- "Sternhart's diary put it all together. Crete is the greater colony, Thera the lesser. Plato placed Atlantis seven and a half miles southeast of Thera."
- ―Indiana Jones[src]
Thera (also called Santorini) is a Greek island in the Cyclades island group in the Aegean Sea, between the Greek mainland and Crete.
The ancient Minoan civilization had a colony on Thera, while their main land was the island of Crete to the south.
History[]
The lost island of Atlantis was located a few miles southeast of Thera. As with Knossos, there was a subway lane connecting the colony with Atlantis. However this was ruined even before the destruction of the lost kingdom.
Thera was the site of the volcanic eruption around 1600-1500 BC greater than that of Krakatoa; according to Greek archaeologist Spyridon Marinatos it caused the collapse of the Minoan civilization. The island was turned into a caldera and sank, becoming a ring of islands around an underwater crater.
When Plato recorded information about Atlantis in his work, the Hermocrates, a mistranslation shifted the distance from Greece to Atlantis by a factor of ten and led to belief that Atlantis was an impossible continent. However, Plato also referred to Atlantis' location as being southeast of the lesser colony.
In May 1939, Indiana Jones and Sophia Hapgood were on the track of Atlantis, racing against several competitors, including Klaus Kerner and Charles Sternhart.
Behind the scenes[]
In modern times, while Thera is the official name of the island, it is colloquially referred to as Santorini. The discovery of Minoan ruins on the island in the 1960s led to theories hypothesizing it as the location of Plato's Atlantis, destroyed by the volcanic eruption.
In the Fate of Atlantis comic, Indy catches up to a dying Charles Sternhart in the ruins of Knossos, and learns that the lesser colony meant the Minoan colony of Thera. Jones contacted Niklos, who took him to the site over the undersea ruins of Atlantis off of Thera.
In the Fate of Atlantis video game Thera can be visited in two alternate paths:
- In the Wits path Indy visits Thera after Alain Trottier tells him it is the Lesser Colony and hides a way to Atlantis itself. Once there, he uses the Sunstone to open an entrance to a subway lane leading to Atlantis. However it is out of order. Unknowingly to him, Kerner and captured Sophia were leaving the island for Crete. With the help of a Greek port authority, he constructs a balloon with which he travels to Crete.
- In the Fists path Indy finds Sophia in Knossos and they both find a marker pointing towards Thera. With the help of the Lost Dialogue, they hire a Greek boat captain to take them at certain coordinates. Sophia helps Indy to dive with a suit, but is captured by the Nazis and taken to Atlantis. A simplified version of this sequence was also featured in the interactive demo that promoted the game.
