Santorini Island
May 5th, 2007
Santorin
One comes to Santorin through a great circular bay whose shores are formed by Santorin itself and by the islands of Therasia and Aspronisi. The bay is a volcano’s heart, and the water which glows like a sapphire beneath a boat’s keel sinks down a thousand feet to the bottom of the ancient crater.
The earliest recorded name for the island is Kalliste, the ‘Very Beautiful’. Beautiful it still is, but it is an exotic beauty which has more than a little of the monstrous in its nature. To say that it is different from the rest of the Kyklades (to which it geographically belongs) is an understatement. Santorin is not like anything or any¬where else in the world. The first sight of the bay’s curving eastern rim is fantastic. The sheer cliffs, in places rising to a height of nearly a thousand feet above the sea, are striated in bands of coloured rock -red, purple, brown, black, with streaks of white and even green in places. Above the cliffs white houses straggle along the skyline, looking at first like snow, or icing on some rich and indigestible chocolate cake.
Once, as geologists agree, the whole of the bay (eighteen miles round its inner rim) was covered by a huge volcano. At some time during the Late Minoan age - perhaps between 1500 and 1450 BC-there was a tremendous eruption which blew to pieces the central massif. This explosion could have generated a tidal wave sufficient to destroy Knossos and the other Minoan cities of Crete. Such a fate overtook Krakatoa in the Pacific in 1883 - an inrush of sea water into a submarine cavity giving rise to explosions of superheated vapour. Krakatoa produced a wave fifty feet high which destroyed towns and villages hundreds of miles away. Santorin is only sixty miles from the northern coast of Crete.
In historical times there is plenty of evidence of volcanic activity. Strabo records that in 196 BC there was an eruption when flames and smoke rose out of the sea bed for four days. In AD 726 an island appeared in the middle of the bay. In 1570 the island of Mikra Kaumene arose, and in 1707 Nea Kaumene. Further activity in 1925-6 saw Mikra and Nea Kaumene merge. The last earthquake
was in 1956, when parts of the main island - in particular the town of Pyrgos - were badly damaged.
As you approach from the north and enter the bay between Santo¬rin and Therasia, you see ahead the dark, almost repulsive outlines of Palaia and Nea Kaumene, the old and the new ‘Burnt Islands’. The Admiralty Pilot advises one not to navigate in their vicinity, and although excursion boats take tourists to land there it would be a brave stranger who took his own boat close in. The sea is charged with freshly minted pumice, and the water is warmer than you would expect even in the midsummer Aegean. Sinister bubbles like malig¬nant boils break the smooth skin of the sea.
The ancient Greeks called the island Thera, after the leader of a party of colonists from Sparta, and one theory has it that this was Plato’s vanished paradise which he called Atlantis. It is still com¬monly called Thera by modern Greeks anxious to revive the classical name for their home, and they have adopted the spelling Phira for the principal town. It was not until the island became part of the Duchy of Naxos at the beginning of the thirteenth century that the modern name appeared, which is a corruption of Santa Irina, itself a Latiniza-tion of its Greek patron saint, Agia Irene.
The first of the Latin adventurers to rule Santorin were the Barozzi family from Venice, but in 1335 Duke Nicholas I drove them out and united it with the Sanudo family possessions, while handing over the principal castle of Akrotiri to their allies and feudal subjects the Gozzadini of Kythnos, later also masters of Siphnos. Four other castles were built on the island, and all five were still standing in 1577. Vines were intensively cultivated, and even cotton was planted on the vol¬canic soil. The Gozzadini castle remained intact long after the Turks had conquered the rest of the Aegean, finally falling with Siphnos in 1617 as almost the last strongholds of the Christian world there.
The objective of most travellers today will be Phira. Only small excursion boats and cruise liners now anchor below the town itself, leaving their passengers to tackle the six hundred or so steps which zig-zag all the way up to the top of the cliff. An army of mules and donkeys assembles down below when any big ship comes in, and this kind of transport remains one of the tourist attractions here. Nine hundred feet above the landing place, the town of Phira swings into the air. The terraced path of steps winds backwards and forwards, and if you lean over carefully from your donkey’s back and look down as you come to a bend, you will see the previous slope some thirty feet below.
Most visitors to Santorin now arrive by ferry at the new port of Athinios, where a large landing stage has been built about two miles to the south of Phira. The journey up by bus or taxi takes about twenty minutes, the first part a spectacular climb in loops to the top of the cliff. When you reach the town you will find it internally not greatly different from other much visited island spots, apart from its incomparable situation.
