:19:02
its greatest palace.
:19:05
The Minoans dominated
the Mediterranean in their time.
:19:10
Then, almost overnight
:19:12
the Minoan culture was lost
in an eclipe of time.
:19:19
What power could cripple
a civilization in a stroke?
:19:23
The new theory
of plate tectonics
:19:26
suggested a cataclysmic
tectonic event
:19:32
Evidence led scientists
70 mile north of Crete
:19:35
to a small island in
the Aegean Sea, Santorini-
:19:40
ancient Thera.
:20:03
Where once a lofty mountain
stood is a huge abyss-
:20:07
the collapsed caldera
of a great volcano-
:20:10
the shell of the greatest
cataclysm in human history.
:20:20
Sheer cliffs plunge
a thousand feet to the sea
:20:23
and more than a thousand feet
into its depths.
:20:27
The present villages of Thera
:20:29
Cling definatly to the edge
of an unremembered catastrophe.
:20:34
But recently,
with new theories and new tools
:20:38
scientists have reconstructed
an awesome event
:20:42
35 centuries ago
:20:44
at the height
of the Minoan civilization
:20:48
Thera erupted with the energy
of 50,000 atomic bombs.