Akrotiri
Akrotiri was once a thriving large town on Santorini/Thera. It was a Minoan outpost, which was buried under a thick layer of ash and pumice, cocooning the buildings and their contents from the pyroclastic surges of the 1628 B.C. Theran eruption.
The site was discovered by accident when a donkey broke through an eroded surface layer of ash and fell several feet into one of the preserved rooms.
During the 1960s, a handful of buildings and the streets between them were excavated by the late Spyridon Marinatos. Beautiful frescoes and pottery have been discovered, as well as voids which, when pumped full of plaster of Paris, have yielded the ghosts of ancient wooden furniture and supporting beams. Surveys of the area have shown that the town covers many acres, so there is quite a bit left to discover.
The current archaeological team, headed by Marinatos’s protegé Christos Doumas, are still analyzing finds from the original excavation. These days, conservation takes precedence over excavation, and no further digging can be done until the archaeologists can assure the preservation of whatever artifacts and structures come out of the ground. The site was roofed over to protect it from the elements, but in 2005, a partial collapse killed a tourist. It takes money to repair and maintain that roofing, and to extend it--and money is one thing archaeologists never have enough of. So it may be a while before we see more of the magnificent frescoes and other treasures that are sure to be waiting out there.
