Thera Eruption Devastates Minoan Civilization

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Today's Daily Dose short history film covers the Minoan Eruption at present-day Santorini, which devastated the Minoan civilization around 1600 BCE. The filmmaker has included the original voice over script to further assist your understanding:

Today on The Daily Dose, The Minoan Eruption of Thera.

The precise date of the Minoan eruption has been fiercely debated for decades by archaeologists and geologists, and while most academics place the event around 1600 BCE, the Minoan eruption at Thera is thought to be in a magnitude of 7 on the Richter scale, which decimated the Minoan settlement at Akrotira, as well as communities and agricultural areas on nearby islands and the northern coast of Crete. Thought to be four times the strength of the well-documented 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, the Minoan eruption at present day Santorini is widely believed to be one of the largest volcanic events in human history.

Although there are no clear records of the eruption, its plume may have been described in the Egyptian Tempest Stele, while the ensuing volcanic winter coincides with a cold snap described in the Chinese Bamboo Annals. Adding to the historic magnitude of the eruption, geologist Barbara J. Sivertsen has further sought to establish a link between the Minoan eruption and the biblical Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. Geological evidence shows that the Thera volcano erupted numerous times over several hundred thousand years before the catastrophic Minoan eruption of 1600 BCE. In a recurring process, the volcano would erupt violently before collapsing into a roughly circular seawater-filled caldera, with numerous small islands forming in a circle around the primary vent. The caldera would slowly refill with magma, building up a new dome until the next eruption started the cycle over again. When the main volcanic eruption finally occurred, it hurled ash and magma 20 miles high into the stratosphere, at the same time creating a tsunami with an estimated wave height of 115 to 492 feet, which decimated the northern coastline of crete. The dramatic western coastline of Santorini was created when the island split in two during the primary blast.

Greek folklore has perpetuated the story that the Minoans living on Thera departed the island in a flotilla of oceangoing vessels when the frequency of earthquakes began to intensify, making their way to nearby Crete before celebrating their salvation by the time the main eruption finally occurred. Sadly, however, none of the celebrants possessed knowledge of the association of earthquakes and tsunamis, and when the wave crashed ashore on the northern coast of Crete, all the survivors were drowned in a watery death, before their bodies were washed out to sea.

[alexmanousos]

and today that same volcano has registered 200 earthquakes in the last day causing a mass exodus on santorini

[christosgiannopoulos]

The fact that this island is a city now makes it even cooler. Like someone decided to build their house on an active volcano as if they were a mad scientist from an action movie

[stuckonaslide]

fun fact: the eruption of thera is sometimes attributed as causing the 10 plagues of egypt.

[ms.donaldson]

I found your information as a source while researching an old Reader's Digest World History book from the 1960s. The "Thira" Eruption they called it dated to sometime around 1500 BC and is thought to be the event that ended the Atlantis Civilization. At least that is the version of the story that I have on my lap :)
Thanks for doing REAL history!!!

[CitrisJones]

David Gemmell wrote a fantastic nonfiction trilogy on the Trojan War, and this eruption occurs in the conclusion of the series

[evanescent]

Except for that last part about how everyone went to Crete and drown, this video was pretty well supported throughout, though yes, both settlements were clearly, or nearly, wiped away by the one event. Not mentioned (and also a bit romantic) is the possible link of Thera to the legend of Atlantis—the island of concentric circles—as coming from the collective memory of such a cataclysmic event a thousand years prior to Plato writing about it.

[treefarm]

When I studied ancient history in the early 1960s, we learned it wasn't known what destroyed the Minoans.

[elessartelcontar]

I have written a 250, 000+ word as yet unpublished manuscript called Twilight of Atlantis. It is centered around the last supervolcano eruption of Thera (Sanotorini's ancient name which means 'Island of fear'). I researched volcanology for several years for my book especially Thera's last eruption. I am as knowledgeable about it as anyone can be. Bob Ballard actually dived at the site and was horrified to find that it had been a VEI 8. What made it so bad was the magma being flooded with seawater as it erupted.

