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Modern Description: From the junction (6km) on the main road between Megalochóri and Emboreió, a west branch leads to the village of Akrotiri. The hill of Akrotiri is panoramic, and it was an obvious site for the Venetians to construct the fourth in their series of intercommunicating fortresses— this one watching the southern approaches to the island and its caldera. A branch of the Bolognese Gozzadini family, who were based on Siphnos and Kythnos, lived here already by 1336 and probably built the kastro; they were still occupying it in the 17th century under Turkish rule. Though ruined, the form of the ensemble survives well: the encircling ring of houses and quasi-bastions surround the summit, which was crowned originally by the main tower, whose ruins have been considerably modified to accommodate the modern church. The enceinte is entered by a tunnel above the church of Aghios Giorgios. Inside, there is a tightly-knit tissue of ruined buildings and the visible remains of plastered cisterns, and churches incorporating ancient fragments and spolia. From Akrotiri, roads radiate west to the white bay and cliffs at Aspri, and beyond to the elegant light-house of Akrotiri point (13.5km), built by a French company in 1892, or south for the archaeological site and the ‘red beach' which lies a short, fifteen-minute walk beyond it to the west.
The excavations of the prehistoric city at Akrotiri* are among the most important in the Mediterranean because of the remarkably good state of conservation of the streets of two and three-storey buildings, the wealth of pottery and other finds, and the quality of the wall paintings, which constitute the most important cycle of Bronze Age murals in Europe. Some of the paintings are preserved in the Museum of Prehistoric Thera in Chora, but most are in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. For reasons of conservation, none have been kept on the site itself.
Date of the eruption: Physical analysis argues that the eruption occurred somewhere around 1625 BC, and that, although its effect on Crete and the other neighbouring islands must have been momentarily devastating, it could not sensibly be considered more than the first event in a domino chain of consequences that may have led to the ultimate demise of Minoan civilisation centuries later. These results are in direct contradistinction to the no less scientific or coherent findings of archaeology. Cross reference of the dating of artefacts traded with Crete and Egypt, combined with inscriptions and depictions from the early years of the regency of Queen Hatshepsut in the reign of her nephew Thutmose III, point to a date around 1500 BC.
Society: the considerable mercantile prosperity and high standard of living, with municipal services such as central drains and sewers beneath the streets, suggests a degree both of distribution of wealth within the society and of civic cooperation and social organisation amongst its various levels and elements. The wealth of imported objects, contrasted with the island's presumed paucity of exportable, home-grown agricultural goods, suggests that Bronze Age Therans were middle-men who lived off trade, commerce and shipping rather than production of primary materials. As evidence of the importance of commercial exchange, it should be noted that half of the total number of examples of early stirrup-jars—the typical receptacles for transporting liquids such as wine or oil— that have been unearthed in the Aegean area come from Akrotiri; similarly, two thirds of the commercial balance-weights found in the Aegean also come from these excavations.
• External relations: from the unfortified architecture, the paucity of warrior's objects found, and the general lack of emphasis on martial themes in paintings, we might wish to infer the unusually non-aggressive nature of its society.
• Visual art: both the pottery decoration and the magnificently clear and vigorous wall paintings give a vivid sense of a confident, creative, civilised and, above all, colourful world, as different from the ponderous, martial world of the Mycenaeans on the one hand, as it was from the more artistically conservative and protocol-bound world of Egypt on the other. The high proportion of empty space to figurative element in Theran painting is a deeply significant trait, revealing a freedom and clarity of thought.
