Prehistoric Town Being Unearthed

The Akrotiri archeological site is protected by a specially-designed building

The Greek island of Santorini has a fascinating history that dates back over 4,000 years. While the place has amazing views and glorious beaches, Santorini, known by its formal name Thera, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

The site only uncovers 3 percent of the entire town

Thousands of years ago Thera was actually one large island, but in 1646 BC, there was a massive volcanic eruption that the explosion is believed to be the equivalent of 40 atomic bombs, or 100 times the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius in Pompeii in 79 AD.

Apparently there was 70 hours of darkness and the eruption was so violent that is completely altered the geography of the island that led to it breaking up into a crescent shape with several pieces. It is believed as many as 20,000 people were killed in a town known as Akrotiri and for several centuries after the volcanic eruption there was no human activity here.

It wasn't until the 20th century when people were quarrying the area for pumice stone to be used as cement to build the Suez Canal did they come across the remains of the town and in 1967 formal excavations of the long-forgotten town began.

The architecture revealed shows a sophisticated community

Archeologists were surprised to find a very sophisticated community that built houses that were three stories high, had indoor plumbing and painted artistic frescoes on the walls. These people were known as the Cycladic people, wealthy and intellectual.

We saw two of the well preserved frescoes in the National Archeological Museum in Athens and they are very lively, colourful pieces. It is very lucky they have been able to not only carefully extract them but also preserve them well.

So far archeologists have only been able to uncover and study 3 percent of the site, which is now covered by a specially designed, climate controlled space.

This morning we joined a tour to see this archeological site and we're so glad we did. We could walk above and among the ruins on a special path and saw first hand the original ruins and efforts to preserve them in their original form.

The "Spring Fresco" at the National Archeological Museum

It is believed before the actual volcanic eruption that the Cycladic people were able to leave the area -- there are no signs of human remains in the site that has been excavated, nor any remains of domestic animals. Everything of value was taken.

There are theories that they fled by ship and may have drowned from the tsunami caused by the volcanic eruption, or they may have fled elsewhere but died from the eruption.

The excavations have been going on for over 40 years and in recent years it was stopped due to Greece's financial crisis, but it picked up again last year after a Russian company donated 500,000 euros. We were lucky to see some archeologists in action, wearing high grade masks and carefully handling what looked like pieces of rock.

Archeologists working on some samples today

Hopefully we will eventually learn more about these people and the town of Akrotiri. Modern Greeks were shocked to find that the Cycladic people of the Neolithic Age were more sophisticated in their drainage than they were. There's a lot more to be learned.

Athens: Acropolis and Archeological Finds

The mask of "Agamenmon" with a breastplate in gold

Today we dived fully into Greek culture and history with a visit to the National Archeological Museum followed by the Arcopolis.

We got to the museum via the Metro, which is 1.50 euros per ride and Google maps. It's a very large museum, the biggest holding archeological treasures in Greece. Many of the items were found from excavations thanks to German archeologist Heinrich Schliemann.

Jockey of the Artemision is a lively yet unproportional statue

One of the highlights is the gold mask Schliemann found on top of a body that he believed was the death mask of 13th century BC King Agamemnon. However, the mask is actually dated 300 years before then, but the name Agamemnon stuck.

There are many funeral objects in this museum, from jewellery to vases, sculptures, friezes and miniatures of everyday objects found in graves. The jewellery designs in particular are so modern and fresh in brilliant gold, while sculptures, even though many were headless or armless, revealed so much about the artistic merit of the bodies' shapes and their supposed poses.

Some friezes were scenes of family members saying good-bye to loved ones in a solemn manner as death was not something people talked about openly.

Beautiful designs stamped on thin gold buttons

One dynamic sculpture is the Jockey of the Artemision. The bronze horse looks like it's about to jump over something, while a tiny boy rides on its back. Apparently the sculpture was dredged from the sea, but is restored into a very good condition.

The museum overall is pretty good, though the staff sitting in each of the rooms don't wear uniforms, and casually chit-chat with each other.

And someone needs to fix the museum shop -- there is nothing in there that would interest tourists in buying any of the merchandise in there!

We went back to our hotel, which happens to be very close to the Acropolis, and grabbed a bite to eat. We ate our first gyros -- thin slices of meat with lettuce, tomato -- and French fries! -- with tzatziki sauce before heading out to the new Acropolis Museum at 4pm. However, when we got there, the museum had closed for the day on Mondays! We didn't do our research.

The Parthenon has some scaffolding for a restoration

But it was late enough in the day to head up to the Acropolis (which we had planned to do after visiting the Acropolis Museum), so we bought the 20 euro-ticket and made our way up there. It was still quite hot, but armed with sunscreen, a hat and umbrella we managed to keep as cool as possible. The walk took about 15 minutes and towards the top we had to be careful walking on very polished marble that was very slippery.

There were quite a few tourists already there, but thankfully not packed. The Parthenon, dedicated to Athena, was sadly not as awe-inspiring as I had hoped, mainly because there is scaffolding over some of the columns and as well as cranes in the temple to help with restoring the structure.

Nevertheless, it was still neat to see the building in person against the deep blue sky. The most interesting architectural aspect of the Parthenon is entasis, a technique where there are gradual curves in the lintels, stairways and pediments, while columns have bulging centres. This optical illusion gives the impression the building is completely straight horizontally and vertically.

The Porch of the Caryatids featuring five female statues

Nearby is the Erechtheion and the highlight is the Porch of the Caryatids. There are supposed to be six women, who are believed to be novices serving the goddess Athena. However the five standing here are copies -- the real ones are in the Acropolis Museum, while the last one was taken by Lord Elgin in the 1800s. He also took -- or stole? -- lots of other things from the Parthenon too that can be seen in the British Museum...