What has Santorini to do with the myth of Atlantis?
Continue to read and you will discover the answer…
Mentioning Santorini is like to say “volcanic explosion”. Both the main island and the little ones in front of it (Thirassia, Aspronesi, Mikrà Kameni, Palea Kameni e Nea Kameni) arose from a volcanic eruption.
The island, as we can see it today, grew up thanks to the sea that flooded into the crater of the volcano during the II millennium BC happened after an eruption. Plato let us know about its origin through its stories.
Anyway there are finds proving that in the IV millennium BC the island was the place of an advanced civilization, disappeared owing to the eruption.
I’m talking about Akrotiri site, defined afterwards “Pompei of the Aegan sea“, where were found the ruins of an ancient Minoan village. Contrariwise it was founded no trail of humans and the finds are on a higher quality and quantity level than Pompei.
This find of 1967 was one of the most important find in the history of the archeology. It was digged up a sewage system so perfect that it can be considered one of the first urban engineering form of history.
In addition to Minoans, the island was inhabited by Phoenicians and Doris. In honour of their king the Dorian people gave the name of Thira to the island. Santorini became a naval base under the Ptolemies and bishop see under the Bizantines, then came the Frankish who changed the name in Santorini. It was subjected to the struggles between Ottomans and Venetians.
Briefly this is the history of the island but… what has Santorini to do with the myth of Atlantis?
It’s Plato fault!
Atlantis was located in many different places, among them Santorini. We have to go back to the past, when the Bible talks about “three days of dark”, heartquakes and division of water. Maybe at that time the Aegan area was affected by a lot of cataclysms, that strongly transformed the shape of the area.
One of this change was the disappearance of Atlantis: Plato states that the eruption, that destroyed Santorini, fits together with the disappearance of the mythical people. However the disappearance of Santorini happened little by little and not suddenly, as they didn’t find ordinary objects during digging in.
Furthermore the heavy explosion emptied the volcano, that collapsed sinking under the sea. Can it be connected with the disappearance of Atlantis? Surely it caused the disappearance of Santorini.
We want to believe that Santorini owe its magic also to this myth… and you?