Thera's eruption in 1600 BC was a VEI 8 (volcanic explosivity index) which is a scale used to measure the size of explosive volcanic eruptions, a VEI 8 is a bad as it gets, kids. For reference, the Vesuvius eruption that destroyed Pompeii in 79 AD was a VEI 5 and it covered Pompei with ash and pumice 19 to 23 feet. The last Thera eruption
covered what is now Santorini in ash and pumice 1, 200 feet deep!
It generated probably 20ish megatsunamis 900 feet tall! This wiped out the Minoans on Crete ending their centuries long Empire. Ancient records in Egypt and China contain references to smoky dusty skies for months and 3 years without a summer. This was a global event. The
island of Cyprus has a narrow point pointing to southeastern Turkey and Northwest Syria that is shaped like a funnel. That's where the tsunamis will be the worst, it funnels all that energy and water into that narrow shallow bay and that will force the water to rise possibly thousands of feet high. There's more to fear Santorini having some hotels and houses falling down the cliff!
If this eruption is like the last one then no place near the shore of the Mediterranean is safe. Leave now why you can. Good luck to you all.

[KiwiSentinel]

It didn't "wipe out 10% of the Crete" [decimate] but utterly destroyed it. please use terms correctly.

[avalovesmusicxx]

15. What did the 1600 B.C.E. Minoan eruption of Thera measure on the Richter Scale?
16. How did the eruption of Thera compare with that of Krakatoa?
17. What other ancient civilizations mention effects from the eruption of Thera?
18. How high into the sky did the ash cloud from the Thera eruption reach?
19. What is the estimated height of the tidal wave generated by the volcanic eruption that struck Crete?
20. What happened to the Minoans who fled Thera in boats before the main eruption?

[XxMsMisfitxX]

Its not the richter scale. Its called the Volcanic Explosivity Index or VEI which was a possible 7.

[ivanviehoff]

The eruption did not kill all the remaining Minoans on Crete, and only caused temporary devastation to the Minoan culture. For example, as Wikipedia says, "After the eruption, the Minoans [on Crete] quickly recovered, and the subsequent period is considered the zenith of Minoan culture." (Wikipedia) That most famous Minoan site on Crete, Knossos, what you see there is mainly post-eruption. The subsequent decline of the Minoan culture about 100-200 years after the eruption appears to be through conflict, not natural disaster.

[palgladeventures]

I watched the full documentary about 5 years ago. Where can I access the full movie?

[dimitristripakis]

It is not possible today to have an eruption such as the Minoan. The volcano is already "open" and steam is coming out of it since forever. It is not plausible for a "punctured" volcano to build up the pressures required for such an explosion, just like a punctured tire can never really become really stiff and explode, no matter how much air you pump into it. Also, the caldera is already filled with seawater, so sea/magma explosions are small, as they occur immediately as a crack opens down below. The largest explosion of the Minoan eruption was possibly the second or third, because of the caldera collapsing and water mixing with the leftovers of the magma chamber, suddenly and at a big scale. These events can not easily be repeated today, if at all.

[ChknKng]

Why are we measuring a volcano on the earthquake scale?

[dimitristripakis]

It is true that the residents of Santorini possibly escaped the Minoan eruption, but this likely happened weeks before the explosion. That they were caught by the tsunami on the Cretan coast is too much of a coincidence and as far as I know there is no source or evidence about this. Santorini refugees to Crete were possibly mixed with the population, settled inland or whatever and of course some of them might be at the coast of Crete at the time of the tsunami.

Second, the tsunami size you exaggerate, it was possibly 15 - 50 meters (Google it or ask Chat GPT for further information).

[Jamezontoast]

This eruption was so vast that Ancient China experienced a volcanic winter at the end of the Xia Dynasty

[LindaMerchant-bqhp]

Difference between thera and krakatoa 1450 B.C.E theran minoan culture dissappeared whereas when krakatau blew localized pyroclaustic and tsunami coastal indonesianvillages folks 30, 000 lives lost

[mdb]

The pumice of Thera shows up in Thutmoses III/Amenhotep II reigns in Egypt. This dates Thera eruption to the 1400s (1490s - 1420s). Are the Egyptian dates for these 2 Pharaohs TOTALLY WRONG or is the date for the Santorini eruption wrong? This is a difference of possibly 150 years from the radiocarbon dating of Thera eruption. 150

[Headloser]

4 time the eruption of Krakatoa. Now that is some explosion. No wonder the Minoan Civilization . I bet they thought hell has come down.