PBS_Sinking Atlantis
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00:00Five thousand years ago, the great civilization of the Minoans flourished on the island of Crete.
00:13Centuries before the Greeks built the Parthenon, Minoan artists recorded their achievements with exquisite carvings and beautiful frescoes.
00:28The Minoans were the first Europeans to use writing.
00:34But then, at the height of their power, they were wiped from the pages of history.
00:40Their disappearance is still one of the ancient world's greatest mysteries.
00:47Some thought the Minoans were slaughtered by invaders.
00:53Others, that a volcanic eruption had engulfed them.
00:57But now, a team of scientists is looking for more definitive answers.
01:04Their research is casting doubt on previous theories and unearthing new evidence of an unexpected natural disaster.
01:12You spend a lot of time looking for something and then when you find it, you wish you hadn't.
01:18Did the Minoans' terrible fate give rise to the famous myth of Atlantis, the ancient city that vanished beneath the waves?
01:35More than two thousand years ago, the Greek historian Plato wrote about Atlantis, the fabled civilization that was swallowed by the sea.
01:46But the origins of Plato's story have never been identified.
01:52It is only recently that some archaeologists have begun to believe the legend may have started here, on Crete.
02:01They are hoping that scientific investigation can provide an actual link to Plato's ancient folk memory.
02:10It's an ambitious goal, given that our modern understanding of the Minoans is sparse,
02:15culled in large part from Greek myths about monstrous and human sacrifice.
02:26Archaeologist Sandy McGillivray has been spellbound by the beauty of Minoan art and architecture for 25 years.
02:34He's always wondered how such an advanced culture disappeared so mysteriously.
02:41Sandy is on his way to explore ancient mines in the center of the island.
02:46For hundreds of years, they were thought to be the labyrinth, the Minoan home of the legendary Minotaur.
02:56Greek tales describe the creature as half bull, half man.
03:01It was imprisoned in the Great Maze by King Minos.
03:06It fed on human flesh.
03:10There are all kinds of stories of hauntings and weird happenings in here.
03:24It's still a place associated with doom and death.
03:30The Minotaur had particular tastes.
03:33It liked to consume its human prey alive.
03:37To keep the Minotaur fed, Minos exacted a tribute of seven maids and seven youths from the Athenians.
03:48And once you entered the labyrinth, you never left the labyrinth.
03:54At the peak of King Minos' power, Athens was just a small settlement dwarfed by the Minoan Empire.
04:02The Minotaur myth may have been created by the ancient Greeks as a way of expressing their fear or resentment for their powerful neighbors.
04:13But archaeological remains found in the Minoan capital of Knossos hint at a grisly reality behind the Minotaur.
04:24One of the most telling and horrifying deposits was a deposit recovered in the town of Knossos up along the Royal Road.
04:35And that was these cannibalized youths.
04:39The analysis of these bones from this burnt destruction deposit strongly suggested that they'd been hacked up in order to take the flesh off in order to eat them.
04:56This cannibalistic aspect of the Minoans is probably one of the things that was recalled when the Greeks first arrived in Athens.
05:08They arrived in Crete, fear and loathing at Knossos.
05:15The dark stories and evidence of cannibalism, alongside such beautiful buildings and artwork, seem to indicate a strangely enigmatic society.
05:27British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans first began exploring their secrets in 1900.
05:34Evans started excavating near the modern village of Knossos.
05:40His finds of a sophisticated Bronze Age civilization astonished the world.
05:46While the ancient Greeks were living as barbarian warriors, these people were building magnificent palaces.
05:55Knossos was the largest Minoan city, a masterpiece of ancient town planning.
06:01Its temples and granaries were connected by the first paved roads in Europe, built more than a thousand years before the Romans.
06:10The Minoan empire stretched wide.
06:15Archaeologists have discovered settlements throughout Crete, as well as on other Aegean islands and parts of mainland Turkey.
06:23The Minoans shipped their intricate artifacts and pottery as far as Spain and Mesopotamia.
06:30They were masters of the sea.
06:35Their vast reach and influence rivaled that of the ancient Egyptians.
06:43Minoan artists produced the first great treasures of ancient Europe.
06:48This tiny gold seal is so small, it must have been created using some form of magnifying lens.
06:57This molding is less than an inch high, yet it contains a portrait of an entire Minoan town.
07:05Another masterpiece is the harvester vase.
