Original subtitles

Narrator: Within the mediterranean,

lies a mystery.

Not a puzzle to be solved on land,

but under the water.

For centuries,

legends of lost civilizations, like atlantis,

have fueled our imagination.

And off the cost of greece,

archeologists have found hard evidence that

now-sunken cities once thrived with life.

By exploring the secrets of pavlopetri,

a city drowned beneath the sea...

...And by using cutting-edge technology

to uncover new clues,

science may bring us close than ever before

to discovering the lost city of atlantis.

The survivors must have though, "what have we done wrong?"

♪

-- captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by discovery communications

narrator: Off the southern coast of greece

lie the ruins of a city founded over 5,000 years ago...

Dr. Henderson: There seems to be an incredibly advanced culture here.

They had flushing toilets. They had drainage systems.

They had the beginnings of writing.

Narrator: The city of pavlopetri thrived for over 2,000 years,

then vanished, consumed by the water.

♪

scientists are here to find out what force

wiped it off the map

and reveal, for the first time,

the secrets of pavlopetri,

the city beneath the waves.

For nottingham university archeologist jon henderson,

the sunken city of pavlopetri

provides a unique glimpse into a lost world.

Dr. Henderson: In a way, this is like an underwater pompeii.

It's a settlement frozen in time.

♪

narrator: The city dates to the bronze age,

over 5,000 years ago.

This was the time of troy,

king agamemnon, and homer's "odyssey."

♪

♪

this is one of pavlopetri's main streets.

On one side, there was a wall,

on the other, a row of houses.

The bronze age was a time of great change,

when people started living in towns for the first time

in legendary places like athens, sparta, and babylon --

places that saw the birth

of western civilization as we know it today.

But unlike other ancient cities,

no mention has been found of pavlopetri.

It lay forgotten under the waves for over 3,000 years

until it was discovered purely by chance.

In 1967, oceanographer nic flemming

was searching for ancient harbors

when he stumbled upon the ruins.

Dr. Flemming: I looked at these rows of stones,

and I just had no idea what it was.

But I realized immediately that it was manmade,

that we were looking at a large part of a town,

and, I mean, I just went crazy.

Narrator: Dr. Flemming and his team created

the very first rough survey map of pavlopetri.

The town appeared to consist

of 15 buildings located off two main streets,

covering an area roughly the size of four football fields.

Dr. Flemming: Here you've got rows of houses on a street.

The preservation is incredible.

There is absolutely nothing like it.

Narrator: But since the 1960s,

no one has done any further exploration

of this important site... Until now.

Dr. Henderson: I want to know what happened to the city of pavlopetri.

I want to know who was living here.

I want to know what they were doing.

I want to know why they left.

I want to know why it's underwater now.

Narrator: Pavlopetri is the oldest submerged city

in the world.

Whatever happened here,

it wasn't the last time a city wound up underwater,

but it may have been the first.

The city lies just off the coast

of the laconia region of southern greece,

an area prone to violent earthquakes and tsunamis.

Did a natural disaster strike pavlopetri,

sending it to the bottom of the sea?

To answer these questions

and to learn about the origins of our own way of life,

jon wants to recreate the city in every detail.

He's brought in a team from sydney university

led by oscar pizarro and matt johnson-roberson.

They'll use two state-of-the-art mapping devices

to create a three-dimensional survey of the site.

This idea of using 3-d reconstruction,

I think, is a very new thing for archaeology.

And from that perspective, it's really exciting for us.

Narrator: Working alongside the scientists,

jon has also invited

movie visual-effects expert simon clarke.

So, this is not too far off, then.

He hopes simon can digitally recreate pavlopetri

using actual archaeological data.

Clarke: Our role is basically to try and recreate the finds,

to be able to recreate buildings,

and then, hopefully, to be able to give a fantastic impression

of what the city would have once looked like.

Narrator: To get an idea of the full extent of the ruins

and the area where the city once stood,

jon is taking to the sky.

This is the first time he's seen pavlopetri from the air.

Whoa. [ laughs ]

narrator: Many of the buildings

that nic surveyed in the '60s can be made out.

But beyond the original mapped area,

something catches jon's eye.

I think I can see new buildings just off pavlopetri island.

And I can see lines

of what I think are buildings -- square lines.

That makes the site much, much bigger.

It's bigger now to the north and bigger to the south,

so that's a pretty major discovery.

Coming straight,

you'll see this whole range of buildings there.

Narrator: The first step is to make

a new, detailed map of the ruined city.

The team from sydney university has been researching ways

to produce a 3-d photo map.

They've built a prototype called a diver rig.

Dr. Johnson-roberson: Diver rig is basically just a surfboard

with a pair of cameras mounted on it.

So, the same way you can use your left and your right eye

to figure out the distance to things,

the diver rig has two cameras, and we use that to figure out

the distance to rocks on the sea floor.

So, from that, we can build up a 3-d model

of all the stones on the site just using those two pictures.

It allows you to feel

like you're actually there, sitting on the bottom.

Narrator: Pushed back and forth over the survey area,

the rig takes thousands of digital photos of the sea floor.

The first results are very promising.

Dr. Johnson-roberson: If you look here, you can see

we can count the individual rocks

which build up the foundation of this building.

Basically, it's the equivalent of draining the ocean,

taking pictures, and filling it back up.

Narrator: The diver rig isn't the only tool at their disposal.

This may look like a torpedo,

but it's actually the latest in underwater robotics.

It has a much better suite of navigation instruments

that allow us to build a better map more easily,

cover more ground,

and avoids the tedious aspect

of having to swim around with a camera

when you're trying to cover a large area.

Narrator: The mapping torpedo

stands at the cutting edge of underwater archaeology.

But as the robot has never been used before,

it still needs further testing

before they let it loose on the site.

They hope to survey the entire city,

completing the job in a matter of days.

Dr. Henderson: Well, this is our base level

that we use on the site.

