Ancient civilization. In our cycle of acquaintance with ancient culture, four articles have already been published: “Croatian Apoxyomenus from under the water. Ancient Civilization "," Homer's Poems as a Historical Source. Ancient civilization "," Gold for war, the fourth wonder of the world and Ephesian marble "and" Ancient ceramics and weapons ". Recently, one of the readers of "VO" wrote in his commentary that it would be nice to return to this topic. Indeed, why not return, because for us Europeans, antiquity is the basis of everything. However, today we will try to plunge a little deeper, so to speak, to the origins of the ancient Greek civilization. And our story will go about the ancient city of Akrotiri on the island of Fera (or Santorini).
People found out about the existence of this city, located on the volcanic island of Santorini, quite a long time ago, back in the middle of the 19th century. But they didn't dig. Naturally, they did not know about what was underground. But, as is usually the case, each buried in the land of Troy found its own Schliemann. In our case, it was the Greek archaeologist Spyridon Marinatos (1901-1974).
It was he who put forward the hypothesis that the Minoan civilization and settlements on the island of Crete perished as a result of a volcanic eruption on the island of Fera (Santorini). In 1939, in England in the journal "Antiquity" his article was published about this, but with the reservation of the editor that "only excavations will be able to confirm their validity." But then the war began, everyone was not up to the excavations. There was a war in Greece too, and then it was replaced by a civil war. And only in the spring of 1967, when the military dictatorship of "black colonels" was established in Greece, Spiridon Marinatos, who had already become an academician, was appointed inspector general of antiquities.
A state investment program was adopted, which made it possible to start museumification of monuments in the open air, new excavations and holding exhibitions. While visiting Santorini, Martinatos, meanwhile, interviewed local farmers, and they told him where, after heavy rains and floods, "antiquities" appear from the ground.
Now he could not only manage the excavations of the Archaeological Service of Greece, but also receive funding for them. The "colonels" had an obvious need to demonstrate their "virtue" to the whole world - and for this, Martinatos was able to obtain funds unseen before.
A place was chosen on the southern coast of the island near the village of Akrotiri, just opposite the island of Crete, which is often visible even from it, especially in good sunny weather. But in the past, sailors just swam like this - from island to island within line of sight. And here they already dug in 1967, the French and Germans even found something. But they did not carry out such large-scale excavations. But Martinatos started them and immediately discovered a huge settlement of their multi-storey buildings (destroyed, of course), hidden under a layer of petrified volcanic ash. And then he realized how incredibly lucky he was!
The houses were built using wood and clay. If they had not been hidden by ash, and would have remained on the surface, nothing would have been left of them for a long time! And then a wonderful, albeit very expensive, idea occurred to him: to cover the entire excavation area with a roof, and under its protection, no longer fearing the effects of the elements, to dig and dig. As it was conceived, it was done! Dictatorships are sometimes useful!
The first excavations were carried out in 1967, and he dug and dug until in October 1974 … he was gone. But by this time, he had already managed to cover a plot of more than a hectare with a roof and found dozens (!) Of buildings, of which he managed to carefully excavate four.
Since then, excavations in Akrotiri have been going on continuously! Continuously! Although their intensity after the "colonels" were driven out, it somewhat decreased. Moreover, it is not even a matter of the allocated money, since the flow of tourists there does not dry out. The problem is how to preserve everything that has already been excavated, describe, study and restore.
Modern science and new technologies provide today a truly fundamental approach to the restoration of artifacts. Now it is not limited to describing, sketching and photographing finds, as it was in the days of Agatha Christie, who was doing all this with her husband, but also to restoring the finds from the fragments found. Now the study of ancient techniques, technologies and materials is being carried out in order to learn as much as possible about the thing itself and about its era. It was decided that the restoration should begin already at the excavation stage, while all the fragments of the thing are right in front of our eyes, and not transferred to the museum, where its employees can do it many years later!
It turned out that here in Akrotiri, under a thick layer of volcanic pumice and pozzolana (a mixture of ash and pumice), are the real "Pompeii", only much more ancient, where everything has been preserved intact for many millennia!
As a result, Akrotiri turned out to be a godsend for scientists of various specialties. Not only archaeologists came here, but also paleozoologists (those who study ancient animals whose bones were found here), paleomalacologists (those who study ancient mollusks - their shells were also found), paleoichthyologists, paleoentomologists and paleobotanists - after all, literally all! There was a unique opportunity to find out what the ancient Minoans ate and drank, what plants were planted and even what they were sick with …
Moreover, the area is seismically dangerous! There were earthquakes here in 1999 and 2007, and the roof had to be strengthened and then replaced, as previously used asbestos-cement slabs turned out to be hazardous to health.
