stuff. Akrotiri suffered a similar fate, although the citizens of the Cycladic city must have known that the eruption was coming because to date, no bodies have been found buried on the ash that buried large parts of Akrotiri and other portions of Thera. Beyond the absence of remains thus far in archaeological excavations, further evidence that they had forewarning is seen in the fact that digs in Akrotiri have unearthed much evidence of pre- explosion activity in the forms of broken steps, collapsed walls, entire houses collapsed, and heaps of debris that were gathered by the absent inhabitants before they skipped town and, obviously then, before the town was buried in ash.

So, we know that the explosion had some precursory tremors or earthquakes associated with it, but I think the bigger question for us is when did the actual explosion occur? And following from that, just how big was it? How did it affect not just Thera but the entire Aegean and the Minoan influence there in particular? Well, as to the first question, there is a bit of disagreement still, but the dating of trees that were killed and preserved in ash, along with other dating methods like ice core analysis that contains evidence of the volcano’s ejected material frozen in the layered ice of Greenland, all lead to a generally accepted date somewhere in the mid-17th century BCE, that is, somewhere around 1650 to 1625 BCE. A specific date that is often affixed to the Thera eruption is 1628 BCE, and the frequency of that date in the research I’ve done, along with the more general dating to the same period, gives me some comfort in using 1628 as our date here.

So, we have our relative date which, if you recall, can not have been too far removed from the painting of the Fleet Freso itself on the walls of the West House in Akrotiri. The size of the Thera eruption is, well, so large that we’d be completely on base if we just called it an explosion as I have done a few times already. To get an idea of the force of the eruption, it’s helpful to see a satellite view of the island itself, as the volcano’s crater is actually at the center of the island. The crater is submerged beneath the water, so Thera is essentially a ring-like island with a caldera in the center. Geologists tell us that prior to the Thera eruption, the magma from the volcano had gradually built up to the point that the island was basically a ring of land with only one entrance from the sea, the volcano crater in the center caldera of the island. Knowing this, and simply looking at an overhead view of the island today gives us an approximate idea about just how powerful the explosion would have been: strong enough to completely annihilate a large chunk of the western side of the ring. Much of the island was buried under the thick layers of ash already mentioned, layers that have been measured at up to 60 meters deep in some places.

I’m no scientist, so the explaining of how and why would best be left to them, but the recent studies I was able to find indicate that the Thera eruption was likely 10 times as powerful as the famous 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. The attempt to put this all in perspective, recent measurements have shown that the Thera eruption’s 60 meters deep of ash, reaching even up to 80 meters deep in some places on the sea floor, was spewed out in a circumference of at least 20 kilometers in all directions around the island. That’s just the direct ash and pumice. We’ll talk more in a moment about the more widespread effects of the eruption. If we’re talking the sheer amount of ash that was belched forth from the earth’s core, geologists have estimated that the Thera volcano released 60 cubic kilometers of ash from the earth, in comparison to Krakatoa’s 25 cubic kilometers. Vesuvius begins to appear paltry at this point when I tell you that it only ejected 6 cubic kilometers of ash into the skies over Pompeii. Thera, then, ejected over 10 times the sheer volume of ash that Vesuvius did, which is, to me, just a mind- blowing thought.

That’s enough of me just throwing out numbers though. I’m sure you get the fact that Thera was huge, and, well, I can’t resist one more number, if you’ll be kind enough to indulge me. The eruption was a 7 on the volcanic explosivity index, a measurement system that only ranks them up to 8. All right. No more volcanic measurement terms, I promise. After all, numbers like that are fairly meaningless without some type of reference point, so it would make more sense to look at just how the eruption effected the Aegean world and the Minoan Civilization.

