1. ENGLISH - Cycladic Civilization - Bronge age settlement of Thera - 1700 BC - Colourfull Frescoes with nature patterns in Akrotiri - Island of Santorini
Cycladic Civilization - Bronge age settlement of Thera - 1700 BC - Colourfull Frescoes with nature patterns in Akrotiri - Island of Santorini
Akrotiri is a Minoan Bronze Age settlement on the volcanic Greek island of Santorini (Thera). The settlement was destroyed in the Theran eruption about 1500 BC and buried in volcanic ash, which preserved the remains of fine Frescoes and many objects and artworks. The settlement has been suggested as a possible inspiration for Plato's story of Atlantis. The site has been excavated since 1967.
The Akrotiri excavation site is of a Minoan Bronze Age settlement on the Greek island of Santorini, associated with the Minoan civilization due to inscriptions in Linear A, and close similarities in artifact and fresco styles. The excavation is named for a modern Greek village situated on a hill nearby. The name of the site in antiquity is unknown.
Akrotiri was buried by the widespread Theran eruption in the middle of the second millennium B (during the Late Minoan IA period); as a result, like the Roman ruins of Pompeii after it, it is remarkably well-preserved. Frescoes,[3] pottery, furniture, advanced drainage systems and three-story buildings have been discovered at the site, whose excavation was started in 1967 by Spyridon Marinatos.
Some historians hold that this settlement, as well as the disaster that left it unknown to most of history, as the inspiration behind Plato's story of Atlantis, as mentioned in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias. Excavated artifacts have been installed in a museum distant from the site (Museum of Prehistoric Thera), with many objects and artworks presented. Only a single gold object has been found, hidden beneath flooring, and no uninterred human skeletal remains have been found. This indicates that an orderly evacuation was performed with little or no loss of life.