THERA
(Santorini) Greece.
The island is
one of the Greek Cyclades group. Its modern name appears during the mediaeval epoch, and is a corruption
of Santa Irini. It is the most striking of the Greek islands,
reduced to a half-moon shape by successive volcanic
eruptions and earthquakes from prehistoric times to the
present. According to the ancient sources Thera would
have been first inhabited by Carians, then by Phoenicians,
followed by Achaeans, Dorians, and Minyans. Scheria,
the Homeric island of the Phaiakians, has been recognized in Thera; others identify it with the mythical
Atlantis, destroyed according to legend by a gigantic
cataclysm similar to that which must have hit Thera
ca. 1520 B.C. The submarine earthquake would in fact
have reached the island of Crete, where volcanic debris
from Thera has been found. It largely destroyed the
Minoan palaces, including that of Knossos, which was
subsequently occupied by a new Achaean dynasty; and
it caused a large part of the population to emigrate to
the mainland.
The exploration of Thera, begun in 1845, was systematically carried on from 1895 to 1903, and has been
resumed since WW II. A spot on the SW promontory,
in the locality of Akrotiri, is held because of its geographic position to be probably the most ancient center
of the island. There, sealed under a thick blanket of
lapillus, have appeared the imposing remains of constructions of palatial character. They go back to a time
contemporaneous with LM I, and attest the close ties of
Thera with Crete. They were buried at the end of the
16th c. after an eruption that destroyed every trace of
life and even changed the geographical aspect of the
island. Another settlement of Minoan type has been
discovered on the S coast of the small island of Therasia, which closes, on the N, the large gulf formed by the caving-in of the volcano which occupied the center of the island in prehistoric times.
At the beginning of the 1st millennium the Dorians
landed at Thera, bringing the cult of Apollo Delphinios
and Karnesios. They settled on a sheltered rocky highland on the sea, joined by a narrow ridge to mount St.
Elias in the SE part of the island. Here they founded a
city, built on a single axis to conform to the long narrow
hill. Nothing remains of the most ancient city. Although
the actual remains are almost all post-6th c., it is probable, given the peculiar geographic position, that the
general plan of the primitive city coincided with the
later plan and extended beyond it, from the spring of
Sellada to the N to the religious zone to the S. This was
closed by a vast temenos, inside of which rose the Temple of Apollo Karneios, the oldest sanctuary of the Dorian colony, perhaps datable to the 7th c.
The foundations of the temple were cut into the rock,
while the upper part was built of breccia and mudbrick.
The plan is unusual, resembling a house more than a
temple. From the propylaeum, with two wooden columns
in front of it the stone bases of which are still visible,
one enters a square court on which open two rooms
to the right, and to the left a pronaos communicating
with the cella (7.3 x 12.15 m) cut into the rock. The
cella communicates with two other rock-cut rooms
which perhaps served as treasuries. Next to the temple,
and sustained by a Cyclopean wall, is the terrace where
the festivals of Apollo (Karneia) were celebrated. The
interior rock walls and those of a small quadrangular
room intended for offerings are covered by numerous
dedicatory inscriptions. The most ancient of these go
back to the 7th c. and are important in the history of
Greek epigraphy.
Although there are many terrace walls from the archaic period, the most conspicuous remains of the city
belong to the Ptolemaic period, when Thera became
a powerful naval base. The road that crossed the entire
inhabited area opens in the middle and highest part of
its route into an agora with an irregular plan, ca. 20 m
wide. Here other divinities were honored, including
Athena Polias, perhaps Zeus, and later Dionysos. On
the W side of the agora rose the basilike stoa, whose
name perhaps recalls the Dorian kings, but which probably belongs to the Ptolemaic period. It has the form
of a basilica, divided into two naves by a row of Doric
columns. In the Roman period its N part was closed
in to make a room where statues of the imperial family
were kept, including Faustina the Elder, Marcus Aurelius, and Lucius Verus. A road to the W led to the barracks of the Ptolemaic garrison (275 B.C.) on the
summit of the hill, which consisted of various rooms
that could be approached from inside or outside the
city. Beside the barracks was a building enclosed in a
square court that has been interpreted as a gymnasium,
although others claim that the construction is pre-Classical.
