We toured an ancient volcano ruin site, Akrotiri. The large volcano that occured 1620BC, buried a city that had been in existence since 3000BC, with up to 90 feet of ash. The ruins are being excavated much the same as the Terracotta Warriors in China.
The site was discovered in 1967 and has been worked on since the 70's and has been enclosed and roofed over with a large structure with pillars that go down 90 ft. to bedrock. Some of the excavations for the pillars had to be abandoned and moved because they ran into significant historic ruins that could not be disturbed.
There were no human remains found, because it was figured out that the inhabitants had enough warning that they moved away from the city before the main eruption, which may have continued for weeks. The magnitude of ash and lava rocks that fell made it impossible to rebuild the city.
Most actifacts and personal belongings of the citizens has been moved away and not much remains except for the buildings made of stone even wooden beams were consumed by the heat of the eruption.
Here are some pictures from my cell phone, I have better ones on my camera that I will transfer at a later date.
The structure covering the excavation was funded by European Union and Greece. It is massive and must have cost millions.
No comments:
Post a Comment