Evidence of prehistoric settlement in the Santorini archipelago first came to light on Therasía in the 1860s, when a quarry which had been opened to provide pozzolana for the building of the Suez Canal, revealed a Bronze Age house of several rooms containing a wealth of pottery, which was briefly excavated by Ferdinand Fouqué in 1867. Fouqué also examined the site of Akrotiri, finding evidence of walls and strata composed of vase fragments. As a consequence of his finds, a team from the French School of Archaeology under Henri Mamet, dug at Akrotiri in 1870, and published their findings (in Latin) four years later. Following a brief campaign of excavation, to the east of the present site, by Robert Zahn in 1899, nothing further was done for almost seventy years. In 1939 Spyridon Marinatos published an article suggesting that the simultaneous destruction of so many Minoan palaces and villas was the result of violent volcanic activity on Thera. It was not until 1967 that he first began digging at Akrotiri, having surveyed the whole area a few years previously. By a combination of good luck and brilliant foresight, he made significant finds from the very first days of excavation, when he descended into a room with a large window, containing decorated and painted storage vases. Marinatos died on the site as the result of an accident while excavating in 1974. Since then, the excavations have continued under the guidance of Professor Christos Doumas. Evidence from pottery finds shows that the site of Akrotiri was inhabited since the late Neolithic period (5th millennium BC), that it grew through the early 3rd millennium BC (Early Cycladic period), and that it became a flourishing settlement in the Middle Cycladic period. On exceptionally clear days, the mountains of Crete are visible from parts of Thera, and Akrotiri is the point on the island closest to Crete. It is the very first landfall for maritime traffic heading north from Crete. Links between the two islands must have been close from the Middle Cycladic period on, and some scholars have suggested that the settlement at Akrotiri was a Minoan trading colony. The truth is more complex: although there is clearly strong Minoan influence, there are many elements of architecture, town planning, painting and ceramic production which betray a quite independent Cycladic parentage.
What is visible to the visitor today, therefore, is a town of the mid-17th century BC, which is a hybrid of Minoan and Cycladic features. Several times in its history the town was destroyed or damaged by earthquakes; on each occasion the ruins were levelled, and new building was begun above, following the same urban plan. This meant that the street level rose, and at several points ground floor rooms became half-sunken basements. In the seismic events leading up to the final eruption of Thera, the town was evacuated more than once and then re-occupied in moments of quiescence, in which repairs to the damaged buildings were undertaken. Before the final cataclysm it appears that the population had sufficient warning to collect their valuable belongings and animals, and to leave. In contradistinction to Pompeii and Herculaneum, no bodies and few real valuables have been found in excavations so far. After the final eruption in the late 16th (or, according to some authorities, 17th) century BC, the town was buried and preserved by the packed and hardened volcanic ash.
The state of preservation of the buildings is remarkable with many standing to two floors, some to three. A good proportion of the houses were built of loose stone with a mud and straw mortar. To give them both strength and flexibility during earth tremors they had large wooden frames to the windows and doors, sometimes reinforced with cut, stone blocks around the frame and at the corners of the buildings. These wooden elements were incinerated by the heat of the volcanic ash which packed around them: this has meant that the archaeologists have had to proceed with extreme caution to avoid the collapse of the buildings. The negative space left by every wooden element has had to be filled with a cement before the internal spaces could be cleared. What look like wooden beams in the houses, are in fact the cement beams of the archaeologists. In places, too, buttresses have had to be added. Alongside the houses in this adobe construction, are a number of large, possibly public, edifices constructed entirely or partially in ashlar masonry, i.e. dry-stone masonry of regularly cut blocks. The two large buildings to either side of the south entrance to the site, designated Xeste 3 and Xeste 4, are good examples, the former being a two-storey block with 14 rooms on each floor. (Xeste in Greek refers to a building of large-cut stone blocks.) Staircases were generally in stone, and sometimes in wood.
The roofs were flat and thermally insulated, comprising cross-beams overlaid with reeds and branches packed and sealed with earth and crushed shells, in a fashion almost identical to traditional Cycladic structures existing today. Floors were constructed similarly and, in more important residences, they were paved with schist slabs. The lowest, semi-basement floors were cool and used for storage, or as workshops: rows of pithoi were commonly found at this level. The upper floor was for reception rooms; their walls were coated with a fine plaster, often coloured or painted, and the most common object they contained was a loom, suggesting that they were predominantly women's quarters. Privies, with a bench-seat, connected by down-pipes to a communal drain that ran under the paving of the street outside, are found in some houses, for example in Room 4 of the West House. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of these houses was the unusual size of their broad, open windows, through which it must have been possible sometimes to see the colourful wall paintings within, from the public spaces outside. These paintings constitute Akrotiri's greatest gift to our understanding of the Aegean Bronze Age world
The excavations occupy a long hollow which runs along a north/south axis. Entry to the site is generally at the south (lower) end, into an open space between two large building complexes to left and to right. Xeste 3, to the left, appears to have been a two-floored dwelling with many rooms and a sacred area, constructed in ashlar masonry. The rooms in the part nearest to us were decorated with paintings, and must have functioned as an adyton, or place of cult. The paintings, depicting the Crocus Gatherers, covered both lower and upper floors; they featured women gathering wild crocus and putting them into baskets to offer them to a seated female divinity, flanked by a monkey and a gryphon.