The first, and perhaps most obvious effect is that the violent eruption on Thera would resulted in a tsunami that spread across the Aegean. Undoubtedly the tsunami would have caused more damage to locations nearer the island, but so far loads of evidence has been found on the northern shores of Crete, which lies 70 miles (110 km) south of Thera, evidence that indicates a tsunami wave slammed Crete’s shores in the same period the Thera volcano erupted. Evidence has led scientists to estimate that a wave at least 65 feet (20 m), and possibly much higher in other areas. For some comparison, they estimate that the Thera eruption’s resulting tsunami was equivalent in size and destructive power to the earthquake and tsunami that occurred near Indonesia over Christmas 2004. The Thera tsunami would have annihilated the coastal towns and inhabitations along Crete’s northern coast, a fact that becomes quite significant when we consider the heavy reliance the Minoans placed on their sea trade and travel. This tsunami would likely have destroyed any and all ships in its path, including a large percentage of those at Crete. The shipping towns and ports on any northern shore between Crete and Thera would have been leveled, not to mention any ship or sailor unlucky enough to have been on the sea at the time the wave rolled through. Comparatively, the carnage wrought by the Indonesia tsunami is well known to those of us old enough to remember it. It’s now thought to have been one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history and, while the Minoan Aegean was not as heavily populated as Sumatra was on that fateful day, I can’t escape the thought that for the Minoan people, the Thera tsunami proved to be a natural disaster that not only killed many people, but was likely the catalyst that began the decline of their entire civilization.

Not only did the eruption and the ensuing tsunami (say that five times fast if you can), not only did they directly destroy a fair portion of Minoan ships, port towns, and other holdings, but the lingering results also left their effect. The pumice and ash ejected into the air and up into the atmosphere would have darkened the sky for an area of at least 300,000 square kilometers around Thera. Pumice deposits identifiable to the Thera eruption have been found, predominantly to the east and northeast of Thera, but reaching as far away as the Black Sea. At one time similar pumice was connected to Bronze Age discoveries in the Nile Delta, though some now question the accuracy of those connections. Either way, the reach of the Thera eruption was great and its effect was devastating. The last effect I think needs mentioning is one that segues us into our final discussion for the episode. Scientists have observed this phenomena with modern volcanic eruptions, and now believe that the Thera eruption would have also left a huge mass of pumice that floated on the Aegean’s surface for weeks, hindering shipping and trade. Beyond the basic notion that pumice floats, connected deposits have been found on the shores of most of the Aegean islands surrounding Thera, evidence that it floated there and was washed up on shore and buried with time.

We’ll close today with a few observations about how the eruption may have effected the long-term outlook for the Minoan people, but the floating pumice and the image of a far-reaching maritime civilization that was destroyed so violently rings a few bells in my ears. Does it in yours? Well, I’ll just go ahead and delve ahead even if you don’t hear the tinkling of bells, but thanks for listening nonetheless. The cataclysmic results of the Thera eruption have been frequently tied with Plato’s discussion of the lost city of Atlantis, although the Minoan civilization is only one among the many and sometimes strange explanations that people come with for the Atlantis myth. The Atlantis legend has been an influence on utopian literature for several centuries, seen in works like More’s Utopia and Francis Bacon’s ‘The New Atlantis’. In more modern times, though, Atlantis has become the fodder of pseudo-history, beginning with Ignatius Donnelly’s ‘Atlantis: The Antediluvian World’ and popping up in places as diverse as the theosophical teachings of H.P. Blavatsky, which bore some influence on the occult ideas that were incorporated into the more esoteric circles within the Nazi party. The American psychic Edgar Cayce also made Atlantean legends a focal point of his prophecy, but it’s not been until more recently that the Minoan people began to be connected with Plato’s Atlantis legend. Indeed, Minoan Crete couldn’t have been connected with Atlantis before 1900, because the existence of a Minoan Civilization and its presence on Crete and elsewhere wasn’t known before the discoveries made by Arthur Evans at the beginning of the 20th century.