This is just...

Narrator: But even with the torpedo,

creating a 3-d map of the city will take time.

To help speed things along,

jon has a line-drawn plan

to give the visual-effects team an overview of the site.

The red lines there are picking out the street.

So, we have five or six main streets

that we've recognized so far.

We have a main street going up here, street up there,

a street running along this reef here.

The blue lines are actually marking out building complexes.

These are the domestic structures.

These are the houses.

Then we have yellow, which is actually marking out courtyards.

There's a lot of open space in this city.

We can tell the courtyards because they have less stone.

There's less rubble. They have lower walls.

And is there any evidence...

Narrator: It seems like a pleasant place to have lived.

But even though pavlopetri's foundations have been preserved,

rebuilding the city will require some interpretation.

Fortunately, there are rare yet vital clues

from other bronze age sites.

This fresco from the ancient city of akrotiri

on the greek island of thera

is one of the only depictions of a bronze age town.

It dates to 1550 b.C.

And shows neighborhoods of neat, brick-work buildings --

even roof terraces.

Is this what pavlopetri looked like?

To find out and to accurately rebuild the city,

they'll need to know more.

Who were these people, and why were they here?

Narrator: The team's map of pavlopetri

has revealed the foundations of a complex city

with at least five major streets and large buildings

clustered around open courtyards.

But they'll need more than foundations to rebuild the city.

They'll need details.

It turns out the site

is littered with these loom weights,

suggesting a thriving textile industry.

And with that industry, there would have been wealth.

Dr. Henderson: Your average house

would have had a flat timber roof,

but once we've got roofs with roof tiles on it,

it makes you think there's somebody important living there.

The building's saying something about the inhabitants.

It's saying, you know, it's more monumental.

So, it's raising the status of this town.

♪

narrator: To try to get a sense

of what pavlopetri's buildings might have looked like,

jon is taking simon to an old farmhouse in a nearby village.

Some of the similarities are striking.

Dr. Henderson: Almost everything you've got here

that's a general layout of a 100-year-old farmstead

up to the modern day we can see at pavlopetri.

And that shows you how advanced pavlopetri was.

Perhaps the only difference

is the building complexes in pavlopetri --

they're a range of rooms built around a courtyard

rather than an isolated building like this.

House design here

has changed very little in the last 3,000 years.

So, the stones here

would be like the stone foundations in pavlopetri.

And then on top of that,

you'd have the clay-and-timber framework.

Dr. Henderson: We think that the design of the buildings

has something to do with resistance to earthquakes.

We're in a very, very active tectonic zone,

probably one of the most active earthquake areas in the world.

And as a result, we think that the foundations of the buildings

were made out of stone, supporting a timber framework,

and plastered with clay or with mud bricks,

because that would move in an earthquake.

It would be less likely to collapse.

Narrator: Back at the site,

jon is convinced that two of the large buildings

just off the main street

are prime examples of domestic dwellings.

If so, this could be one of the first residential neighborhoods

on mainland europe.

These are the remains

of a 4,000-year-old bronze-age house.

All that remains on the site itself is the foundation.

On top of them, there would have been a timber framework

and then either mud-brick or clay-and-plaster walls.

Jon believes the people living here

would have had bedrooms upstairs.

These villas were made up of as many as 7 to 10 rooms.

The ground floor may have been used

as storage or for keeping animals.

Wooden staircases would have led

up to living quarters on the second floor

with windows and possibly a terrace.

This was prehistoric suburbia.

Just down the main street from the houses,

one of the other prominent buildings

has caught jon's attention.

The building appears to have had

several narrow, oblong rooms located at the back.

In one of these are the remains

of a large ceramic jar called a pithos.

Finding the pithos is one thing.

Getting it out is quite another.

Narrator: As jon and the team continue to explore,

one large building yields tantalizing clues

about the mysterious sunken city.

Jon thinks it might have been a commercial building,

a theory supported by what appears to be

a large storage vessel, or pithos,

buried in one corner of the site.

But to be certain, they need to dig the pithos out,

and that won't be easy.

But the basic underwater technique of excavation

is not a trowel, it's not a spade.

It's just your hands, okay, with a water dredge.

Narrator: A water dredge works

like an underwater vacuum cleaner,

sucking up the sand and silt around an artifact.

The sediment is then deposited several feet from the dig.

Throughout the next few days, the divers work in shifts.

It's a delicate operation,

the first-ever excavation at pavlopetri.

In the corner of the excavation,

a second pithos starts to emerge,

adding weight to jon's theory

that the building was some kind of warehouse or storage depot.

If he's right, it could explain how this city fit

into the wider bronze age mediterranean world

and our own ancient history.

The design and build of this pithos jar

suggests it was made between 1700 and 1500 b.C.

It is similar to hundreds that have been found

within the ancient palace of knossos

on the island of crete.

Crete is the largest of the greek islands

and lies about 90 miles

southeast of pavlopetri.

It was home to the minoan civilization,

dating back over 5,000 years.

The minoans were palace builders,

and knossos was the most lavish of those palaces,

boasting over 1,500 rooms,

running water, and even flushing toilets.

The minoans had their own religion,

a strict social hierarchy,

and a primitive written language.

But their palaces weren't fortified.

This civilization thrived

without any great military strength.

This was a trading empire.

And through that trade,

minoan cultural influence spread way beyond crete

to all corners of the mediterranean.

Just north of crete,

minoan traders had a colony on the island of kythera,

and from this stepping stone,

the trade routes would have extended north

to the mainland, right through pavlopetri.

Based on the evidence his team has discovered,

jon believes the city

was an active and probably important trading hub

for imports and exports to and from all over bronze age greece.

Dr. Henderson: The key to understanding pavlopetri is the location.

It's basically at the gateway of mainland peloponnese.

If you're trading anything,

if you're sailing from the eastern mediterranean

and you're coming into mainland greece,

you've got to pass by pavlopetri to get up towards sparta.

