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Vintage 1500 B. C. Back in the U.S. last week to plan a major excavation, Mavor and Mrs. Vermeule gave the details at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. Apparently buried under volcanic ash and pumice during the Thera eruption, the city is 3,500 years old and so nearly intact that the archaeologists found one, two-and three-story houses, some of them over sunken cellars. Resting within the structures were looms, vases similar to those found in Minoan ruins on Crete, jars containing a possible mixture of ash, wine and olive oil, stone instruments, oil lamps, mortars and pestles. "There can be no question that the settlement was Minoan," said Mrs. Vermeule. "The most dramatic aspect was to be in those ancient hovises and see the dark shapes of objects that had been there undisturbed for 3,500 years."
On the walls of the upper floors of the houses were frescoes depicting Mi-noan-like marinescapes. Although animal skeletons have been unearthed, no human remains—or gold—have yet been found. As archaeologists see it, this suggests that the inhabitants had some warning of the final eruption and fled—where, no one knows.
Mavor's expedition may have discovered the city none too soon. Each day, ancient houses on Thera are destroyed by mining companies that dig up fine ash for cement factories. To preserve their find, Mavor & Co. plan to buy the land over the interred city and begin a ten-year, $1,000,000 excavation. They will also try an unprecedented adaptation of mining to archaeology. Rather than ripping up the surface to expose the city, they hope to hollow out underground caverns and create a subterranean museum.
The exact link between Thera and Atlantis may never be known, but the new find is an impressive clue. "Two years ago, I couldn't find a single archaeologist interested in the Atlantis theory," says Mavor. "Now several admit there may be some connection."