07:10You've got a little choir of men with skull caps on, whose mouths are open.
07:16The wreaths that some of them are holding, you can almost hear them blowing in the wind, rustling against each other.
07:25These pieces are symphonic in every way. It's a revolution in art.
07:32As Evans excavated the ruins at Knossos, he felt certain he had uncovered the palace of King Minos.
07:46He even imagined he'd found the royal throne.
07:52But Sandy McGillivray thinks Evans misread the evidence.
07:56He believes Knossos was not a palace, but a temple, carefully constructed to harness the magical power of the sun.
08:09In 2001, Sandy realized that each of these doorways aligns with the rising sun on different key days of the year.
08:18What we're looking at here is the solar temple.
08:24Like the Egyptians, the Minoans worshipped the changing cycles of the sun, moon and stars.
08:31What we have here, then, is essentially a theatre of the senses.
08:36You can start off with complete blackness, and then you can flare it up.
08:42You can start off with complete blackness, and then you can fling open these doors at that moment of sunrise and experience that beginning of something new.
09:00And in the winter, the sun comes through on the winter solstice and illuminates the throne.
09:12But it's unclear who sat on the throne.
09:19Evans believed it must have been a powerful male ruler, like the Egyptian pharaohs.
09:25But although there are myths about King Minos, there is no evidence of kings in Minoan art.
09:31Instead, there are celebrations of striking female figures, like this one found at Knossos.
09:37Sandy believes she may have been a snake priestess, perhaps part of a fertility order that wielded religious power and possibly also political influence in Minoan society.
09:52The Minoans left many tantalizing clues about their world.
09:57Their written language, called Linear A, has only recently been decoded.
10:02Surprisingly, it shares DNA not with other Mediterranean languages, but with hieroglyphs from the Persians in the Middle East.
10:12Sandy believes the words tell us far more about the Minoans than their art.
10:18A decipherment for Linear A has given us a language for this Cretan civilization,
10:28which is akin to the early language of Iran, which found its way from the highlands of Iran all the way to India on one side and to Minoan Crete on the other side.
10:44Their origins seem to explain why the Minoans were so different from the ancient Greeks who succeeded them.
10:52Their language and religion were more Asian than European.
11:02But it doesn't explain why 3,500 years ago the Minoans disappeared.
11:14Although there are some indications that the Minoans were attacked by armed invaders from the Greek mainland,
11:20records of a nearby volcanic eruption seem like a more promising place to start.
11:33The island of Santorini, which lies 70 miles north of Knossos, is ground zero for the volcano theory.
11:40Today, the jagged cliffs and beautiful scenery draw countless tourists.
11:46Many fail to realize they are vacationing on a highly explosive volcano.
11:51In ancient times, it was called Thira.
11:56The Minoans built the thriving city of Akrotiri in the volcano's shadow.
12:01It was discovered in 1967, buried on the slopes of the vast crater.
12:06In its heyday, Akrotiri was as wealthy and highly developed as the settlements on Crete.
12:18Volcanologist Floyd McCoy has been studying the geology and history of Santorini for 20 years.
12:28If you take a look at the wall paintings that have been discovered here,
12:31they are portraying their landscape. It's a happy landscape.
12:35Animals bouncing around and people picking saffron.
12:41Saffron was a valuable commodity in the classical world.
12:45It was prized as a spice and was also used for medicinal purposes.
12:51The Minoans documented the saffron harvest on their frescoes.
12:55They were showing a nice, nice lifestyle, a comfortable one.
13:01It's a pity it was all destroyed.
13:12The Minoans had built their prosperous city on one of the most dangerous islands on Earth.
13:18Around 1600 B.C., Akrotiri was shaken by a violent earthquake.
13:23Sometime later, the eruption occurred.
13:27And suddenly, this thing exploded.
13:33The Minoans were in a state of panic.
13:36They were in a state of panic.
13:39They were in a state of panic.
13:42They were in a state of panic.
13:44It exploded.
13:47This was fire and brimstone of epic proportions.
13:51The huge volcano blasted gas, ash and rock 25 miles into the stratosphere.
14:00Evidence of the volcano's power can be found all around Santorini.
14:04Some of the deposits are more than 100 feet deep.
14:08There, in that cliff face,
14:10all four layers representing the four major faces of this huge, dramatic eruption.
14:22The first layer that we see is that brown layer at the bottom,
14:26that granular brown layer. That's pumice.