♪

narrator: Back at camp,

the visual-effects team continues to work

to digitally rebuild the city.

They've started reconstructing the storeroom building

containing the excavated pithos.

I think it looks fantastic. I'm really excited by it.

There's a few things I would change straightaway.

This part here, I think, probably wasn't roofed.

Now, I know why you've done that.

I think that's courtyard,

and there may have been some sort of entranceway.

There may have been something demarcing that.

With his knowledge of other greek bronze age settlements,

jon can use the reconstruction to piece together

what may have happened inside the building.

Dr. Henderson: Seeing it like this is really making me think

about how this building actually worked.

Maybe you had carts coming in here filled with goods,

and they're unloading them and taking them into here.

Well, if you imagine it

almost like a public council building or something,

and you go into the first room,

and it's probably a waiting room with a bureaucrat

waiting to record what you've just brought in.

Narrator: So, the front of the building

probably housed offices

where the imports and exports were checked in and out.

It would have been a bustling place.

Towards the back, in the long, narrow warehouses,

the large pithos jars would have been stacked.

In them, stored items like olive oil, wine, and grains

sat ready for dispersal

to other mediterranean or inland destinations.

We had people here

capable of complex administration,

complex buildings,

and sort of an almost modern way of life.

We can identify with this.

This evidence of organized trade

significantly raises pavlopetri's profile.

More than just a primitive harbor,

the city appears to have been an active trading partner

with the minoans on crete.

And as those peoples mingled,

a unique and probably somewhat worldly culture

began to emerge here.

So, what was life really like in pavlopetri?

Narrator: Jon henderson and his team

have found that pavlopetri was

a key trading city on the mediterranean,

linking the minoan civilization on crete with mainland greece.

Now they're searching for anything that might tell them

what daily life was like in the ancient city.

Along with the storage vessels already uncovered,

they're finding domestic wares

that also reveal a strong minoan influence.

This is a cretan amphora --

a jug.

It dates from around 1600 b.C.

The cretan-influenced finds are starting to show pavlopetri

as a cultural melting pot.

Dr. Henderson: We're beginning to get things

that are putting us directly in touch with the people.

You can imagine, you know, somebody 4,000 years ago

was using this little pot lid, and it's still complete.

The same with this, you know, little bottle

for pouring some sort of liquid.

We have this situation where we have the people of pavlopetri

copying cretan styles.

We've got this change

from people using indigenous pottery forms --

pottery forms you'd find in the mainland --

but they're making them in cretan shapes.

But they're still making it out of local pottery.

So, it's like they're adopting the fashion.

Narrator: This ceramic jug is thought to be an exact copy

of a bronze metal amphora found in crete.

The detail in the spout and the line around the neck

are identical.

But the metal versions of the jug

would have been much more expensive to produce.

The people of pavlopetri are copying

the lifestyles of the rich and famous in some ways.

It's a bit like, you know,

buying a cheap copy of a rich fashion label

or something like that.

Narrator: The sea itself helps the team in their search.

The shifting underwater currents naturally excavate the site,

constantly bringing new artifacts to the surface

as they wash across the sea bed.

Every object the team finds is photographed

before it is labeled and bagged.

With their knowledge of artifacts from other sites,

the archaeologists immediately have an idea

of what the objects might be

and even how they were used.

And the finds are beginning to reveal

another strong cultural influence.

Many of the pieces found on the site

are coming from what is known as the mycenaean period,

dating from 1600 to 1100 b.C.

Unlike the minoans, the mycenaeans were warriors,

led by wealthy and powerful rulers,

like the legendary king agamemnon.

At the heart of their civilization

was a network of hilltop fortresses.

The most famous was mycenae.

Legend has it that these walls so huge,

they were built by the one-eyed giants,

the cyclops,

since no mere mortal could have built anything so huge.

From their network of fortresses,

the mycenaeans used their military might

to dominate the region.

Sometime around 1400 b.C., they conquered the minoans,

also seizing control of the trade

that passed through harbor cities like pavlopetri.

Mycenaean-era shards

provide a crucial style guide for simon clarke

as he attempts to digitally rebuild

some of the key finds from the site.

Using a laser scanner, he can capture

the exact structure and surface textures of the shards.

Clarke: We got something which is totally real.

So, we're making our pot, when we reconstruct it,

as scientifically accurate as we possibly can.

Narrator: By rebuilding the finds,

the team can start peering into the everyday lives

of pavlopetri's inhabitants --

the simple cooking wares used for soups...

The fine crockery that was brought out for guests.

These were fired at high temperatures

to give a resounding clink when struck together.

And for very special occasions, including funeral rites,

they used a large, two-handled goblet called a kylix.

Dr. Henderson: The site

is actually just strewn with pottery.

This is the tablewares they used.

It's the high-status vessels they used

when they had guests 'round for tea.

It's the vessels they used to make offerings towards the gods.

So, we can directly touch the people that passed through,

touching their pottery.

Narrator: The wide range of artifacts found here

is a reminder that pavlopetri had its haves and its have-nots,

a reality that would have been reflected

in both life and death.

Narrator: Clues to the culture at pavlopetri

aren't just coming from artifacts.

Evidence of the inhabitants' belief systems

and even social structure

can be seen in the way

people here took care of their dead.

Some of these tombs are nearly 5,000 years old.

Dr. Henderson: This is probably one of the only indications

that there's an archaeological site here from the shore.

We've got about 60 rock-cut tombs

just following a line of bedrock

which would have overlooked the city.

For the first time, really, in the bronze age,

we're beginning to see attitudes towards death

and disposing of the dead in some ways,

or sending them on to the next life.

We're beginning to see attitudes towards the dead

which we can recognize in our own society.

Narrator: The people here appear to have had

a close relationship with, and respect for, their dead.

But not everyone was entombed in such grand structures.

They found more than 40 cyst graves across the city,

all located inside buildings.

Each would have had a stone slab to seal the tomb.

Jon has a theory why they buried their children at home.

The team is finding

that death rites also reflected social standing.

Cut into the ridge of rock

running along the eastern edge of the city

are two huge chamber tombs.

These tombs date to the mycenaean era,

between 1600 and 1100 b.C.

And are like today's large family crypts.

They could be reopened

to add additional bodies or conduct rituals.

These impressive structures

were for the elite leaders or ruling families of pavlopetri.

They offered the best resting place,

overlooking the city.

It appears the city's inhabitants

had a complex and multilayered

social hierarchy.

Dr. Henderson: We've got some evidence that people are beginning

to have defined roles within that society, even professions.

You know, they're being craftsmen or merchants

or even soldiers.

And you're beginning to see some level of status in society.

♪

narrator: The people of pavlopetri

lived in a vibrant city with a structured society

that practiced organized trade.

So, how did a culture so advanced

disappear under the waves?

Its fate has been puzzling oceanographer nic flemming

since he first discovered the site over 40 years ago.

Dr. Flemming: When you find an underwater city,

the problem always is,

did the land go down, or did the sea come up?

Here at pavlopetri, there's a lot of explaining to do.

Narrator: Pavlopetri stood at a time

when global sea levels were on the rise,

still fed by water melting from the last great ice age.

But nic believes that alone

wouldn't have been enough to drown the city.

Greece is one of the most geologically active places

in the world.

Throughout history, there are records

of huge earthquakes,

giant tsunamis,

and massive volcanic eruptions.

Could it be that pavlopetri was sent to its watery grave

in a single, cataclysmic event?

Narrator: For 5,000 years,

the city of pavlopetri thrived --

a trading city in the perfect location,

a gateway from the sea to mainland greece.

So, why did it disappear?

Clues to the answer lie

in a set of strange underwater rock formations,

which are actually ancient, fossilized beaches.

Dr. Flemming: You find strips of what looked like concrete

laid almost like a paving strip along the beach,

which is actually a natural cement formed

by the action of sunlight on the sand with the saltwater,

and that can give you exactly where the sea level was

at past dates.

Narrator: These ancient strips

are made up of what's called beachrock.

They are all parallel to today's coastline.

Beachrock only forms at the water's edge,

so these parallel strips show where the shoreline

would have been at different times in history.

Jon wants to get a sample

from the individual lines of beachrock

to date the age of the coastline stripes.

They already know from the beachrock

that it didn't happen all at once.

Dr. Flemming: The idea of a massive subsidence

and a sort of huge tidal wave

and molten lava and ash coming down out of the sky

is very attractive,

and, of course, it does sometimes happen.

But, unfortunately for the hollywood movie people,

it doesn't seem to have happened here.

Narrator: It happened in stages,

but each one probably had a seismic trigger.

Radiocarbon dating suggests that pavlopetri sank

in at least three earthquake events,

the first coming soon after 1000 b.C.

Each time the land dropped,

more of the remaining buildings were claimed by the sea.

Dr. Flemming: You've got a grand city,

which has seen better days,

but slowly, as the edge of the town become waterlogged,

winter storm takes away some of the key buildings,

and then finally, you're left with, you know,

just a few houses sticking out of the water.

Narrator: As the archaeological expedition nears an end,

the mapping team is finally ready to deploy

the robotic surveying torpedo,

but the clock is ticking.

Bright sunlight interferes with the cameras,

so they can only operate the robot at night.

Dr. Henderson: I think this is the first time

this has been done in a submerged archaeological site.

It's quite an important moment.

Just seeing it go in the water was fantastic.

Narrator: The plan is to survey the entire site

in just three or four nights,

a job that would normally take months.

The stakes are high.

It's always a bit disconcerting, I guess, to put

a machine that costs several hundred thousands of dollars

into the ocean

without a way of knowing what it's gonna do exactly.

Narrator: Following a programmed route,

the torpedo moves across the site

at around two miles an hour.

Its twin cameras photograph the sea floor three times a second.

After just a few nights' work,

the team has some impressive results,

successfully producing a stone-by-stone photo map

of the entire city.

This is fundamentally gonna change

the way we do underwater archaeology.

I mean, this is -- you can't get any better than this

in terms of underwater survey.

Narrator: Using the millimeter-accurate 3-d photo map of the city,

the visual-effects team

can now finish building pavlopetri

and raise it digitally from the sea floor.

We've had the very detailed archaeological survey,

but then we've enhanced that with the visual-effects team

to reconstruct, bring the city back to life.

Narrator: The city reappears stone by stone,

giving us a first glimpse of pavlopetri

through the eyes of its inhabitants.

Dr. Johnson-roberson: I'm really blown away by the fact

that they can actually reconstruct whole buildings

from just the really basic kind of robotic models

that we generate.

Narrator: Some parts of pavlopetri

are missing from the sea floor, washed away by the waves.

But jon, guided by the spread of pottery shards

and isolated foundation stones,

plus clues from other bronze age towns,

believes this is what the complete city

might have looked like.

Based on the age of artifacts found across the site,

this is an impression of pavlopetri

at its peak,

around 1600 b.C.

It was a city with a planned layout.

People lived alongside each other in neighborhoods.

They had large houses with courtyards,

upstairs bedrooms, and views of the sea.

Dr. Henderson: So, we get people such as merchants.

We get craftsmen, scribes, administrators,

the kind of thing we would expect

in a busy, mixed port town...

...Starting as a small, presumably fishing, village,

and developing into a very busy port

with connections throughout the aegean sea, initially,

then with crete,

and then with the whole of the eastern mediterranean.

And the kind of complexity and development

that that would have had for the city itself --

for me, that's the big story of pavlopetri.

Narrator: Pavlopetri is a link

between our prehistoric past and our modern present,

a trading town where goods, ideas, and cultures

were exchanged.

Dr. Henderson: It's making us realize that the people

were very much like you and I,

and they were living lives which were not far distant

from the lives we live today.

We're actually seeing

the dawning of the west, in some way.

We can begin to trace that back to sites like pavlopetri.

♪

narrator: Some think it will be found one day,

at the bottom of the sea.

Because of this, lifetimes have been spent looking for it

as scholars debate its existence --

the island of atlantis,

a land of unparalleled wealth and splendor,

mysteriously swallowed up by the sea.

[ screaming ]

it's a tragedy that's beyond any imagination.

Because this is a natural disaster

which they could not either predict or prevent.

Narrator: It is the greatest legend of all time.

Now one of the most extraordinary archaeological

discoveries of our time

will finally reveal the truth.

Man: This would have been an event of such magnitude

that it would have had to trigger a myth

such as the atlantis myth.

Narrator: This is the legend of atlantis.

♪

the oldest written account of atlantis originates

in athens almost 2,500 years ago,

its author, plato,

is the father of western philosophy.

His writings tell a tale

that could lead us to the real atlantis.

At its core, plato's account of atlantis

is a morality tale of wealth and power.

So long as the atlanteans remain virtuous,

they enjoyed the favor of the gods.

But when they turn arrogant and aggressive,

they suffer divine punishment.

Plato's atlantis was a warning to his fellow athenians

that wealth and power lead

to devastating destruction by earthquakes and floods

if they're not grounded in virtue.

Plato's atlantis legend deals

with one very fundamental pitfall of human nature --

the fact that we can be great,

that we can strive to succeed,

but that we are destined to fall.

And this is what his atlantis story talks about.

It's a political allegory. It's a moral fable, if you like.

Narrator: Though experts believe

there is much more to plato's tale.

Rich in specific details,

could it be based on a place that once existed?

I think it's very likely that plato has heard some stories

of past civilizations which have come crashing down,

that he's got half-remembered bits of oral history

which he weaves in.

He's picking up on the stories

that he hears around him in athens,

stories which were true,

which he knew to be true,

and he's using elements of those

in creating his atlantis story.

Narrator: Plato offers tantalizing clues

to the real atlantis,

from atlantean society and culture

to the shape of the island.

But the most significant clue

is in the destruction of atlantis

by a cataclysmic natural disaster.

Scientists think they've found evidence

to support their theory.

Haraldur sigurdsson was the first volcanologist

to reveal what really destroyed

the ancient roman city of pompeii.

He even unearthed a lost kingdom

in southeast asia.

Now he has discovered what could be the key

to finding the real atlantis.

In 2006, haraldur led an expedition

to the seafloor around the greek island of thera,

today better known as santorini,

where he searched for underwater deposits

from a volcanic eruption

that ravaged the island back in the bronze age,

3,600 years ago.

Sigurdsson: I've been working on it for several decades,

working on this eruption,

working on the land deposit.

And all is frustrated.

I could never tear away this veil

that was hiding the evidence.

I knew the evidence was on the seafloor.

Narrator: Haraldur was looking for a specific

type of volcanic deposit,

rock from what experts call pyroclastic flows,

deadly hot currents of gas and volcanic material.

Sigurdsson: Pyroclastic flows are created

when the eruption intensifies,

and then you have a collapse of the eruption column

cascading down like avalanches.

Pyroclastic flows have a very distinctive

rock type composed of pumice

and ash and big stones all mixed together.

If the eruption really had had a big impact,

we would expect to find pyroclastic flows

on the seafloor.

Narrator: Haraldur's team studied both

the thickness and the distribution

of the pyroclastic flow deposits through sonar

and a remote-control sub equipped with nine cameras

and robotic sampling devices.

Sigurdsson: You feel, basically, you're on the seafloor.

You can reach out and sample the deposits,

and you can do all sorts of tests.

Narrator: What his team discovers is astounding.

The pyroclastic flow deposits

are between 70 and 260 feet thick

and extend as far as 20 miles around santorini.

The total volume of erupted material

is at least twice as large as previously thought.

Well, let's compare it to some other eruptions,

and one convenient one is the very famous

eruption of vesuvius in 79 a.D. In Italy,

which destroyed pompeii and hurculaneum.

We know that the vesuvius eruption

was about 6 kilometers only, compared to 60 here.

Another very famous eruption is the eruption

of mount st. Helens in the united states in 1980.

But it was only half a cubic kilometer compared to 60 here.

So this is a very, very special event.

Narrator: The new figures make the thera eruption

one of the greatest volcanic disasters in human history.

An event so cataclysmic would have been remembered

hundreds of years later,

even in plato's time.

Sigurdsson: This would have been an event of such magnitude

that it would have had to trigger a myth

such as the atlantis myth.

And I think we must take very seriously the possibility

that the eruption

and the atlantis myth are one and the same thing.

Narrator: But are there any other clues

that support a connection

between thera and the legend of atlantis?

There is an obvious one, and it's visible from above.

The island's shape is remarkably similar

to plato's description

of circular belts of sea and land.

Yet there is an even stronger parallel

between thera and atlantis.

Plato describes atlantis as a highly advanced society.

And amazingly, archaeologists make

an incredible discovery on thera.

Beneath more than 100 feet of pumice and ash,

they find a lost world entombed by the eruption,

a world as wealthy and sophisticated

as plato's atlantis.

Narrator: Beneath more than 100 feet of pumice

and ash on the greek island of thera,

a lost world is discovered,

a world as wealthy

and sophisticated as plato's atlantis.

♪

the city is known as the pompeii of the aegean.

It is 3,600 years old

and belonged to europe's first

great civilization, the minoans,

predating plato's classical greece

by more than 1,000 years.

Archaeologists have excavated an area

roughly the size of a baseball field.

But they estimate that the city

was 30 times larger than that.

Frozen in time by the volcanic eruption,

the city is incredibly well preserved.

Even so, it's difficult to imagine

what it must have looked like in its former glory...

Until now.

Architect clairy palyvou

has created a 3d vector of the city

in its heyday before the eruption,

when the buildings were intact.

Palyvou: It is a very sophisticated architecture.

It's not just about meeting everyday physical requirements

like shelter or protection.

It's much more.

There are so many things that one can stop and admire

and so many things that are there

for the first time in the world.

Narrator: The minoans build multistory houses

in a region prone to earthquakes.

To provide the buildings with the required strength,

they develop a sophisticated construction technique.

They have been using a lot of timber,

to such an extent

that one could speak of a half-timber technique.

Narrator: The timber beams are connected to each other,

forming a supporting structure that prevents a building

from collapsing even if part of it

was damaged by an earthquake.

Minoan houses feature a sanitation system

that won't be seen in modern europe

until the 19th century.

Toilet and sewage systems existed in mesopotamian egypt.

But the kind of toilet we find on the upper story

of an ordinary house at akrotiri

is something unique and, I believe,

for the first time in history.

Narrator: Clay pipes are built into the walls of minoan houses

to connect the toilet with a public sewage system.

Palyvou: This is the architecture

of an affluent society.

This prosperity is shared by

a large number of the community.

That is what makes a difference.

It's not something that's kept only for the elite.

Narrator: The minoans' advanced sophistication

is evident in their art.

Theran houses are decorated

with extraordinary wall paintings.

Hughes: The wall paintings that are being discovered at thera

are in a league of their own.

♪

they're very vivacious.

They're very unsuppressed.

They're very individualistic.

You can almost kind of smell

the humanity that comes off them.

Now, compare that with the other art of the period,

the beautiful art of egypt, for example,

and there you're looking at something

which is much more monumental,

much more formulaic,

much more controlled...

...Whereas the theran wall paintings have their own life

and their own story.

Narrator: The wall paintings provide us

with a unique insight into minoan life

and society, especially the role of women.

Hughes: Certainly from how they're portrayed,

women seem to have a special status.

And you can tell that because of the clothes they wear,

because of the jewelry that they have,

because of the fact that they are clearly in charge of rituals

which were essential to society.

[ cheering ]

by plato's time, in the 5th century b.C.,

1,000 years later,

women have a terrible time in athens, where he lived.

They're often only allowed out after dark.

They're given half rations.

They're not encouraged to speak out in public.

And so, for me, the world of thera,

the bronze age world where women were important,

is the lost world that plato describes.

Narrator: In many wall paintings on thera,

women are closely linked

to a sought-after spice, saffron,

the stigma of an autumn-flowering type of crocus.

Saffron was a very special crop in the bronze age.

It was worth more than its weight in gold.

It's very, very difficult to harvest.

But it can do all kinds of things.

Narrator: Even today, a pound of saffron

can cost up to $5,000 u.S.,

and saffron may well have contributed

to the wealth of therans.

Yet the primary source for theran prosperity

was not on the island.

Dr. Doumos: The great factor is the sea.

The sea is not a barrier.

It is a means of communication.

It is only a barrier for the mainlander.

The islander,

especially in the small islands,

can not survive on his rock

without being able to navigate

the sea to acquire commodities he needs.

Here, we have a stage

where the sail has been invented.

The size of the boats, it's quite considerable.

It's about more than 50 meters long.

And if you'll remember

how the first europeans crossed the atlantic,

you can imagine that they could do it.

Narrator: This provides yet another intriguing link

to atlantis.

Plato describes the atlanteans as a seafaring people.

Just like atlantis,

thera is an international trading hub

with as many as a dozen languages.

It's the central linchpin in a trading network

that stretches between three continents --

europe, africa, and asia.

Thera's main trading partner

was its much bigger neighbor, crete.

Crete and thera share the same language and culture.

And while thera is the commercial hub

of the minoan world,

crete was its political headquarters.

Could it be that, hidden amongst its remains,

is further evidence for the real atlantis?

Narrator: Located on crete is the ceremonial

and political center of minoan civilization,

knossos palace.

This vast complex the size

of four football fields boasting 1,500 rooms.

Many of them were used for storage.

But knossos palace is also used

for religious ceremonies and public events.

The central courtyard is the scene of a spectacle

that offers yet another striking parallel

to plato's atlantis --

it involved an animal worshipped by minoans.

[ bull bellowing ]

[ bellowing continues ]

well, the bull occurs on wall paintings

and in relief on vases, this sort of thing.

And it's a symbol of power.

Narrator: Minoan art reveals that bulls are at the heart

of what seems to have been a central public event.

[ crowd cheers ]

bull leaping, which was likely practiced all over crete,

as well as other parts of the minoan world,

including the island of thera.

Crete and thera straddle

the south aegean volcanic arc, where the african

and the aegean tectonic plates collide.

The friction of the plates can generate earthquakes,

and it can open fissures in the earth's crust

that allow magma to rise and burst

into volcanic eruptions.

Around 1620 bc, this fragile

tectonic setting causes

the worst natural disaster of the ancient world.

Geologist floyd mccoy has spent more than 20 years

studying the thera eruption

and how it unfolded.

To the untrained eye, this quarry on thera

might be no more than a pile of rocks.

But for an expert like floyd mccoy,

the layers of volcanic deposits

tell the entire story of the eruption

stage by stage,

a story that might hold the key to the atlantis legend.

It starts with this, the minoan level.

Men walked this surface.

Men lived on this surface.

Preceding the eruption probably were months of earthquakes,

lots of small earthquakes,

new gases coming out, like sulfur.

Springs would suddenly stop,

reappear somewhere else,

cracks in the ground.

And the ground does not stop moving.

That would scare you.

Narrator: The impending eruption culminates

in one big earthquake

measuring around 7 on the richter scale,

rendering the town uninhabitable.

[ screaming ]

after the earthquake, people started working

in order to rescue things which were needed.

And we have found quite a lot of beds,

tables, et cetera, outside in the open air,

probably to be taken away somewhere

or just containing partly-dried fish perhaps

and other food stuff,

again, in the open air.

So, I suspect that people had moved out,

living in their camp.

They were working in their ruins

in order to rescue things,

which were essential for their survival in the camp.

At pompeii, it happened quickly, in a few hours,

I think, whereas at akrotiri,

they had time to prepare.

No victims, nothing has been found within the settlement,

so this was an organized departure.

Duomos: Of course, they were familiar with earthquakes.

An earthquake was not the end of the world.

The end came after.

Narrator: The troubling earthquake

is just a prelude to the main event --

an eruption on a scale the ancient world

had never experienced.

It starts with this -- the initial precursory eruption,

this fine ash.

This was a dusting of this yellow,

also brown and black, ash.

This said, "something big is going to happen."

narrator: The island is covered in up to 6 inches of ash

by the precursory eruption.

Now what comes next, the pumice layer.

The pumice layer is this volcano getting really explosive.

Narrator: This is known as a plinian eruption.

Its key characteristic -- the mushroom shape of its column

and the large amount of pumice the volcano ejects.

Exploding pumice is piling up piece by piece.

This accumulates at a tremendous rate.

Probably about this much an hour piles up.

But then, suddenly, it changes.

No more pumice, instead ash,

tiny particles of ash.

And that's because it got super-explosive.

Narrator: This new eruption phase is characterized

by violent steam explosions,

a phreatomagmatic eruption,

caused by the interaction of magma and water.

Mccoy: What happened is the ocean poured into the vent.

When the ocean pours into the vent,

it's this mixing with hot magma.

Water and magma do not mix.

They explode,

and that exploded.

That exploded in a series of pyroclastic flows

that swept across the landscape one

after another after another after another, nonstop.

Narrator: The pyroclastic flows of rock

and gas reach temperatures

of up to 1,300 degrees fahrenheit

and speeds of up to 180 miles per hour.

Then, at the same time,

whatever's out in the middle of this volcano,

which was a center island, is falling in.

The caldera is collapsing into the magma chamber.

Out come huge, huge rocks --

rocks the size of cars

are being exploded out as ballistic missiles.

And then, finally, finally,

it's perhaps over, but not quite,

because this huge eruption plume

that's over our heads here,

that is on top of this volcano,

is developing electrical charges.

Every little particle of ash

has got an electrical charge.

That charge bounces from one particle to another to another.

Pretty soon, there are lightning bolts everywhere.

The sky is lit up with lightning.

[ electricity crackles ]

narrator: This was one of the greatest

volcanic eruptions in history.

Its power is equivalent to 600 megatons of tnt,

about 40,000 times the size of the hiroshima bomb.

The volcano ejects

150 billion tons of magma,

burying the island in over 300 feet of ash and pumice.

Pumice floats on water,

and it would have covered not only the island,

but also the sea.

Sigurdsson: We know from many instances in recent eruptions

that there were thick layers of pumice on the sea,

maybe a meter thick or half a meter.

You could walk on them.

And they would look like an island.

And these were drifting islands of pumice.

So santorini and a large part of the aegean

would have been covered by floating pumice,

even thick enough to walk on.

♪

narrator: Today, we can see this phenomenon in the pacific ocean

where pumice is ejected from underwater volcanos.

On the surface, the pumice forms rafts,

which sailors often find impossible to navigate.

The rafts from the theran eruption

would have been at least 3 feet thick.

What happened to the people of thera remains a mystery.

In the excavated parts of the city,

no bodies have ever been discovered.

Duomos: God knows where the people have gone.

I believe that they were camping somewhere near in the vicinity,

and they will be found there someday.

♪

♪

it's a tragedy that's beyond any imagination.

♪

♪

narrator: If the therans decided to stay on the island,

they would have had no chance of survival.

Pyroclastic flow would kill you.

First of all, pyroclastic flow can be proceeded

by a shock wave that's called a surge,

and that would blow your ears out.

It would turn you to jelly.

If that didn't happen, the pyroclastic flow

would just grind you to little, tiny bits.

And if that didn't happen, then the fine ash would

get into your lungs, block it up.

And that same ash,

mixing with the fluids in your body,

would turn to cement.

There's no way you're gonna survive this.

Narrator: Since the therans had a large fleet,

it is likely that at least some of them

would have boarded ships when the eruption started.

But that doesn't mean they were safe.

Sigurdsson: There would have been a ring

around santorini of pyroclastic flows

going over water, 10 kilometers or more.

And we know that, even from vesuvius,

the pompeii eruption in 79 ad,

the pyroclastic flow went over the bay of naples to misenum.

And so we now accept that pyroclastic flows

can travel over water some distance.

Narrator: Researchers at the university of kiel in germany

have reconstructed how pyroclastic flows travel

across water.

A container filled with hot ash is raised

above a chute leading to a tank filled with cold water.

Using high-speed cameras,

we can see what happens when the ash hits the water.

The heavy particles sink,

but the lighter ash blasts across the water

on a bed of steam.

The steam created

by the hot ash hitting the water

not only prevents it from sinking

but propels it forward.

Haraldur sigurdsson's expedition

to the seabed around santorini discovers evidence

that the pyroclastic flows traveled as far as 20 miles.

These flows would've incinerated anything in their way,

including many of the therans

who had been trying to escape the eruption by boat.

Even those lucky enough to escape both the ash

and the pyroclastic flows are by no means safe.

As they land on crete or other islands nearby,

they face another danger.

Every pyroclastic flow has the capability,

as it entered the ocean, to produce tsunami.

Narrator: The pyroclastic flows carry

a total of 13 cubic miles of volcanic debris.

As the debris sinks in to the sea,

it displaces an equally large volume of water,

creating huge waves.

The power of these tsunamis is

multiplied by the simultaneous collapse

of the volcano's magma chamber.