Xeste 4, to the right, which is an extensive three-floor building, has revealed interesting decorations, amongst which is a depiction of a boar-tusk helmet, of a kind similar to that described by Homer. As the open area closes into a small alley to the north, it passes the two-floor Building B (left): this was again magnificently decorated with the famous images of Antelopes and Boxing Children, in which the adjacent images of young, male competition in the human and animal worlds, provided a deliberate iconographic symmetry. A small room on the western side of the same building was decorated with the scene of scrambling Blue Monkeys, which is on display in the Museum of Prehistoric Thera in Chora.
In Building D, further north to the left, the large door and window frames, and storage areas with pithoi, can be clearly seen as they were found. At this point the municipal drainage system runs beneath the level of the pathway, the built-in down-pipes can also be seen at certain points. An example of a Minoan type of altar in the form of ox-horns, referred to as ‘Horns of Consecration', is exhibited near to where it was found to the right-hand side, underlining the close cultic links with Crete.
As the street climbs further, a flight of partially collapsed stone steps to an upper floor can be seen to the left. You are now above the area of the cemetery of the earlier, 3rd millennium BC settlement. Respect was paid by the later inhabitants to the sacredness of this spot by the preservation of a small stone cenotaph (to the left) which contained marble figurines and grave goods from the cemetery, and which was always left visible in the city. Further to the north and slightly to the left, at the summit, is the so called House of the Ladies, named after the murals depicting elegant ladies in flounced dresses, participating in what appears to be a ritual dressing of a priestess or important female person. At the northern extremity of the site is the Building of the Pithoi, where a concentration of variously decorated, standing storage jars were found in a room with a large, low window perhaps used for dispensing the produce.
The permitted route leads round to the west (left) and down a narrow alley into the small and intimate ‘Triangle' Square* dominated to the north by the most important building excavated so far, the West House. With little effort we can imagine ourselves in the plateia of a contemporary Cycladic town—something that shows how practical and enduring the design of settlements has been, with narrow, curving streets and small, open areas to break the force of the frequent winds. The West House presents an interesting façade: the low window-lights, just above the ground level, are sufficient to supply ventilation and light for the cool, lower-floor storage areas. At the right-hand end is an entrance doorway with a rectangular window directly beside it: this is a common feature of houses at Akrotiri. It was an enduring arrangement for what may have been a shop front, and as such recalls the design of shopfronts in Pompeii and Herculaneum. The upper floor is dominated by the central, rectangular window, behind which is a large, ceremonial room; to its west are two rooms which were beautifully decorated. The murals which came from here and occupied almost every kind and shape of space, all partake of a marine theme: the two Fisher-boys Bearing Strings of Fish marched from opposite corners to a meeting point where the small, three-legged offering table, decorated with dolphins was found by Marinatos. Above were a series of friezes depicting Marine and River Landscapes and a more detailed scene of what appears to have been a Naval Regatta which, even if we are unable fully to understand the nature of the event it depicts, provides through its extraordinary detail invaluable information on costume, architecture, boat design and fauna. These constitute the earliest ‘landscapes' in European Art.
Another imposing house, Building D, forms the east side of the little plateia. It was from a small room on the far side of this house that the most bucolic of all the Theran paintings comes: the colourful Landscape with Lilies and Swallows (Archaeology Museum, Athens) which formed the backdrop to a ritual, celebrating the returning fertility of spring. The house had a grand entrance which was covered with a roofed porch, open to north and south, which encroaches on the public space, just to the south of the square. It was in the building beyond this that Spyridon Marinatos died while working on the excavations in October 1974. A small memorial inside the building marks the spot.
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akrotiri_(prehistoric_city)
Wikidata ID: Q421232

Info: McGilchrist's Greek Islands

(From McGilchrist’s Greek Islands, © Nigel McGilchrist 2010, excerpted with his gracious permission. Click for the books)

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