14:29Pumice is frothy rock.
14:31It represents magma frozen in place, a frozen explosion.
14:36The two layers above are testimony to the lethal impact of Thira's eruption.
14:42This is the debris left by pyroclastic flows.
14:47Pyroclastic flows, hot gas material that comes up and flows laterally across the landscape.
14:54Sometimes at supersonic speeds, hot, hot gases.
14:58These gases were forced out by massive explosions in the heart of the volcano.
15:03When the initial magma surge erupted out of the Thiran caldera,
15:07it left behind a vast, empty chamber.
15:14The surface above the chamber collapsed, creating a gaping cavity.
15:18Then, the sea rushed in.
15:22Magma and water do not mix. They make an explosion.
15:26The entire Aegean Sea is pouring into this event, mixing with new magma coming up
15:32The explosion was tremendous, huge.
15:35And from that come these pyroclastic flows.
15:41The destructive force was incomprehensible.
15:45The third layer of the deposit is a 33-foot wall of ash from a single flow.
15:54Above it lies the fourth and final layer.
15:58It started to rain. Torrential rains came down.
16:02And all this loose ash and pumice on the surface started to move downslope.
16:06That's what we call debris flows. And then it was over.
16:12The thriving Minoan settlement on Santorini was buried under the huge mounds of ash.
16:21But did the eruption also obliterate Crete, 70 miles to the south?
16:26Floyd and his colleagues found ash deposits on the seabed surrounding the island,
16:31certainly an ominous sign.
16:36We calculated the amount, the volume of this material,
16:40which is how we figure out how explosive an eruption was.
16:43It came out something like Krakatoa. Wow, we said.
16:48When Krakatoa, a volcanic island that lies between Java and Sumatra,
16:52erupted in 1883, the explosion was heard 2,000 miles away.
16:58The volcano claimed 36,000 lives.
17:03But if Thera was that powerful, there should be widespread evidence of its eruption.
17:09And there is.
17:11A search turns up Theran ash 500 miles away in the Black Sea.
17:17Archaeologist Stuart Dunn found the ash deposits.
17:22Dunn plots the known deposits.
17:27We put together a database of all these ash thicknesses,
17:32recording their locations and recording the thickness.
17:43Each numbered triangle represents a deposit of ash from Thera.
17:46The location and thickness of these residues allows Dunn to calculate
17:50how many millions of tons of material were blasted across the region.
17:56We concluded that the eruption was very, very much larger
18:00than had been previously thought.
18:03We were all wrong. This was highly explosive.
18:06Now we're up to ten times the explosivity of Krakatoa.
18:10We really are talking about the largest volcanic event in human history.
18:14It's the largest volcanic event in human history in Europe.
18:19The volcano spewed out huge plumes of ash.
18:24When the dense clouds headed towards Crete,
18:27the Minoans must have thought the gods were turning against them.
18:32Imagine this ash coming over the island, and we know it happened.
18:36It blackened the air, it blackened the blue sky for several days probably.
18:40And that is pretty bad for people living with nature.
18:44Until recently, many archaeologists believed that ash from Thera
18:48had smothered all life on Crete.
18:52But although the explosion was huge,
18:55prevailing winds carried much of the ash away from the island.
18:59The deposits that did reach Crete
19:02were not deep enough to have destroyed the Minoans.
19:06But if the ash hadn't wiped them out,
19:08what had?
19:13Sandy McGillivray hopes he can find out.
19:17He's been excavating the Minoan coastal town of Palakastro on eastern Crete.
19:28The extent of the ruins suggests this was the second largest Minoan settlement on the island.
19:33Home to 5,000 people,
19:35it covered the whole of this slope from the mountainside to the sea.
19:42Palakastro was a thriving community with many skilled workers.
19:47Its paved roads were laid out in a carefully executed grid pattern.
19:54Today, the hill where the town stood is eroding into the sea.
19:58As the soil crumbles, it reveals a chaotically mixed layer of sediment
20:01that may contain hints about the fate of the Minoans.
20:05I used to come down here to the beach
20:08and I would see these gravel deposits.
20:11We had fir and ash.
20:14We had pottery.
20:17And there was building debris.
20:20There was all this chaos.
20:23And brought a number of specialists up here and said,
20:26well, you know, can you explain
20:28how this gravel got up here?
20:31And one of them suggested that there was a river flowing up here.
20:36And I thought, a river?
