Tag: Minoan eruption

‘Atlantis – The Evidence’ with Bettany Hughes to air on BBC Two

Expect to see Bettany Hughes visit the Knossos Palace at Crete in 'Atlantis, The Evidence'. Airs Wednesday June 2 2010 at 9pm on BBC TwoHistorian Bettany Hughes will star in Timewatch Special ‘Atlantis: The Evidence’, to premire on BBC Two next week. She’ll be tracing the origins of the Atlantis myth and presenting evidence that the Thera eruption inspired Plato’s account of the mystical land.

2,400 years ago Greek philosopher Plato wrote of an ancient island civilisation of unparalleled wealth and splendour, which was struck by earthquakes and floods and was swallowed up by the sea in one grievous day and night.

But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea. For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island. (Plato, as translated by Benjamin Jowett)

Atlantis has captured minds and imaginations like no other legendary land. Scores of mavericks, treasure-hunters and fantasists have devoted their lives to finding this lost world (see possible location on Google Earth). Historians and scholars have searched and debated where the real roots of the myth lie for centuries.

Bettany Hughes is among a growing number of experts who believe Plato’s story was inspired by a real historical event the eruption in the Bronze Age of a massive volcano on the Aegean island of Thera, better known to British tourists as Santorini. It was this event which wiped out one of Europe’s first civilisations in a single night.

Photo courtesy NASA. A satellite image of Santorini.Located between Crete and mainland Greece, Thera supported a thriving civilisation that reached its peak between 2000 and 1600 BC. Thera’s capital Akrotiri had its own navel fleet and many trade connections across the Aegean and Near East. Its artists painted beautiful frescoes as far as the Hyksos capital in Egypt. But the Minoan civilization – named after legendary King Minos – came to an abrupt endwhen Akrotiri was devastated by earthquakes. Shortly after a massive volcanic eruption occurred, burying the city.

In this one-off documentary Bettany Hughes presents evidence to support the theory that the Thera Eruption inspired Plato. Recent scientific findings show the eruption was much bigger than previously thought. Archaeological excavations have revealed the remains ofBronze AgeSantorinientombed by the eruption, a frozen moment of the past. As Bettany will show in ‘Atlantis: Evidence’, the parallels between Atlantis and the Minoans are striking.

‘Atlantis: The Evidence’ airs Wednesday, June 2nd 2010 at 9pm on BBC Two

Iceland Eyjafjallajökull Ash is Nothing: The Biggest Ancient Volcanic Eruptions

It may not come as much of a relief to the tens of thousands stuck in airports across the world, but Wednesday’s Eyjafjallajkull eruption in Iceland is smallfry compared to some of the ancient world’s most destructive episodes. Women in China’s Yunnan Province are still suffering huge mortality rates from lung cancer today, for example, from coal formed after Siberian eruptions five million years ago. Here are four more ancient eruptions that changed the world.

Lake Toba Eruption, c74,000 years ago

The Toba Explosion is one of the most mysterious events in human history. Occurring some 69,000 – 77,000 years ago, the blast, from Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia, was the strongest anywhere on Earth for the last 25 million years. Some experts claim that the ensuing six-year volcanic winter devastated life on the planet, reducing human numbers to as little as 1,000 breeding pairs. This could have not only caused an evolutionary bottleneck, resulting in the divergent races we see today, but also mother nature’s coup-de-gras to other hominid species on Earth.

Minoan Eruption, c1500BC

Ag. Theodori church - Firostefani, Santorini

The Caldera of Thera, better known to holidaying Brits as Santorini, may be known today for its stunning sea views and blue-domed churches. Yet three-and-a-half thousand years ago it was home to one of the ancient world’s deadliest eruptions. A layer of ash up to 60m thick coated the tiny Greek island, home to the Minoan city of Akrotiri, famous for its frescoes. Minoan settlements nearby, including those on the Cretian coast, were also ravaged by the blast and communities as far wide as Egypt and China recorded poor harvests and famines as a result. Most interesting, howev, is the theory that the Minoan eruption may have been the basis for Plato’s famous Atlantis storyclick here to see other explanations for the fabled land’s whereabouts.

Vesuvius, AD79

Plaster Cast Of Crouched Victim, Pompeii

Probably the most famous of all volcanic disasters is the immense eruption of Mount Vesuvius, near Naples, Italy, in AD79. The giant blast, which lasted for up to 19 hours, quickly engulfed the nearby Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, entombing their inhabitants in up to 3m of ash. Between 10,000 and 25,000 people are thought to have perished in the disaster, some of whom were spectacularly preserved by the event along with their houses and daily tools. From 1599 to today the city has been excavated, leaving it a popular if macabre tourist attraction.

Read more about Pompeii:

Unknown, AD535

Between 535 and 536, European and Asian civilizations were hit by freak weather, when extreme cooling caused widespread famine. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, are thought to have succumbed to the catastrophe, which the Byzantine historian Procopius described thus: “During this year a most dread portent took place. For the sun gave forth its light without brightness…and it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse, for the beams it shed were not clear.” Various reasons for the weather have been put forward, one of which is that it was caused by an eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia.

“The sun gave forth its light without brightness…”

Whatever the truth is, the event took a massive human toll: archaeology writer David Keys has claimed that it caused a number of historical events including the fall of the Mayan city of Teotihuacn; the western migration of the Mongol army; the end of the Persian Empire; the rise of Islam and the Plague of Justinian around Constantinople. Keys has since been discredited by a number of experts, but the sixth century’s answer to El Nio still remains an enigma.