As seawater rushes into the void left by the magma,

the tsunamis gather momentum

and pulsate away from thera.

One of their destinations...

Crete.

Until very recently,

it was believed that the tsunamis

from the eruption were too small

to have had a great impact on crete.

But, here, near the cretan town of palaikastro,

archaeologist sandy macgillivray

discovers evidence

which challenges past assumptions.

Right down by the sea here at palaikastro,

on a little promontory, what we have here

is a great mass of stone.

You can see building debris in here.

You can see lots of pottery.

And the pottery basically allows us

to date this, stylistically,

to the period of the theran eruption.

Now, in with the pottery,

you also have marine mollusks.

You have fragments of seashells,

which really shouldn't be here.

This is not an edible seashell.

It's not the sort of thing that they would have collected

for lunch, basically.

These seashells then can be taken together

with microscopic seashells,

which the experts call foraminifera,

which we got from taking samples out of here.

When you have foraminifera in your soil,

it means that it's been under the sea.

There's no other conclusion.

So it means that this was actually deposited by the sea.

Put that all together,

and this becomes a tsunami deposit.

This material was deposited by the action of water,

a huge wave coming in,

and on its way back out,

left all this material

in what looks like a narrow alleyway here,

was all jammed into this alleyway.

[ screaming ]

narrator: Sandy macgillivray and his colleagues

have found tsunamic deposits

not just at palaikastro in the east of crete

but all along crete's northern coast,

including amnisos,

near the minoan capital, knossos.

Macgillivray: Colleagues had picked up pieces

of pumice roughly 20 meters above

the sea level up on the hill at amnisos,

and this is extraordinary.

So we came to find out

really how this may have been deposited

if it's the same pumice from the theran eruption.

We analyzed it, and, in fact,

it fits with the theran eruption.

You see, this is extremely important for us

because this side here is fairly undisturbed,

which means that we can get what we call watermarks,

you know, the flotsam, and the flotsam

is really, you know, the pumice.

So, by finding where the pumice gets deposited,

we can figure out approximately

how far the wave

from thera penetrated inland.

Narrator: According to these new findings,

the tsunami rises to at least

60 feet above sea level

and travels up to 5 miles inland.

For the minoans, it would have been an apocalyptic event.

[ screaming ]

the cretans were living along the coast in that period.

They had open harbors.

We have no evidence for fortifications.

They were happily living down along the sea.

There's the city of knossos,

which is inland, but otherwise,

it's very much open coastline, unprotected harbors.

And so the death toll

would have been staggering, phenomenal.

A good analogy of what happened

is what happened in sri lanka in 2004.

Because as the tsunami comes in, it destroys completely

all the buildings, anything that's inside.

In minoan times, there would have been

their warehouses, pottery, vases.

Everything is just sort of strewn together

like everything being in a concrete mixer.

And then it just gets spread around,

and then there's absolutely nothing left,

the picture of complete devastation.

♪

♪

30,000 people died in sri lanka within a few minutes.

Narrator: According to the latest estimates,

the tsunamis from the theran eruption

could have killed as many as 30,000 people.

That is 80% of all minoans

who lived along crete's northern coastline.

But the impact of the theran eruption

extends beyond the death toll.

Macgillivray: The minoans were probably pantheists.

They were in touch with nature, obviously.

There was no distinction between man and nature

that we've created now.

And so an event like this is

something that touched everything.

It touched all aspects of nature,

human and, you know, the animal world.

All of creation was effected by this event.

So the survivors must have sat down and thought,

"what have we done wrong?

How have we created this situation?

How can we amend this situation?"

narrator: At this bronze age shrine in crete,

archaeologists make a shocking discovery.

Although dating from an earlier period,

it shows how the minoans

would have responded to the theran eruption,

hoping to prevent it from ever happening again.

The body of a young man was laid out on this altar.

Experts believe this man is sacrificed

to try and stop an earthquake.

Yet the sheer scale of the theran catastrophe

would have exposed the futility of human sacrifice

and other religious acts.

It would've plunged minoan society into deep crisis.

Macdonald: It would've raised huge questions

over the authority of the religious leaders

because this is a natural disaster,

which they could not either predict or prevent.

And the consequences would have been visible

throughout the island.

And, therefore, I think that faith in these leaders

would have been thoroughly shaken.

Narrator: 150 years after the theran eruption,

the minoan civilization had all but disappeared.

But the memory of an advanced society

that was destroyed in a sudden cataclysmic event

would have lived on.

It would have to be remembered.

It would have to stick in the collective memory

of man for generations and generations.

You just don't forget an event like this.

And I think this is what mythology has to be about,

that is, the collective memory

of disastrous events

that are completely out of the ordinary.

Hughes: If you think of the massive impact

of the theran eruption,

both physically and psychologically,

it would be extraordinary if this was not still remembered

in the oral myth,

in the legend that was passed down from father to son,

from mother to daughter, and if thera did not end up

as part of plato's atlantis myth.

Narrator: Understandably,

plato's account can not be taken literally.

It's primarily a philosophical text,

and much of it is clearly fiction.

No place on earth matches plato's description

to the last detail.

Still, his story contains numerous clues

to the real atlantis --

the shape of the island,

the advanced culture of the atlanteans,

their seafaring skills,

the bull games, and last but not least,

the destruction of atlantis

by an apocalyptic disaster.

The similarities with the minoans

and the theran eruption are striking.

And as new evidence reveals the true scale of the eruption,

experts agree that there is only one candidate

for the real atlantis.

Synolakis: I think plato had in mind

the destruction of ancient thera.

His description overall fits what would have happened

during the volcanic eruption of thera.

The atlantis legend has to have some sort of a trigger.

Something started the myth.

I'm firmly convinced a natural disaster,

and there was no disaster in the ancient world

like the eruption of thera in the bronze age.

There was nothing like it.

[ thunder crashes ]