20:39Why would a Minoan build their house in the middle of a river?
20:43And how could a river run over a hilltop?
20:46That made no sense whatsoever to me.
20:49And I thought, let's get people to really investigate this properly.
20:52Sandy has never seen anything like this mixed layer.
20:56So he calls in Hendrik Bruns,
20:59a soil scientist from Ben-Gurion University in Israel.
21:13Hendrik specializes in dating and identifying unusual layers of sediment.
21:17Look here, we have stone,
21:20pottery,
21:23and lots of lumps of volcanic ash.
21:26This is one lump, this is another lump.
21:29These chaotic layers
21:32are very different from what Hendrik would expect to find
21:35on a shoreline like this.
21:38This is, from a sedimentary point of view,
21:41this is impossible to get, let's say, by an earthquake.
21:44And it's impossible to get by natural archaeological stratification.
21:50So what could have caused the untidy deposit?
21:53Hendrik takes samples,
21:56hoping a microscopic examination
21:59will reveal clues about how the layer was formed.
22:10So this is a sedimentary layer.
22:13So this is the hardened block
22:16made from the sediment which we took in situ
22:19at the promontory, the soft brittle material,
22:22hardened afterwards.
22:25Here we have the slide, the thin section,
22:28that was made from the block.
22:31Under the microscope, Hendrik makes an unexpected find.
22:36We were really very, very thrilled
22:38when we saw Foraminifera
22:41in these deposits.
22:44Foraminifera are tiny marine organisms
22:47usually found on the seabed.
22:50It's unusual to find them on land,
22:53even in soil close to the water's edge.
22:58And they're not the only undersea creatures Hendrik discovers.
23:01There are also coralline algae in the sample.
23:03These come from below the sea level
23:06and in order to deposit them
23:09in that level where we found them in the promontory,
23:12I mean, it has to be scooped up by something.
23:17It has to be lifted up to a much higher level
23:20where the sea normally never comes.
23:23There is only one natural force
23:26that could have lifted these organisms off the seafloor
23:29and onto the headland.
23:32A sudden, powerful and devastating wave.
23:40In 2004, the Indian Ocean tsunami stunned the world.
23:49It killed 230,000 people
23:52and wiped out entire coastlines.
23:55Could the same thing have happened to the Minoans
23:583,500 years ago?
24:02Is the Palacastro beach deposit
24:05the footprint of a massive tsunami?
24:10Here you can see bits of paving.
24:13Sandy calls in leading tsunami expert
24:16Kostas Sinilakis to corroborate Hendrik's findings.
24:22Kostas has studied tsunami deposits
24:25from the 2004 wave
24:28and from other smaller waves around the world.
24:32As soon as they reach the beach,
24:35they find newly exposed Minoan pottery fragments
24:38mixed in with the gravel.
24:42These are cattle bones here.
24:45You can see floor plaster and wall plaster.
24:49You can see building material
24:52and you see a lot of typical pottery.
24:55OK, have a look at this deposit here, Kostas.
24:58There's a conical cup sitting right there.
25:02It's five meters above Minoan sea level.
25:09By comparison, the waves that hit Sri Lanka in 2004
25:13were estimated at five to ten meters high
25:16and they killed 30,000 people.
25:22When Sandy invited me to come out here
25:25and look at some of the evidence,
25:27I was very skeptical.
25:28But nonetheless, I was really keen to see what Sandy had.
25:32Sandy, I mean, if this is all the Minoan deposit,
25:35it must have been something really massive.
25:38I mean, something of the scale that we have just
25:41not even started thinking about.
25:46What happened here?
25:50Kostas wants to look further inland
25:53for more signs of damage.
25:59The main ruins of Palakastro are 300 yards
26:03from the chaotically mixed layers at the water's edge.
26:07Now that they know what to look for,
26:10they see striking evidence of tsunami damage.
26:13We find some walls entirely missing.
26:16Entirely missing?
26:19Yeah, well, like the late Minoan,
26:22one wall along the bottom there is gone.
26:25That half of the building is gone.
26:26And of course, this is what we see, you know,
26:29in modern tsunamis. We call this the blowout.
26:32The sea comes in, tsunami comes in, blows out the walls.
26:36If the building is strong enough, the side walls, you know,
26:39will survive, but the walls facing the ocean,
26:42they're just going to collapse.
26:44All of a sudden, a lot of the deposits
26:46began making sense to us.
