The legend of Atlantis may have grown out of the eruption of Santorini.

1600 BC · 360 BC · apart: 1240 years

So believed Spyridon Marinatos, who excavated the ash-buried Minoan town of Akrotiri: he thought Plato's tale echoed that catastrophe.

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The event

• Minoan eruption of Therac. 1600 BC · Santorini (Thera). One of the largest eruptions of recent millennia blew apart the island of Thera and buried the town of Akrotiri in ash. Its date is debated: radiocarbon suggests about 1600 BC, archaeology nearer 1500 BC. It is sometimes linked to the Atlantis myth.

16th century BC · 4th century BC

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