Phira is a fairly modern foundation, built mostly during the mid-nineteenth century when the old mediaeval capital at Skaros, a little to the north, became untenable after several earthquakes and minor tremors. It has an unbelievable eagle’s eye view of the world, and the air has all the rinsed taste of the wind. Along the bony spine that runs north from Phira, houses and churches clamber like goats on a moun¬tain track. The narrow streets crackle with that intense light one finds
only in the Aegean. So vivid is it that the moulding over a window a hundred yards away is like a detail under a magnifying glass.
In contrast around the bus stop, which may be your first view of the town, an ugly clutter of tourist offices, bars and ice-cream shops has grown up. The seaward streets are quieter and cleaner, but lined with shops selling the cheap (or not so cheap) jewellery and textiles which are turned out by mass production in Athens to feed the tourist trade. There is a handsome modern cathedral, though, and the view from the dizzy terraces over the deep blue sea-filled crater is un¬matched anywhere.
From Phira you can walk a mile or so along the spine of the island to Merovigli, the old Catholic quarter. The best time is in the early evening when the light softens over the bay. If you return after dark, take a torch or try to pick a moonlit night. The streets and alleys are uneven and curiously unrecognizable in the dark. It is disconcerting to turn a corner and come upon a sharp drop to the sea, or walk down a flight of steps to find yourself in a ruined house which disappears in a crumbling slope.
Merovigli is sinking slowly into the stone from which its houses were quarried. Although a few sites have been cleared for new build¬ing or restoration, shadowed doorways still open upon empty court¬yards, and the grass grows round the ring-bolts where once the mules were ‘tethered. In the small plateia, so high that even Phira looks hundreds of feet below, a few trees grow, and there is a miniature promenade with iron railings through which one views the eastern
sea.Away from the great cliffs, the land slopes down in fields and vineyards, rich in volcanic earth that contrasts with the scarred sides of the ancient crater. Like the land around Vesuvius and Etna, the fields of Santorin are potent breeders of the vine. The vines are not trained on wires or regimented in rows, but grown low to the ground, the shoots trained in a circle like canes at the bottom of a basket. This is to help them to keep their heads down when the meltemi blow in from the north. The white wines of Santorin are among the best in the Aegean, and if you like a rosi you will like those too.
The bulk of the wine produced goes north in the big trucks which roll on and off the modern ferries. Another important export is the volcanic ash product, pozzuolana. This was the substance used by de Lesseps in 1866 to seal the walls of the Suez canal, and it is still quarried in quantity. You can see it pouring down the steep slopes above the jetties where the ships are loaded. As elsewhere, fish is no
longer cheap in the restaurants, but vegetables of all kinds are plenti¬ful. The tomatoes, lettuces, cucumbers and onions raised on those eastern slopes or in tiny plots behind the houses are first class.
The Museum in Phira must not be forgotten. There are some fine geometric vases, as well as a certain amount of Minoan ware of rare quality. The wall decorations and other treasures found buried under the ash at Akrotiri have been taken to the National Museum in Ath¬ens, and will probably stay there. The Hellenistic and Roman periods are well represented, and there is a good collection of inscriptions. A weight-lifter’s weight, perhaps used in some Greek Games (and therefore suggesting there was a champion in Thera), bears the in¬scription EUMASTES LIFTED ME. It weighs about half a ton. Despite its pleasantly hedonistic atmosphere, Thera could clearly build athletes.
An attractive alternative place to stay is in Oia, where most ferries call first on their way into the bay. This has a little harbour where the depth of water is as much as 1200 feet in places. The big ships cannot anchor, and as the quay can take only smaller vessels alongside, their passengers and luggage have to be ferried quickly in and out in local boats. Even if you arc based in Phira it is worth taking the bus to visit it. The run takes about thirty minutes, and if you can manage to sit on the right going out or the left coming back it is a dramatic journey along the often dizzy elevation of the spinal road. Far down below, you see the cultivated slopes where the fingers of the lava flow spread out, subsided and finally congealed. Below again, the sea moves and sparkles as it never does in the landlocked western bay.
When you reach Oia, and the bus stops in a little open space where as often as not an informal football kickabout is going on, wander down the old alleyways which crown the cliffs to the west. There is a good deal of recent development in Oia, but there are still ruinous old houses, with now and then a handsome classical fa§ade. On a little headland jutting out to the south there is a ruined fort built in red stone, part of an extensive property which a notice warns you is private to the family of Leandros. On the seaward side below the fort are the ruins of a substantial three-aisled basilica church. The one column which survives is still faintly frescoed.