26:48Because we had these buildings pulled away,
26:51we had the fronts of buildings missing,
26:53we had buildings raised right down to foundation level.
26:58Like the victims of the 2004 tsunami,
27:01the Minoans in Palakastro would have had no warning
27:04of the approaching waves.
27:08Costas believes that with the right information,
27:11he can build a full picture of the scale
27:13and impact of the tsunami.
27:16The first step is to create a three-dimensional map
27:19of the bay.
27:24Costas uses sonar to plot the bay's contours.
27:28The shape of the seabed would have influenced
27:31the speed and height of the tsunami
27:33as it approached the land.
27:36Though the sands may have shifted since Minoan times,
27:40the data will still provide a useful approximation.
27:49The next day, Costas extends his sonar
27:51back onto firm ground.
27:53He wants to explore the plains around Palakastro
27:56to find out exactly how far inland the tsunami traveled.
28:01First stop is a new road construction project
28:04more than half a mile from the shore.
28:10That's a seashell.
28:12That's outrageous.
28:14I don't believe this.
28:16It's all exposed.
28:18And, you know, look, there's more.
28:19That looks to me like the rim of a hemispherical cup,
28:23the period of theory eruption.
28:26The items are far inland and high above sea level.
28:31It looks like we're at 31.46 meters.
28:35I can't believe it.
28:37That's about right.
28:39We're cooking.
28:41We are cooking.
28:43The new finds are making a strong case for a tsunami,
28:46and the theory also provides the impetus to re-examine old evidence.
28:55Environmental scientist Anaya Sarpaki
28:58has kept soil samples from 20 years of Palakastro excavations.
29:04She is now going back to check them
29:06for signs of the microscopic marine organisms
29:09that were found at the beach.
29:12In this particular sample,
29:13we have found reminifera.
29:15Oh, my goodness.
29:17Is that what they look like?
29:19Uh-huh.
29:21Anaya's finds are an important confirmation.
29:24All the pieces are falling into place.
29:28What Anaya has found is extremely exciting.
29:31Anaya's reminifera, the wall,
29:34and then the debris layer,
29:36well, there's no other alternative explanation
29:39that can simultaneously explain all these findings
29:42other than the fact that the tsunami was really big,
29:46much bigger than we thought.
29:48It came through, destroyed the town,
29:53and pretty much covered most of the plain behind me.
30:04The next question is what caused the wave
30:06that destroyed Palakastro?
30:09Tsunamis are often generated by enormous subsea earthquakes,
30:13like the one that created the 2004 wave.
30:16Could such an earthquake have caused the Minoan disaster,
30:20or was it generated by the Therian eruption?
30:30Hendrik Bruins hopes this single fragment of cow bone
30:33from the Palakastro shoreline will provide the answer.
30:41What I would like to see, if possible,
30:44that the bone would give a date, a radiocarbon date,
30:48that is similar to the date for the Minoan-Santorini eruption,
30:53because then we have very, very hard scientific evidence
30:56that we're talking about the same time.
30:59So if this radiocarbon date is true,
31:01so if this radiocarbon date that comes from this bone
31:05would be similar to the radiocarbon date
31:08of the Santorini eruption,
31:10then it's very, very important scientific evidence.
31:15That's one piece.
31:17The radiocarbon dating test will take at least a week.
31:26Meanwhile, the team sets out to explore the extent
31:29of the wave's impact beyond Palakastro.
31:36They search along the north coast,
31:38where any tsunami generated by Thera would have struck the island.
31:42But centuries of erosion have erased any evidence of wave damage.
31:49Initial attempts near Palakastro turn up little,
31:52so they travel 30 miles west to the town of Malia.
32:00These are ruins of what was once the third-largest Minoan palace on Crete.
32:07As was typical, the town had no protective walls.
32:12The Minoans were the strongest naval power in the ancient world
32:15and relied on their ships for defense.
32:21Not far from the shore,
32:23the team finds a layer of pottery and building debris
32:26similar to the one at Palakastro.
32:30Buried in the dirt is further evidence of marine life
32:34where it shouldn't be.
32:37Wow, look at that.
32:39Very good.
32:41Very good, very good.
32:43So this strengthens our working hypothesis
32:46that this is a tsunami deposit.
32:50The significance of it, at least to me,
32:53is that it adds tremendous credibility
32:55to the deposits that we have found in Palakastro
32:57right out there in the promontory.
