The Real Life Civilization Behind a Legendary One
During the second millennium BC, the Minoans, based out of the Mediterranean island of Crete, created history’s first naval trade empire. They also developed a particularly sophisticated and advanced civilization for that day and age. Then it all crashed down, due in large part to a natural disaster: the Thera Volcanic Eruption, circa 1642 – 1540 BC, in what is today the 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 Minoan settlement of nearby Arkotiri and nearby islands.
In addition to the immediate devastation of Thera and islands in its vicinity, the eruption produced powerful tsunamis that devastated Crete. The widespread destruction contributed to the decline of the Minoan civilization and paved the way for its extinction. Such a disaster, which came out of the blue like a bolt of lightning, gave rise to the legendary accounts 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 source material for a myth about a vanished civilization. It was one of history’s most impactful natural disasters. Its consequences were felt not only in its own era, but have effects and a chain of causation that leads directly to the world in which we live today.