Anyway, I read a recent book by Gavin Menzies called ‘The Lost Empire of Atlantis’ to try and get a better grasp on the arguments made by those who equate the Minoans with Atlantis and, to be honest, I was a bit disappointed with the book. He essentially tries to connect many of the locales that we’ve talked about on the podcast here, but he makes the claim that the Minoans conducted direct and persistent trade with places like Lothal in the Indus Valley and Wadi Gawasis on Egypt’s Red Sea coast. He talks about the Uluburun shipwreck, a wreck off the Turkish coast that’s been dated to around 1300 BCE, and that’s a wreck worth looking into, something we’ll do at some point in the next few episodes here. However, this book begins to lose me when it tries to connect Minoan trade with India in the east, and then say that naval bases in Spain and Portugal allowed the Minoans to sail to America and introduce copper mining ideas and tools to the Native Americans. I suppose that it could theoretically be possible, but it’s quite a stretch indeed, even if archaeological evidence has shown that Minoan trade made it to Spain, whether directly or indirectly. Anyway, he also throws in Stonehenge for good measure, so be forewarned if this book is or ever makes its way onto your reading list. It’s entertaining at least, but the probability of the theories it proposes are quite low, in my view.

Anyway, I go to the trouble of describing this book because it also tries to tie these theories about the Minoans to the legendary empire of Atlantis, doing so mainly through a discussion of Plato’s dialogues concerning Atlantis. I’ll leave you to the Menzies book at your own discretion, but for today we’re instead going to look at Plato’s treatment of the legend. Plato is actually the only serious written historical record that contains reference to Atlantis, so it’s amazing to think that two of Plato’s dialogues have snowballed into what is almost a pseudo-history industry surrounding the legend of Atlantis. The two dialogues in question are Timaeus and Critias. Being dialogues, they’re framed as conversations between various characters, all of whom, save Timaeus, were actual people from Greek history. Timaeus, the dialogue, is the first one to mention Atlantis, so the relevant passage is worth reading, I think, but let me give some brief background first.

The dialogue in Timaeus is set by Plato as taking place the day after Socrates described his view of the ideal state, a well-known dialogue that’s contained in Plato’s famous work, The Republic. At the outset of Timaeus, then, Socrates feels that his description of the ideal state wasn't sufficient for the purposes of entertainment and says that “he would be glad to hear some account of it engaging in transactions with other states.” A dialogue participant, Hermocrates, wishes to oblige Socrates and mentions that Critias knows just the account to do so. Critias then proceeds to tell the story of Solon's journey to Egypt where Solon supposedly heard the story of Atlantis, including how Athens used to be an virtuous state that was forced to wage war against Atlantis. Critias, however, feels that he is getting ahead of himself and asks that Timaeus tell part of the account from the origin of the universe until the advent of man. The specifics about Atlantis are therefore postponed, to be later included in the dialogue named after Critias, but the following excerpt from Timaeus is the first time Atlantis is named in the historical record. Plato gives an overview of the Atlantis legend by putting these words in the mouth Critias:

“For it is related in our records how once upon a time your State stayed the course of a mighty host, which, starting from a distant point in the Atlantic ocean, was insolently advancing to attack the whole of Europe, and Asia to boot. For the ocean there was at that time navigable; for in front of the mouth which you Greeks call, as you say, 'the pillars of Heracles,' there lay an island which was larger than Libya and Asia together; and it was possible for the travelers of that time to cross from it to the other islands, and from the islands to the whole of the continent over against them which encompasses that veritable ocean. For all that we have here, lying within the mouth of which we speak, is evidently a haven having a narrow entrance; but that yonder is a real ocean, and the land surrounding it may most rightly be called, in the fullest and truest sense, a continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there existed a confederation of kings, of great and marvelous power, which held sway over all the island, and over many other islands also and parts of the continent, and, moreover, of the lands here within the Straits they ruled over Libya as far as Egypt, and over Europe as far as Tuscany. So this host, being all gathered together, made an attempt one time to enslave by one single onslaught both your country and ours and the whole of the territory within the Straits.”

