A civilization lost

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Something amazing happened about 3600 years ago. A quiet island called Thera rested peacefully in the Mediterranean Sea. From its center rose a peak. Freshwater streams flowed down freely from the mountain. Thera must have been a pleasant place to live. But that would change.

Thera’s largest city was Akrotiri. Archaeologists believe that Thera’s people were Minoans. They were members of a very advanced civilization. A much larger population of Minoans lived on the island of Crete. It was about 70 miles down south of Thera.

The Minoans lived in well-built homes with glass windows. They had apartment buildings two and three stories high. The people had made good use of the streams that flowed through their cities. Ceramic pipes carried water into each home. These long ago people had even invented flush toilets!

The citizens of Akrotiri decorated their homes with wall paintings called frescoes. Archaeologists have uncovered pictures showing citizens living a busy life. The paintings show green oases of trees and gardens. Streets are lined with bakeshop and other stores.

On the south shore of Thera was a busy trading port and center of culture. Trading ships came and went, bringing goods from Crete and from other nearby islands. There is evidence of a thriving trade with Egypt to the south.

In the autumn of 1628 B.C., disaster came to Thera. Without warning, the quiet mountain exploded! This mountain that had watched over the island for so long was indeed a fierce volcano.

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The force of the eruption was like 150 modern hydrogen bombs — all of them exploding at once. The island was ripped open and blown apart. The volcano’s cone turned inward. Quickly, it sank beneath the sea. Geographers and Oceonographers say that, in just minutes, all life was snuffed out on Thera.

Volcano experts believe that ash rose in such great clouds that the sun was blotted out for many months. Evidence of this comes from all the areas around the Mediterranean Sea. Centuries later, layers of Thera’s ash were found on Greenland, 3500 miles away.

But it was not just the clouds of ash that brought disaster to nearby islands and shorelines. How frightened the people of the Mediterranean must have been when a giant tsunami followed the volcano’s collapse. Historians estimate that this destructive wave swept over all the nearby islands and shorelines. It destroyed dozens of Mediterranean cities.

On Crete alone, the wave sped 70 miles at 200 miles per hour. When it hit Crete’s shore, it was 300 feet high. The Minoan civilization on both Thera and Crete could not survive.

A search for Thera today would find only a circle of islands near Greece. The islands are the top rim of the great caldera left by the explosion 3600 years ago. The place where Thera disappeared is today called Santorini.

A mystery surrounds the lost island of Thera. In 347 B.C., the great scholar and philosopher Plato wrote about a civilization called Atlantis. He said it ruled over all of the eastern Mediterranean and then suddenly disappeared. “There occurred earthquakes,” wrote Plato, “and a night of rain, and the island of Atlantis disappeared, and was sank beneath the sea.”

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In Plato’s works, Atlantis is described as a large, rich civilization. His description of its buildings sounds like ruins found far below the remains of Thera. Plato describes bull worship, a practice shown in the frescoes uncovered at Thera. Even the colours of the rocks from which the walls were made match his story.

But Plato claimed Atlantis was as large as the continent of Africa. And his writings suggest it sank into the Atlantic Ocean, not Mediterranean Sea. Thus archaeologists and historians differ in their opinions about whether Thera could have been the Atlantis of Plato’s writings.

Archaeologists continue to search deep into the ruins of Thera. Perhaps some day, they will know all its secrets and whether it was Plato’s famous Atlantis.