Post by @artemiscollective

Are Greek myths just memories of the Bronze Age? Part 2 🏺 | Let's talk about Atlantis. Around 360 BC, Plato described a sophisticated island civilization that disappeared beneath the sea in a catastrophic event. Centuries later, archaeologists uncovered Akrotiri on the island of Thera, modern-day Santorini, buried beneath volcanic ash from one of the largest eruptions in human history. The parallels are fascinating. Thera was part of a wealthy maritime world, a large portion of the island collapsed into the sea, and the eruption devastated the surrounding Aegean. Beneath the ash, Akrotiri preserved paved streets, multi-story buildings, drainage systems, pottery, and extraordinary frescoes. But the problems are just as real. Plato places Atlantis beyond the Strait of Gibraltar, makes it vastly larger than Thera, and dates its destruction thousands of years too early. So we can't say Santorini was Atlantis. But Plato may have been drawing on much older memories of a real Bronze Age catastrophe that survived long after the world that experienced it was gone. Sources: Pearson, Charlotte L., et al. "Olive Shrub Buried on Therasia Supports a Mid-16th Century BCE Date for the Thera Eruption." Scientific Reports 13 (2023): 6994. Manning, Sturt W., et al. "Annual Radiocarbon Record Indicates 16th Century BCE Date for the Thera Eruption." Science Advances 4, no. 2 (2018): eaar8241. Sigurdsson, Haraldur, et al. "Assessment of Mass, Dynamics and Environmental Effects of the Minoan Eruption of Santorini Volcano." In Thera and the Aegean World III, edited by D.A. Hardy et al. London: Thera Foundation, 1990. Nomikou, Paraskevi, et al. "Expanding Volcanic Crisis and Tsunami Hazard: Reconstructing the Minoan Eruption of Santorini." Nature Communications 14 (2023): 2511. Friedrich, Walter L. Fire in the Sea: The Santorini Volcano — Natural History and the Legend of Atlantis. Translated by Alexander R. McBirney. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Doumas, Christos. The Wall-Paintings of Thera. Athens: Thera Foundation, 1992. Marinatos, Spyridon. "The Volcanic Destruction of Minoan Crete." Antiquity 13 (1939): 425–439. Plato. Timaeus and Critias. Translated by Desmond Lee. London: Penguin Classics, 1977. Vidal-Naquet, Pierre. "Atlantis and the Nations." Critical Inquiry 18, no. 2 (1992): 300–326. Galanopoulos, Angelos G., and Edward Bacon. Atlantis: The Truth Behind the Legend. London: Nelson, 1969. Forsythe, Gary. "The Historical Background of the Atlantis Story." In Atlantis: Fact or Fiction?, edited by Edwin Ramage. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978. "Akrotiri Frescoes." World History Encyclopedia. Accessed 2026. "Atlantis." World History Encyclopedia. Accessed 2026. "Eruption of Thera." Encyclopaedia Britannica. Accessed 2026. #ancienthistory #ancientgreece #greekmythology #thebronzeage #historytok