32:59It's much more useful to us
33:01to have two deposits that are at a distance of,
33:04you know, 20 miles apart from each other,
33:0630 miles apart,
33:08than having two deposits that are next to each other
33:10because then we have a better geographical constraint
33:13and that helps us identify how wide the wave is,
33:17what was the width of the wall of water
33:20that came towards Crete.
33:24At this point, they know that the tsunami
33:27they know the wave is at least 30 miles wide.
33:30But there are still more excavations to explore.
33:40The next day they reach Amnesos,
33:42the main port for the Minoan ships.
33:484,000 years ago,
33:50a tranquil villa nestled among the olive groves
33:53on this idyllic coast.
33:55It was decorated with frescoes
33:57that celebrated the natural beauty of the island.
34:03But at some point,
34:05the villa was destroyed
34:07and the frescoes were torn from the walls.
34:11When the site was excavated,
34:13large fragments of pumice
34:15bearing the chemical fingerprint of Thera
34:17were found in the ruins.
34:19This petrified volcanic froth
34:21is too heavy to have been carried in the Theran ash cloud,
34:24but it could have arrived by sea.
34:28High in the hills above the villa,
34:30Sandy, Hendrik and Kostas
34:32are looking for more samples of the Theran pumice.
34:37Well, if we can find some pumice up here...
34:40Put your eyes where your mouth is.
34:42Let's try to find.
34:44Let's try to find some pumice.
34:52They are searching 60 feet above sea level.
34:55All the pebbles.
35:08This is it.
35:12That, obviously, is volcanic.
35:16See if it sparkles.
35:18It's rounded.
35:20This is absolutely perfect.
35:21There's no doubt about it.
35:23Do you realize what this means
35:25for the height of the tsunami?
35:27Okay, is there any other way
35:29that these pieces of,
35:31these little tiny pieces of pumice got up here?
35:34How else could the pumice get here?
35:36It's not a souvenir.
35:39You could get destruction down there
35:41with a wave that's maybe, you know,
35:43three meters high.
35:45Who knows how strong the house was.
35:47But finding pumice, I mean, up there,
35:48here, is unbelievable.
35:50I mean, this is huge.
35:56There's tons of this stuff up here.
35:58This is outrageous.
36:05As a child,
36:07there was a big anthill
36:09that went into the garden.
36:11And we used to go with the garden hose
36:13and wash them off.
36:15And that, to me,
36:16was the best way to wash them off.
36:18And that keeps coming back
36:20somewhere in my memory.
36:22And I keep thinking that wave
36:24had an effect like
36:26just washing ants off an anthill
36:29and sweeping them out to sea.
36:31It's a terrifying thing.
36:33Those ants never had a chance.
36:43With evidence accumulating
36:44of an island-wide tsunami,
36:46Hendrik is eager to get the results
36:48from the radiocarbon dating test
36:50of the cow bone.
36:52Only then will they know for sure
36:54if the tsunami was caused
36:56by the Thirin volcano on Santorini
36:58or by an underwater earthquake.
37:04The results finally arrive.
37:06The date is 1600 B.C.,
37:09an exact match
37:11with the Thirin eruption.
37:15The cattle bones,
37:17they are of the same age
37:19as the Santorini eruption.
37:21And it proves that also
37:23our chaotic tsunami deposit
37:25has also in radiocarbon terms
37:27the same age
37:29as the Santorini eruption,
37:31which is superb.
37:34Now certain
37:36that the volcano did in fact
37:38cause the tsunami,
37:40the men can begin to calculate
37:42exactly how massive
37:44the tsunami was.
37:46Their reference point
37:48for destructive power
37:50is the 2004 tsunami.
37:53We've created a monster.
37:55From his survey measurements,
37:57Kostas maps the wave's assault
37:59on the surrounding land masses.
38:01Red and green peaks
38:03show the height of the water.
38:05The size of the wave here,
38:07just to give you a comparison,
38:09is equivalent to what
38:11the wave looked like
38:12in Thailand.
38:14And you know how many people
38:16died in Thailand,
38:18how many people died in Sri Lanka.
38:20I mean Thailand reached 20 meters.
38:22It's the same size wave right here.
38:2420 meters.
38:26The initial wave was huge,
38:28but even more disturbing,
38:30the simulation shows
38:32it was followed by others.
38:34It's having a party.
