PLATO
The history of Santorini is as old as the myth of ATLANTIS. Before S.MARINATOS discovered the prehistoric city
we call AKROTIRI today, in 1967, the island was already a field of scientific researches to verify a theory of seismology
Prof. GALANOPOULOS from Athens University about the possible location of ATLANTIS, somewhere between CRETE and THERA (Santorini). In 1965, Prof.Galanopoulos published his theory according to which PLATO's descriptions
of ATLANTIS, with changes to the mentioned date of the catastrophe of ATLANTIS which was supposed to have sunk
in the deep sea, could be explained by the volcanic eruption of THERA in 1600 BC ... So only few years before the evidence, the myth brought scientific teams to investigate this possibility, and naturally stimulate tourism in Santorini...The first big hotel
of the Caldera carries the name of the myth : "ATLANTIS"...
Even though the American team under James W. Mavor, or the French of J.J.Cousteau didn't encourage this theory, since nothing come up to prove it , many people today continue to believe that ATLANTIS sank because of the volcanic eruption
of THERA...
If history is part of a myth ,the ATLANTIS influence was historic for Santorini, because tourism is the main financial resource of its population today...
So if you had visited before other web pages with the pictures from the excavated area of AKROTIRI in articles about ATLANTIS, you have to come to terms with the idea that in every myth there is also a religious aspect... Today wealth
is not the main religion in our western way of life ? The only problem about this myth which stimulated tourism in the island,
is that it encourage a ignorance about facts, such as the most important prehistoric excavations, probably in the entire world, which followed of ...
Two years later, the city of AKROTIRI with the most important frescoes of the planet, came up in a dark period of Greek history: illegal military government for 7 years, during which cultural issues were ignored, interrupted and cut off international interest...
Even though Greece today is a member of the European Community, the delay is more than obvious in the excavations:
3% of the City was excavated in 35 years !!!
Since we have our main site concentrated to this important period , before the eruption of the volcano
(PREHISTORIC THERA) ,we must notice that Santorini ancient Greece is also the location of other civilizations all through Greek history
up to today ...