All major Minoan palaces on Crete were destroyed around 1450 BC—roughly 150 years after the Thera (Santorini) eruption, which occurred around 1600 BC. Only Knossos was rebuilt, now under Mycenaean control with Linear B script replacing Minoan Linear A. Minoan culture disappeared before the Bronze Age collapse 🔥🏛️
Minoan palaces on Crete burned around 1450 BC, 150 years after the eruption
GreeceTheory
Key facts
- Every major Minoan palace on Crete was burned at the same time, a mystery for decades
- New research dates the burning to around 1450 BC, approximately 150 years after the Thera eruption (c. 1550-1600 BC)
- By 1400 BC, only Knossos palace was rebuilt, now with Mycenaean Linear B script instead of Minoan Linear A
- Mycenaeans from mainland Greece (the rivals of the Trojan War) took over Minoan civilization
- Minoan culture disappeared before the Bronze Age collapse around 1100 BC
- Plato's story of Atlantis, told 900 years later, may have been inspired by fragments of the Minoan civilization's fall
Site mentioned
Sources
Archaeology: How a Civilization Disappeared - Time Magazinetime.com
The Minoan civilization had actually been destroyed around 1500 BC by falling ash and poisonous fumes from a volcanic eruption on the island of Thera.
The Minoan Eruption | American Scientistamericanscientist.org
One of the most violent volcanic eruptions to rock the ancient world, comparable in strength to the eruption of Krakatau between Java and Sumatra in 1883, was ...
Minoan eruption - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
It destroyed the Minoan settlement at Akrotiri, as well as communities and agricultural areas on nearby islands and the coast of Crete with subsequent ...
[PDF] A Grim End for Europe's First Civilization: The Fall of Minoan Cretedigitalcommons.unl.edu
It is evident that the Minoan civilization continued to thrive for around a century after the volcanic eruption and subsequent tsunami that had ...
The Eruption of Thera | Forbes and Fifth | University of Pittsburghforbes5.pitt.edu
But by 1450 BCE, the palaces collapsed with no clear historical nor archeological explanation. Two explanations for this collapse express traditional views: 1) ...
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