But again, as often happens, there would be no happiness, but misfortune helped. To put the pillars under the new roof, it was necessary to dig 150 (!) Pits, 20 m deep, piercing through the entire excavation. And these pits made it possible to obtain the complete stratigraphy of the settlement, that is, to see all the soil layers and, accordingly, all the phases of the existence of this settlement. Judging by them, the history of Akrotiri is at least three and a half thousand years old!
It turned out that this place was inhabited already in the Neolithic era (middle of the 5th millennium BC) and then in the Eneolithic and Bronze epochs people lived here until the fatal eruption of the volcano. Many finds in Akrotiri are simply impressive. For example, a stone pithos was found here - a vessel for grain with a height of 1, 3 m, made of andesite, the strongest rock. And it weighs so much that it was clearly made on the spot, because such from somewhere to carry - not to love yourself. It is clear, of course, that it was laser cut by representatives of the most ancient civilization of the antediluvian historical period, but in the workshop where such vessels were made, alas, no wiring was found! (Attention, this is a joke by the author!)
And many ordinary ceramic vessels were found, both here and in neighboring Crete and Cyprus, that is, there is no doubt that one civilization existed here. They found a vessel that served as a hive with the remains of a honeycomb, and inside many of the vessels they found fish bones. This means that the fish was salted or pickled in them.
It turned out that the area of the Akrotiri settlement, which occupied 20 hectares, was an urban center. However, the agora (main square) was never found. But, nevertheless, this is a real city with a very high level of amenities. The streets have pavements covered with stone or cobblestones, along them there are sewage canals covered with slabs, the houses have sanitary rooms connected to the street system. That is, all this was not built by eye, but according to a single plan and in the presence of clear coordination. And there is coordination, which means that there are people who carry it out, which means that there is also power. Many craftsmen's dwellings were found in the city. These are builders, masons, blacksmiths, shipbuilders, painters, sailors, potters, that is, people not associated with agriculture. So someone was feeding them. That is, there was a market where these people bought life support products for their services, and someone somewhere brought these products here and exchanged them for these services. And if so, then this settlement is clearly not a rural community, but a city.
But the political structure of this city is still unclear. There are no "palaces" characteristic of the island of Crete, or they have not yet been found. There is not a single building that can be called the home of a ruler, and only one building claims (and nothing more) for a cult character. All houses show approximately the same level of culture and, most importantly, the income of their inhabitants.
Another interesting fact. Paleobotanists used coal to determine what kind of wood the inhabitants of the city used and what woody crops grew here. A pistachio tree, palm, tamarisk, oleander, pine grew here. Long logs cannot be sawed out of them. This means that logs had to be bought for ships and houses in Crete, in mainland Greece or in Lebanon. And import. That is, trade with different regions of the Mediterranean was very developed. For subsistence, figs, sesame seeds, almonds, olives, figs, grapes, barley, lentils were grown - more than 50 species of cultivated plants in total.
Archaeologists did not find the remains of fabrics, but from something did the inhabitants of Akrotiri sew sails for their ships and did they dress in something? It is known for certain that clothes were dyed yellow (saffron) and purple (finds of purple shells). Weights from looms, by the way, were also found …
But the most important thing in Akrotiri is not finds, but wall paintings. The fact is that houses in the city were, as a rule, two-story, and so, not a single house was found where at least one room would not have murals! As if the inhabitants of it were only engaged in painting their houses from the inside and bragging about these "pictures" to each other, although, perhaps, that was exactly the way it was, and people stood out by inviting a more famous and talented artist or ordering a completely original painting - not like everyone else! Interestingly, this kind of "rivalry" has never been found anywhere else in the Aegean world. Only here, only at this time! In one of the largest excavated houses, to which S. Marinatos conditionally gave the name "Admiral's house", they found, for example, images of fishermen with a catch, a young priestess, and a fresco with ships and battle, which is stunning in realism. Well, the frescoes with monkeys and wild cats directly speak of trade with Egypt and Syria. They were not closer then!
The city lived and developed until 1500 BC. e., when a terrible volcanic eruption occurred on the island of Santorini (or Fera). First, there was an earthquake that destroyed the city. But its inhabitants escaped and began to restore it, and they worked quickly: archaeologists did not find human remains under the rubble of buildings. That is, they managed to extract them! Life began to gradually return to its usual course, but then the volcano woke up. It all started with the release of gases, then a layer of ash fell on the city (the thickness reached 2-2.5 cm). Then a pumice stone flew out of the volcano, the layer thickness of which was already about a meter. Finally, at the very vent, a layer of fine ash reached 60 meters, and near Akrotiri - 6-8 meters. It is interesting that this ash was found even in the ice of Greenland, that was the strength of this eruption! Then Mount Santorini collapsed, and in its place a huge caldera was formed, filled with the sea today, and people simply forgot that there was once a flourishing civilization here!
