AKROTIRI

View of Akrotiri, Thera Exacavation area under roofs in middle distance View of the excavations, Akrotiri, Thera To date, archeologists digging at Akrotiri have uncovered large portions of an ancient town. The paved, winding streets and houses of stone and mud brick reveal a high standard of living. Homes had basements for storage and workroom space and upper-story living quarters. Mills attached to the houses indicate an active farming as well as seafaring economy. Walls were reinforced with timber and straw to protect against earthquakes. Interior baths and toilets were connected by clay pipes to an extensive drainage and sewage system under the streets. Such elaborate attention to comfortable living conditions is not found again in the west until the rise of the Roman Empire over a thousand years later. Equally remarkable was the attention paid to works of art on Thera. The walls of many private houses were decorated with frescoes, which indicates the presence of a thriving artistic community. This unexpected discovery has revealed an important new body of paintings. They represent a wide range of subjects: landscapes, animals, human figures engaged in sports and rituals, boats, and warriors. When they were discovered, most of the frescoes were covered with volcanic ash which had to be carefully removed by brush. The paintings had fallen from the walls and had to be restored piece by piece to their original locations. Theran pictures are characteristically framed at the top with painted borders, often created by abstract geometric patterns. Numerous paintings have been discovered and reconstructed. Ship fresco from Room 5 of the West House, Akrotiri c. 1650-1600 BCE (National Archaeological Museum, Athens) One of the most significant painting discovered on Thera is the large Ship fresco. It depicts a naval battle, city walls, human figures, landscape, fish, and animals. A work such as this documents the types of boats used by the ancient Therans and the sort of towns they built as well as their style and technique of mural painting. Landscape fresco from Akrotiri, Thera c. 1650-1600 BCE (National Archaeological Museum, Athens) One house in Akrotiri has a room entirely painted with flowers springing from hillocks and with birds (swallows) flying above. These are the earliest pure landscapes anywhere (although fragments suggests that there may have been others like them in the palaces and villas on Crete itself. Portrait of a Priestess from Thera LB I (National Archaeological Museum, Athens) Woman A from House of the Ladies, Akrotiri, Thera LB I (Archaeological Museum, Thera) Woman B from House of the Ladies, Akrotiri, Thera LB I (Archaeological Museum, Thera)

© Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe