The Pompeii of the Aegean

Keen to see the excavations at Akrotiri, we caught a bus heading to Fira, jumping off when we spotted The Caldera & walking the rest of the way. We could have changed buses at Fira and got off at the site but that would have been too sensible!

Our wonderfully scenic 5.5km walk to the site took just under an hour. It was another gloriously hot, breeze-free day so we were very glad of a frappe in the on-site cafeteria.

 The ancient city of Akrotiri was the only Minoan colony known to have existed outside of Crete. Often referred to as the Pompeii of the Aegean, the settlement was buried under a 2,000 foot layer of ash & pumice following the eruption of the Thira volcano triggered by the earthquake of 1700 BC and remained hidden for over 3,700 years.

Akrotiri began as a simple fishing and farming village growing olives and grains, but because it was positioned on the trade route between Europe and the Middle East, soon grew into a large & prosperous port city. The Minoans were an incredibly sophisticated people, living in two and three storey houses with balconies, underfloor heating, hot and cold running water and even flushing indoor toilets!  

An ancient bathtub within the ruins

Although likened to Pompeii, here no human or animal remains have ever been found. It's thought there were probably many foreshocks before the big eruption, so the Minoans had time to pack up their livestock and valuable belongings and leave. As Akrotiri was a rich seafaring city, people had access to boats which made it easy for them to escape, although where they went next and why they never came back to Santorini after the eruption is another of the many mysteries which surround Akrotiri.

Abandoned for centuries, Santorini was eventually recolonised, with the Phoenicians, Dorians, Romans and Byzantines creating new settlements on the island but the buried city of Akrotiri remained forgotten until the 1860s when workers quarrying ash to build the Suez Canal discovered artefacts from the old city. Some small-scale digs took place but the remains stayed where they were for another hundred years until excavations began in earnest in 1967.

Just a few hours into the excavation archaeologists discovered the first of Akrotiri’s historic buildings, since then another forty have been identified. New finds are constantly being found and it has been estimated only a third of the city has been uncovered so far and that it could take another century to excavate it all. 

The layer of ash covering the city was up to 40 metres thick in places so it has taken a lot of painstakingly digging and the removal of huge quantities of rock to get down to the original street level. During the excavations, remnants of people’s everyday lives were uncovered among the buildings. 

The ash has perfectly preserved the Minoan way of life, from painted frescoes to hundreds of pots some still containing fish and olive oil, ranging from drinking cups up to giant storage vessels (pithos) decorated with geometric patterns.

Theses are some of the treasures unearthed during the excavations on display at The Museum of Prehistoric Thera we'd visited a few days earlier. 

Furniture like beds, chairs and tables have been recreated by pouring plaster into the casts made by the ash, like they did with people’s bodies in Pompeii. There's something remarkably poignant about this table (on display in The Museum of Prehistoric Thera), isn't there?

As you can see, the excavations are under cover and temperature controlled in order to protect them from the elements. 

To get a real sense of the sophistication of the Bronze Age Minoans who lived in Akotiri, a visit to The Museum of Prehistoric Thera is a must. One of the most celebrated exhibits is this solid gold model of an ibex which, when unearthed in 1999 was still packed in its original wooden box. 

Earlier this year, on our trip to Athens, we were enraptured by the Santorini frescoes on display in The National Archaeological Museum, discovered at Akrotiri between 1967 and 1974.

The photos above were taken in Athens and those below are the frescoes we saw in Fira. 

It blows my mind that all these exhibits are almost 4000 years old.

The presence of these frescoes in buildings of all types throughout the excavations of Akrotiri suggests that they were not restricted to a rich elite but were enjoyed by all classes of society. The interior walls were covered with a layer of smooth lime plaster and then painted, either when the plaster was fresh (fresco) or dry (secco). Some of the geometric designs, especially spirals, show signs of mechanical devices to achieve greater accuracy. Similarly, in order to portray people accurately, figures employed a grid system which was adjusted depending on the age or dimension of the figure. Paints were derived from minerals to provide strong colours such as red, orange, black, blue, purple, and white, and organic material was used as a fixative.

The frescoes display a love of the sea and the natural world with seascapes, animals, fish, and plants being popular subjects. There are naturalistic representations of bulls, goats, antelopes, monkeys, wild-cats, ducks and swallows and also mythological creatures like griffins. Geometrical and abstract shapes, especially curves and spirals, were also a common theme as are scenes of everyday life such as religious ceremonies and the collecting of crocuses and saffron, boxing & fishing. 

If you're interested in learning more about Akrotiri, I'll hand you over to the wonderful Bettany Hughes.

The excavation site at Akrotiri opens daily from April to August between 8am until 3pm and, in September, between 8am and 7pm. Admission is 12€. The Museum of Prehistoric Thera is open all year round from Tuesday till Sunday from 8.30am - 3.30pm. Admission is 6€.

The end is nigh, Blogland can breathe a collective sigh of relief, my final instalment of our Santorini travelogue is coming soon! Thanks for reading.