Archaeology Magazine - April 1971 - 36

Map of Santorini (Thera) showing the distribution of layers of ash and pumice . The
most recent excavations are on the southern
part of the main island. Photograph, J. V. Luce.
most attractive topics in prehistoric, preliterate
archaeology is a sign of a new drawing-together
of scholarly disciplines which should always have
been inseparable but which have too often been
split apart in university contexts.
The book is dedicated to Professor Emeritus
Spyridon Marinatos, the distinguished excavator
of Thera since 1967 (the centenary of F. Fouqué's
first revelation of the prehistoric culture buried
under a shroud of Santorini ash), for his generosity with facts, ideas and materials on the south
coast site of Akrotiri. Many archaeologists, geologists and philologists had their eyes opened to
the historical power of Thera and its eruptions
during the congress sponsored by Marinatos and
the Greek Government in 1969, bringing together
scientists from relevant fields (good reports from
B. Heezen, The Saturday Review, 6 December
1969, page 87; S. Hood, Kadmos 9 [1970] 98).
The picturesque and romantic effects of Thera's
Bronze Age eruption have been presented to the
public frequently since Professor Marinatos' early
discoveries reawakened interest in forgotten problems- not to mention his classic article in Antiquity 13 (1939) 425-439 where the editors entered
a disclaimer on the grounds that excavation was
needed to substantiate such fantastic theories.
Even after the recent trio of books by Luce,
Galanopoulos and Bacon, and Mavor, each stimulating in its own way and the first two excellently
illustrated, it is refreshing to read Professor Page,
the first responsible scholar after Marinatos to
discuss Thera without a single mention of "the
lost Atlantis."
132

he four chapters are organized to create suspense, although the general form of the conclusions is easily guessed :
1. Crete5 the mysterious destruction and desolation of so many palaces, villas and farms in the
fifteenth century b.c.; 2. the volcanic structure
and explosive potential of Santorini; 3. the nature of one of the towns buried on Santorini as
reflected in Marinatos' excavations; 4. Crete
again, how the end came. In each chapter there
are original observations based on considerable
research among records of volcanoes and experience of Cretan and other Aegean sites.
Some other volcanoes which erupted in a style
similar to Thera's are now archaeological commonplaces, but Page ventures beyond the usual
statistical comparisons with Krakatoa to include
less familiar outbreaks: Tambora in 1814 (more
physical material ejected, less bang) which, if
contemplated as a possible model, might suggest
that Thera's eruption may have taken the form
of more staccato minor explosions over a period
of time, without the huge sea-floods or shockwaves so beloved by the public; or Bezymianny,
1956, with its ash cloud measured in Kamchatka
as forty miles tall. Ash from Novarupta in Alaska,
1912, was thick enough a hundred miles away to
cause ash avalanches on the hills and to collapse
house roofs. It seems clear to most specialists that
eastern Crete was also swamped in ash in the
fifteenth century b.c. This ash coat is still elusive,
detected neither by geologists nor archaeologists;
after thirty-four centuries of washing away, it
might take special analysis to prove its penetration of the soil, but its existence is taken theoretically as necessary, since ash has been found in
the sea bed north and south of Crete; arguments
vary only as to its probable depth, a few centimeters to several meters.
One particular value of this book is its reexamination of the relations in time which connect the
eruptions of Thera (or rather of its several volcanic outlets) and the partial destruction of
eleven Cretan sites, from Tylissos west of Knossos
to Zakro on the east coast. There has been a
great deal of inflated talk about the catastrophe
of Thera at the beginning of the late Bronze Age,
and the consequent "destruction" of Crete - pictures of skies darkened with ash and shot through
with electrical displays, horrid smells of sulphur,
enormous tidal waves racing in twenty-six minutes
to smash the "fleet of King Minos" drawn up on
the unprotected beach at Amnisos, the eager and

Archaeology Magazine - April 1971

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - April 1971