38:36When the caldera collapsed,
38:38it pushed several walls of water
38:40into the sea,
38:43the water ricocheted around
38:45the Aegean Islands
38:47in a deadly game of tsunami pinball.
38:52As volcanic ash darkened the sky,
38:54the Minoans were hit
38:56by wave after wave.
38:59Wow, it's coming in.
39:01It's coming in.
39:07What are the intervals
39:09between these,
39:10with this wave track?
39:12Let's have a look.
39:14This is about 33 minutes.
39:16And now we have...
39:18The first wave coming in.
39:20And now you have the second one,
39:22and that's at 46 minutes.
39:24And then you have another wave
39:26in about half an hour later,
39:28which is not as big,
39:30but it has to be terrifying
39:32because by that time,
39:34everything, I mean,
39:36the people have run away,
39:38maybe some people are coming back
39:40to their homes.
39:42This is horrifying.
39:44Yeah.
39:46It's absolutely horrifying.
39:49But it doesn't...
39:51Over 25 years,
39:53Sandy has grown to respect
39:55and admire the Minoans.
39:57Now he is forced
39:59to truly contemplate
40:01how many of them died.
40:03My reaction to seeing that model
40:05was a bit like
40:07seeing...
40:09Because...
40:16I just...
40:18I hate disasters.
40:20It's like you spend a lot of time
40:22looking for something,
40:24and then when you find it,
40:26you wish you hadn't.
40:28Because it becomes too real,
40:30and you can, you know,
40:32you begin to feel the experience.
40:39This is life.
40:41This is people
40:43just being washed out to sea,
40:45bashed around,
40:47knocked against walls,
40:50ships coming ashore.
40:52You know, there's a whole...
40:54There's a whole instant
40:56that flashes
40:58through your head.
41:09A striking observation
41:11that I've made
41:13just talking to people
41:15all over the world,
41:17the tsunamis,
41:19whether it is, you know, Nicaragua,
41:21or whether it is Sri Lanka,
41:23or whether, you know,
41:25it is in the Philippines,
41:27they tell you about the noise.
41:29Tsunami comes in,
41:31and they tell you that it sounds
41:33like some people say
41:35like falling rain,
41:36or like an airplane landing.
41:45This impression, I mean,
41:47this...
41:49what you hear time and time again,
41:51irrespective of where you are,
41:53the feeling is
41:55that this is the end of the world.
41:57Once the tsunami starts
41:59climbing up on dry land,
42:01it's moving at the speed
42:03of maybe anywhere between
42:04a thousand miles per hour.
42:06It's almost like being
42:08in a 20,000-mile-per-hour wind.
42:12Nothing can stop it.
42:22It's not even a question
42:24of being scared.
42:26The moment that you see the tsunami,
42:28most people freeze.
42:34♪ ♪
43:05♪ ♪
43:20I'm trying to think,
43:22how would the Minoan
43:24have reacted to this phenomenon,
43:26which is, I mean,
43:28these people love the sea,
43:30I mean, they worship the sea,
43:32and here is the sea
43:34and they worship the sea.
43:38Once they come up on the hill
43:40and they look back
43:42and they look at the destruction,
43:44how can they ever go back
43:46and live in the same place?
43:48It's probably cursed.
43:50There are no written records
43:52of the Thiran tsunami,
43:54no figures for the death
43:56and destruction it caused.
43:58But the 2004 tsunami
44:00can give us some idea
44:02of its devastating impact.
44:04We know from the Navy
44:06that they're living
44:08in unprotected cities
44:10all along the coastline.
44:12These were the major
44:14population centers,
44:16that's where people are living.
44:18Now, you go to Banda Aceh
44:20and you find
44:22that the mortality rate
44:24is 80%.
44:26If we're looking
44:28at a similar mortality rate
44:30in Crete,
44:32that's the end of the Minoans.
44:35The tsunami destroyed
44:37all the major Minoan towns.
44:39Their great civilization
44:41was brought to its knees.
44:43Never again would these
44:45enigmatic people
44:47dominate the Mediterranean.
44:50Archaeologists are only now
44:52beginning to understand
44:54what happened in the decades
44:56that followed.
44:58One of the most remarkable clues
45:00is a small statue
45:02that was found in Palacastro.
45:04It was discovered
45:06in an archaeological lair
45:08deposited 100 years
45:10after the disaster.
