The museum of prehistoric Thera is also worth a visit if you make it there! It is fairly small but contains some incredibly well-preserved artifacts. The frescoes are stunning.
I found Fira (nearby "large" town on Santorini, very close to the sites) miserably crowded, but seeing Thera was very cool. This is all about 1500 years older than Pompeii, so a very different experience IMO.
Minoan fresco is so unique. They were truly a civilization unto themselves. I wonder how much they had in common with the rest of "Old Europe" (pre-Indo European farmers)
They are magnificent! I'd guess their civilization was influenced by the Ancient Near East as well as Old Europe. Hybrid creatures, women flanked by big cats, priestly figures holding serpents, all Minoan iconography with corrolaries in Egypy and the Levant. How I wish we had their myths, their histories.
The museum of prehistoric Thera is also worth a visit if you make it there! It is fairly small but contains some incredibly well-preserved artifacts. The frescoes are stunning.
I found Fira (nearby "large" town on Santorini, very close to the sites) miserably crowded, but seeing Thera was very cool. This is all about 1500 years older than Pompeii, so a very different experience IMO.
A bunch more photos if you click the wikimedia link in the article: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Xeste_3_of_archa...
Minoan fresco is so unique. They were truly a civilization unto themselves. I wonder how much they had in common with the rest of "Old Europe" (pre-Indo European farmers)
They are magnificent! I'd guess their civilization was influenced by the Ancient Near East as well as Old Europe. Hybrid creatures, women flanked by big cats, priestly figures holding serpents, all Minoan iconography with corrolaries in Egypy and the Levant. How I wish we had their myths, their histories.