“And then it was, Solon, that the manhood of your State showed itself conspicuous for valor and might in the sight of all the world. For it stood pre- eminent above all in gallantry and all warlike arts, and acting partly as leader of the Greeks, and partly standing alone by itself when deserted by all others, after encountering the deadliest perils, it defeated the invaders and reared a trophy; whereby it saved from slavery such as were not as yet enslaved, and all the rest of us who dwell within the bounds of Heracles it ungrudgingly set free. But at a later time there occurred portentous earthquakes and floods, and one grievous day and night befell them, when the whole body of your warriors was swallowed up by the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner was swallowed up by the sea and vanished; wherefore also the ocean at that spot has now become impassable and unsearchable, being blocked up by the shoal mud which the island created as it settled down. You have now heard, Socrates, in brief outline, the account given by the elder Critias of what he heard from Solon.”

Plato, Critias

Interesting stuff, that. Now the very last line there is the one I was referring to when I asked if the pumice floating on the surface of the sea rang any bells in your mind. Those who make the Minoan-Atlantis connection say that Plato’s description of the impassable ocean after Atlantis’s vanishing act could be explained by the pumice that would have clogged the Aegean after the Thera eruption. I’ll go ahead and tip my hand here when I say that this association is dubious, and almost every other detail that Plato used to describe Atlantis doesn’t line up with the Minoan Civilization as we understand it. I suppose the pumice rafts from the volcano would have hindered shipping for a while, but Plato says that the entire island sank into the ocean as well. Thera is still there, mostly, and Crete hasn’t gone anywhere either, so at the least, we can’t take Plato literally. For what it’s worth, I don’t think we should take him literally. His dialogues weren’t intended to be histories, but for some reason Atlantis sympathizers read Plato’s dialogues as historical fact. I don’t want to get too bogged down in it, but just from the synopsis above, we can see that Timaeus was connected by Plato to the discussion of ‘The Republic’, so in that sense, they both were meant to function as theoretical examinations of the qualities that inhere in the ideal state or government. It’s in that context that Critias tells his story about Atlantis, not in a context that claims it to be true.

For me, though, the number of details recited in Critias the dialogue are what make the Minoan-Atlantis connection the most questionable. One scholar counted the number of specific details relayed about Atlantis at 53. All of these details save two or three don’t match up with the Minoan Civilization and Crete specifically. Yes, Plato describes Atlantis as having large, ornate palaces, but this is about where the similarities end. He places the Atlantean island ‘beyond the Pillars of Hercules,’ which was the Greek’s term for the Straits of Gibraltar, so supposedly Atlantis was in the Atlantic Ocean somewhere. Location is an issue. The timeframe is also an issue, because Plato places the destruction of Atlantis as having happened 9000 years before his own life, a vast difference from the timeframe of the Theran cataclysm. The island itself is another issue. Plato describes a huge island, formed with concentric, walled rings connected by bridges. Thera may bear some resemblance to this ring-like layout, especially before the volcano’s eruption, but Crete is nowhere near to fitting the description. Plato describes Atlantis as containing elephants, and none of the Aegean islands can lay claim to resident elephants.

In sum, only two or three of the details Plato ascribes to Atlantis can be matched to the Minoan Civilization, whether we’re talking Thera or Crete. Then, we have the fact that the stories of Atlantis in Plato’s dialogues were told as moral tales in relation the question of what qualities comprise a exemplary state. Perhaps the predominant point that needs making here is that Plato directly connected Athens with Atlantis. The dialogues were never meant to be accurate recitals of historical events; they were philosophical discussions meant to inform the issues of the day in Greece during Plato’s life, hence the kind depiction of Athens in comparison to Atlantis. The Atlantis legend was conveyed for it’s moral instruction, the idea that Atlantis was once powerful because of its virtue, but fell prey to greed and was defeated by the valiant Greeks, then finished off by the gods who desired to destroy Atlantis as punishment for its corruption.