Below, the cliff face is honeycombed with caves, which form small houses or storerooms. The cliffs stoop down sheer to the sea, fascinating but frightening. The volcanic rocks assume the most fan¬tastic shades of colour, especially at sunset. The cliff wall to the left is split by a vivid band of arsenic green. Above and below it, the rock is
tinged with purple. Clumps of rose madder lift strangely out of screes of tufa, and the sea around can be full of pumice. Even the pumice of Santorin is strange, unlike those grey lumps we handle in our wash¬basins at home. Some pieces are the softest shade of pink, others streaked with red. One picked out of the water had a bar of cobalt on a field of pale green.
There are two other places which no visitor to Santorin should miss. The ancient capital, Archaia Thera, stands on a broad headland on the south-east coast. At sea level, a thousand feet below, is the modern resort of Kamari, with a long beach of volcanic black sand and a great many hotels and tavemas. There is a good road all the way from Phira as far as Kamari, and the steep climb from there is also practicable for cars, taxis and coaches. The last few hundred feet can be done only on foot, and once you have passed the caretaker’s hut (which is incorporated in the disused church of St Stephen) you can go back in imagination for two thousand years or more.
Archaic tombs found here date the town’s origin before 900 BC, but the visible remains are of the Hellenistic period, when Thera was under the control of the Ptolemies of Egypt. This may explain the pervasive charm as well as the few signs of decadence which you find here.
A path leads seaward along the ridge, once the Sacred Way for all who lived or came here. The first thing you will notice is a walled enclosure on your right, the wall beautifully carved with the symbols of an eagle, a lion and a dolphin. The eagle is for Zeus, the lion for Apollo, the dolphin for Poseidon, and between them is a medallion with a head in profile which records that the enclosure was built in honour of Artemidorus, an admiral of the Ptolemies’ fleet which was based in Thera.
A hundred yards further on you reach the centre of the town. Passing through the agora you have on your right the Stoa Vasiliki, or royal portico, a good forty yards long, with a row of column bases and two commemorative steles at the back. Beyond that on your right is the famous carving of a phallus with the surrounding inscription ‘To my friends’. As you walk on your realize what a superb situation the town enjoyed, and it is no surprise to find one of the best sites occupied by a charming little theatre, with a quite capacious audito¬rium facing a backdrop of limitless sea and sky. Several large cis¬terns, with the long slabs which supported their roofs still in place, provided an elaborate water supply for Hellenistic lavatories and Roman baths.
The path now drops a little towards the headland, and you find yourself in older and more evocative surroundings. The sixth-century temple of the Dorian Apollo Karneios, a big rectangle with much of the west wall intact, lies below you to your left. To your right is a terrace supported by a retaining wall built in massive blocks, best seen from below and further on. Here were celebrated the Gym-nopaidia displays of dancing and.gymnastics in honour of Apollo, and beyond is the gymnasium itself, an area where the teenage boys lived a secluded life which suggests the parallel of the English Public School.
Their sleeping quarters centred on a grotto dedicated to Herakles and Hermes, suitable examples of the bodily strength and fleetness of foot for which they strove. All around, scratched on almost every available rock surface, are rough graffiti which have been dated as early as the seventh century BC, and deciphered as tributes to favour¬ite boys from their admirers. Sometimes the outline of a boy’s foot suggests a champion runner, while a different outlet appears in the elegant outline of a ship’s prow with many oars. The boys would learn music here as well as dancing, for this was Apollo’s world. What a place to go to school in!
If you come by taxi, your driver may be anxious to stop on the way to let you see the monastery of the Prophitis Ilias, finely placed on a shoulder of his eponymous mountain. The monastery dates from 1711, and the buildings are not notable. You will be received courte¬ously, though, and the duty monk will show you an interesting collec¬tion of the original kitchen ware and implements used in the various trades.
To my mind the most vivid experience in Santorin is to visit the still only half excavated Bronze Age city of Akrotiri. This lies near the south coast of the long south-western peninsula, and is easily reached by bus from Phira. It was only in 1967 that Professor Spiri-don Marinatos (who died in 1974) began to explore the thick layer of pumice and ash created by the volcanic eruption which probably also destroyed the Minoan cities of Crete. You can imagine the excitement with which he saw street after street and house after house emerging in a state of preservation equalled only in the Roman towns of Pom¬peii and Herculaneum.
Akrotiri is more exciting than either of those, not only because it was built and lived in perhaps two thousand years earlier, but because its creators, while almost as sophisticated in practical matters were infinitely more aesthetically gifted than first century Romans. How
can we judge this? In the area so far excavated there are two large houses, both with walls and window spaces reaching to the third storey. In rooms on the first floor level were found intact some of the loveliest wall paintings to have come out of the ancient world. To quote Dr Christos Doumas, successor to Professor Marinatos:
Their subjects, whether geometric or abstract motifs, whether idyl¬lic landscapes or scenes from everyday life, are always chosen in a way which meets the requirements of the space for which they were intended. The diversity of themes is so great and their presen¬tation so rich that the wall paintings, apart from their artistic merit, constitute a unique source of information about the society which created them. Costumes, jewellery, male and female hair styles, the men’s armour, the craft of ship-building and sailing are imme¬diately made known through these wall paintings.