45:15He's made of
45:17ivory tusks,
45:19gold,
45:21he has a serpentinite head,
45:23and he is one of the great
45:25masterpieces of Minoan art.
45:27His cuticles
45:29are even carved.
45:31He's given pulsating veins.
45:32The sculptor
45:34wanted him to be alive.
45:37The attention to detail
45:39was astounding,
45:41and the statue was magnificent
45:43by any standards.
45:45But it was in terrible condition
45:47when it was found.
45:50It had been badly charred,
45:52shattered,
45:54and scattered around
45:56the building that housed it,
45:58both inside and out.
46:00This was a valuable piece.
46:02Anyone who had this
46:04in his possession
46:06would have been rich,
46:08but they did not care.
46:10They wanted to destroy the statue.
46:12Somebody picked up the statue
46:14from its base
46:16and brought it outside.
46:18He took the statue
46:20and smashed the face
46:22into probably this side
46:24of the wall
46:26and made the stone hair fall
46:28and have the torso
46:30and the arms drop
46:32off the shrine
46:34and threw in the legs
46:36in the burning house.
46:38This was more than a random
46:40act of vandalism.
46:42It was ritualized violence
46:44against a powerful symbol
46:46of Minoan culture.
46:48They really went for the face,
46:50and so we see that
46:52in all different kinds
46:54of civilizations,
46:55Egyptian or Roman,
46:57when they go for the face
46:59there is something
47:00that is truthful.
47:06Additional signs
47:08of such deliberate destruction
47:10have been found
47:12in other places
47:14on the island.
47:20At Chania in western Crete,
47:22an excavation
47:24at the heart
47:26of the modern town
47:28has revealed evidence
47:30of the stones
47:32that are in such a condition
47:34because of the strong fire.
47:36The hallmarks of fire
47:38are clear,
47:40but the cause of the blazes
47:42is still being debated.
47:44Are these signs
47:46of internal strife
47:48or external enemy invasion?
47:50Archaeologist
47:52Maria Vlasaki
47:54believes the answer
47:56lies in an unusual
47:58cemetery in Chania.
48:00This is a period
48:02of widespread unrest
48:04in the Minoan world.
48:06These are warrior graves.
48:08They are single burials,
48:10something that is
48:12in opposition
48:14with the traditional
48:16Cretan Minoan customs.
48:21They have the age
48:23of between 24 to 30.
48:25They are tall,
48:27robust.
48:28They are invaders.
48:34Similar bodies
48:36have been found
48:38near Knossos as well.
48:40Their weapons
48:42were not Minoan.
48:44They resembled those
48:46used by the ancient
48:48Peloponnese Greeks.
48:50They have a lot
48:52of weapons,
48:54long swords
48:56like the ones
48:58you see here.
49:00The invaders
49:02from the Greek mainland
49:04slashed and burned
49:06their way across Crete,
49:08overwhelming the
49:10weakened Minoans.
49:12Sandy MacGillivray
49:14believes the tsunami
49:16not only left the
49:18Minoans ripe for an
49:20attack, it gave the
49:22Greeks an important
49:24military advantage.
49:26Their traditional
49:28weapons have to go all
49:30the way around to the
49:32west through a little
49:34narrow opening.
49:36So the Mycenaean
49:38Greeks up there are
49:40probably the only people
49:42left, maybe even in
49:44the eastern Mediterranean
49:46with a navy.
49:48This is power.
49:53Within a generation
49:55of their arrival,
49:56the last embers
49:58of Minoan culture
50:00flickered out.
50:05At long last,
50:07the story of the Minoan
50:09disappearance has been
50:11unearthed.
50:13Five thousand years
50:15after it hit,
50:17an epic natural
50:19disaster can be blamed
50:21for their collapse.
50:23This is a major
50:24disaster in Minoan
50:26archaeology, in the
50:28history of the Minoans.
50:30This is absolutely
50:32exciting. I mean,
50:34even in my wildest
50:36dream, when I started
50:38becoming, or thinking
50:40becoming a scientist,
50:42did I ever think that
50:44I would be working
50:46on understanding the
50:48demise of the Minoans
50:50and what happened
50:52back then in the
50:53Mediterranean that
50:55sank beneath the waves.
50:57And though we may
50:59never know for sure
51:01if Crete was Atlantis,
51:03we at least have an
51:05explanation for the
51:07downfall of Europe's
51:09first great civilization.
51:23NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
51:53NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology