4. The Natural Disaster Behind the Legend of Atlantis
In the second millennium BC, the Minoans, based out of the Mediterranean island of Crete, created history’s first naval trade empire. They also developed what, for the era, was a particularly sophisticated and advanced civilization. Then it all crashed down, due in large part to a natural disaster: the Thera Volcanic Eruption, circa 1642 – 1540 BC, in today’s Greek island of Santorini. It was one of the most powerful volcanic blasts in recorded history, estimated to have been about four times stronger than the gigantic Krakatoa explosion of 1883. The eruption sundered the island of Thera, and wiped out the flourishing Minoan settlement of nearby Arkotiri and surrounding islands.
In addition to the immediate destruction of Thera and nearby islands, the eruption produced powerful tsunamis that devastated Crete. The catastrophe contributed to the decline of the Minoan civilization, and paved the way for its extinction. That gave rise to the legend of the vanished civilization of Atlantis, which was doomed by a natural catastrophe and swallowed by the sea. However, the impact of the Thera Eruption went beyond serving as the source material for a legend about a vanished civilization. It was one of history’s most impactful natural disasters. Its consequences were not limited to its own era, but had knock on effects and a chain of causation that leads directly to the world in which we live today.