Between this building and the stoa were other constructions, among them one with a cistern, a potter's wheel, perhaps the Temple of Dionysos, and the Ptolomeion which Octavian, after the battle of Actium in 31
B.C., transformed into a Kaisareion. Beside the Roman
baths, S of the stoa, is the theater, in which four building periods are recognizable between the late Hellenistic era and that of Tiberius. Near the portal of the theater was found a Hellenistic house with columns
where the son of Ptolemy III Euergetes, who was brought
up on Thera ca. 260 B.C., is presumed to have lived. In
front of the theater, where the main road veers to the E,
a lateral road goes W to a small square with a Sanctuary
of Apollo, which has been transformed into a church.
It also contained, among the rocks, the Ptolemaic Sanctuary of Isis, Serapis, and Anubis, probably hypoethral.
At the S extremity of the city is a building complex
that has been identified as the gymnasium for young men
because of inscriptions including lists and ephebic names,
some still in archaic characters, and dedications to
Hermes. The gymnasium is constructed in part on the
rock and in part on an artificial terrace supported by
three strong terrace walls. Still preserved is an archaic
nucleus with a grotto dug into the rock and later transformed into a room. It is dedicated to Hermes and to
Herakles. Later structures were added in the 3d c. B.C.,
including a rotunda with columns. At the center opens a
roughly trapezoidal court.
At the N extremity of the city is the Sanctuary of
Demeter and Kore, and a temenos dedicated by Artemidoros of Perge to various divinities, dating from the 3d c.
B.C. The necropolis in use during archaic, Classical, and
Hellenistic times is still being explored. It is at Sellada,
on the NE slope of the hill, along the road that led to
the port of Oia. The archaic tombs were pits containing
cremation burials, with a simple cube on which was written the name of the deceased serving as a funerary monument. In the Classical and Hellenistic tombs the ashes were deposited in vases. Notable among the rich finds are
three kouroi from the end of the 7th c., painted local and
imported pottery, and sculpted stelai from the 5th c.
Descending from Sellada toward Perissa one finds the
remains of a heroon transformed into a sepulchral building during the early years of the Empire, and the ruins
of a Byzantine convent. The remains of Byzantine fortifications are found N of the city. In the region of Akrotiri
a temple from the 3d c. B.C. in white marble with a rectangular plan, dedicated to Thea Basileia, has been transformed into a chapel of St. Nicholas Marmarotis. Inside, before the door, a niche flanked by two columns on each
side held the ancient cult image. A new museum was
constructed at Thera in 1968.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
F. H. von Gaertringen et al.,
Thera
(1899-1904); id.,
RE 5 A (1934) 2260-2302; id.,
ArchEph (1937) 48-66; id.,
Klio 33 (1940) 57-72; E. Pfuhl,
AthMitt 28 (1903) 1-288; J. Braun,
De Thereor. rebus
sacris (1932); C. Anti,
Teatri greci arcaici (1947) 114-19; N. M. Kontoleon,
ArchEph 1939-41 (1948) 1-33;
E. Fiechter,
Das Dionysos-theater in Athen, das Theater
im Piraeius, das Theater auf Thera (1950) 42-49; J. P.
Droop,
Studies Presented to D. M. Robinson (1951) 52-53; R. Martin,
L'urbanisme dans la Grèce antique (1956)
82-83, 206; J. Delorme,
Gymnasios (1960) 82-86; K. Orlandos,
Ergon 1961 (1962) 202-11; A. Giuliano,
Urbanistica delle città greche (1966) 30-34; S. Marinatos,
Some Words about the legend of Atlantis (1969); id.,
Excavations at Thera I, II, III (1968-70); id.,
AAA 4 (1971) 407-12.
L. VLAD BORRELLI