That’s the position that my logical brain takes when it comes to Atlantis as a historical place. But, there’s still a part of me that’s fascinated by the legend, the possibility, however irrational it may be. My hopeful side takes the view that Plato couldn’t have just made up the entire legend of Atlantis from whole cloth, could he? Maybe he told the tale for it’s moral value, sure, and maybe he exaggerated, as was the Greek tradition at story telling gatherings like the ones he described in the dialogues. But maybe, just maybe, there was a seed of truth beneath all the hyperbole. That’s what I want to believe, anyway. “The truth is out there,” right? At the end of the day I suppose it’s possible that a volcanic eruption with effects as widespread as those of the Thera eruption would have left a large mark on the oral histories of the people around the Mediterranean. The Minoans wrote in their Linear A script, but as we’ve not managed to decipher it yet, we don’t know whether the answers lie in an untranslated Minoan text somewhere. Even so, the oral histories that came down to Plato’s day, when the written word was finally picking up steam in Greece and around the world, could have transformed the destruction wrought at Thera upon the once mighty Minoans into a morality tale with relevance to the contemporary issues. The eruption was over 1,000 years removed from Plato’s day, after all. Even today we don’t have a complete picture of life around 1000 AD, but imagine what our picture would be if there were no written records to inform that picture? It might be a bit different, or so I would imagine.

Even though I don’t think there’s much historical basis to the Atlantis legend, I’ll leave you with a thought from a historian who I’ve been reading a lot of lately, Fernand Braudel, who informed our discussion last time. He writes: “Atlantis, according to the account of Saite high priest and the Egyptian “temple archives” (for so was the supposed origin of Solon and Critias’s story), was situated far to the west, at the limit of the known world. Plato therefore naturally placed it beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, in the middle of the ocean, but for the Egyptians of the eighteenth dynasty, the “western limit of the known world” would have been Crete. So was the destruction of Atlantis possibly a combination of two events, telescoped together in traditional folklore? The end of the Minoan ascendency and the eruption of Thera?”

That’s what we’re ultimately left with on this topic, though. A question mark. It’s possible, though not likely. Anyway, Braudel’s question gives us a springboard for our discussion next time, that is, the topics of the Minoan decline and the Mycenaean rise. Mycenae had been around for a slight bit before the Thera eruption, though not in any major way. They were minor players content to gather their strength. The Thera eruption didn’t destroy Minoan hegemony immediately, but it seems to have set them on a downward trajectory. The Mycenaeans were all to happy to take advantage of that downfall and fill the Minoan shoes. However, this transition from Minoan to Mycenaean brings us again close to the end of the Bronze Age, and hopefully after trying up some loose ends and filling in a few gaps, we’ll soon be moving on to that period.

Sources

• Balch, Edwin Swift, Atlantis or Minoan Crete, Geographical Review, Vol. 3, No. 5 (May, 1917), pp. 388-392.
• Barber, Robin L.N., Chapter 9, Cyclades, in The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean, (2012).
• Braudel, Fernand, Memory and the Mediterranean (2001).
• Friedrich, Walter L., The minoan eruption of santorini around 1613 B.C. and its consequences, Tagung en des Landesmuseums für Vorges chichte Halle, Vol. 9 (2013), pp. 37-48.
• McGrail, Seán, Boats of the World: From the Stone Age to Medieval Times (2009).
• Paine, Lincoln, The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World (2013).
• Plato, Critias.
• Plato, Timaeus.
• Strasser, Thomas  F., Location and Perspective in the Theran Flotilla Fresco, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, Vol. 23.1 (2010), pp. 3-26.
• Warren, Peter, The Miniature Fresco from the West House at Akrotiri, Thera, and Its Aegean Setting, The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 99 (1979), pp. 115-129.