All these frescos (some of them executed in fresco secco, or tem¬pera) can be seen in a special section of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. There is a gorgeous young man with a stringful of lifelike fish in each outstretched hand. There is a graphic scene of a fight at sea. There are East African antelopes in black and white outline. There are blue monkeys (of a species found only in Ethio¬pia!) leaping from bough to bough. There are two boys squaring up to each other with boxing gloves. There is an elaborate sequence illustrating a long voyage up river in some distant land, probably the Egyptian Nile, with beautifully appointed and decorated boats, cities of departure and arrival, and the course of the river itself depicted with birds, beasts and flowers along its banks.
The most famous decoration was found in a small room on the ground floor. The walls were painted up to about fifteen feet with a design of waving lilies growing out of a rocky landscape, swallows darting in between the clumps - one pair beak to beak in a mating preliminary. The colours, as in most of the painting, are the deep browns, creams and ochres of the volcanic rocks, but most noticeable is a light sea blue which marks some of the special features like the boys and women’s hair, the monkeys and the fishes. It was outside this room that a double horn symbol was found, linking it with Cretan religious observances. It is a pity not to be able to see these marvels on the spot, but they are illustrated in the booklet by Dr Doumas, available at the door where you buy your entry tickets.
Nor is the artistry confined to the wall decorations. Nowhere in Knossos or Phaistos can you see such beautifully coloured and
decorated amphorae, cylindrical storage jars, jugs, ewers, and even a stone table standing on three short legs, decorated with dolphins and undersea life. The contrast with the vulgarity and crudeness of most of the Roman work at Pompeii could not be more marked. To live in such rooms, lit by large windows and cunning light wells, must have been a joy.
There are ground plans displayed at convenient points on your walk round the town. The endearing thing is that in contrast to the grid system of Roman streets you are following twisting alleyways on different levels between irregularly shaped houses. These open on to littleplateias which may be only roughly square and in one case is triangular. A complete ground plan would be not unlike any you can find in a Kykladic village today.
There is an eerie, even a ghostly feeling now as you walk those deserted lanes. Stone and unexcavated earth are all reduced to the uniform grey of the volcanic ash which has preserved it for more than three thousand years. In spite of that, a charm lingers which is different from the heavy authority of the palace at Knossos. The excavations continue between May and October each year, but tanta-lizingly slowly, because Dr Doumas will employ only a picked team of sixteen.
It was surely a grave setback for civilization when this and like communities were wiped out. There was a poignant twist to the ending when it came. Evidence found at Akrotiri shows that the inhabitants had had earlier warnings of disaster - probably severe earth tremors such as they or their ancestors had known in the past. On this occasion they were alarmed enough to leave the town and take to their ships. Meanwhile a certain amount of damage seems to have been done to the buildings, but when the tremors subsided they came back and set to work to repair it.
What finally happened is conjecture. The significant thing is that no human remains and very few personal belongings were found beneath the solid blanket of ash, not at all like the scenes uncovered at Pompeii. So - did the warning tremors come again? Did they once more take their possessions down the short distance to the beach where their ships lay, put off to sea and wait for the danger to pass? The force which must have hit them then was unimaginable. We know that no other shore received them, and indeed their ships could not have lived for a minute in that awesome upheaval.
About the fate of Knossos our feelings are ambivalent. There were features of that society which not many of us would regret. But at
Akrotiri there seems to have been no form of dynastic or religious tyranny. The citizens apparently organized themselves on a commu¬nal basis. No public or official buildings have so far been discovered, let alone a palace. Yet they could construct efficient drainage and sewerage throughout the town, as well as perfectly effective toilet installations; one of the latter was found intact in the largest house complex. So far no tablets have been found in Linear A, as one might expect. Did they take their archives to sea with them?
We may be wrong about Akrotiri, but my feeling is that we lost more here than in Crete. If this was Plato’s Atlantis, he could have agreed. But neither Ancient Thera nor Akrotiri, wonderful places as they are, compete in the mind’s eye of memory with the astonishing physical framework of Santorin today. The moment one remembers best from a visit to the island is when the sunset flares along the rim of the cliffs, just before the sun dips below the backbone of Therasia, leaving the dark central islets sinister in the gathering twilight. Santo¬rin and Delos are the two poles of this Kykladic world. On Mount Kynthos life begins with the birth of Apollo: the Burnt Islands of Santorin suggest how the world could end.
Entry Filed under: World, Cyclades Islands, Santorini Island
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