Akrotiri

This guide to Akrotiri in Santorini follows archaeologist Spyridon Marinatos, who spent decades arguing that a forgotten eruption on ancient Thera had shattered Minoan civilization, though most colleagues doubted him. In nineteen sixty-seven his shovel struck a wall, revealing a Late Bronze Age port town buried whole under ash, its multi-story houses and painted plaster still intact after millennia. Unlike Pompeii, its closer cousin in catastrophe, no skeletons have ever turned up in these streets, only pots, stools, and a single gold ring left tucked beneath a floor. Earthquakes seem to have rattled the town before the eruption, giving its people some kind of warning.