Ancient Thera

Ancient Thera is an archaeological site from classical antiquity on the island of Santorini, which sits on the top of a limestone hill called Mesa Vouno [1]. Starting in 1895, Friedrich Hiller von Gaertringen systematically investigated the city until 1904 [1]. The ancient city consisted of a street almost 800 m long and especially wide for its time (between two and four meters) extending in a southeastern direction and containing several imposing buildings [1]. Residential areas are grouped around an agora, which is across from a theater built into the lower slope [1]. In archaic times the city was an unimportant settlement at the southern periphery of the Cyclades [1]. It was founded by Doric colonists from Sparta [1]. Inscriptions from the city's beginnings found at the sanctuary on the spur of the mountain ridge are noteworthy [1]. They date from the transition from the 9th to the 8th century BC and are thus among the oldest known examples of the use of the Greek alphabet [1].