All language subtitles for Lost.Worlds.S01E02.Atlantis.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-BurCyg_track3_[eng]

NARRATOR: 3 and 1/2
1,000 years ago,

the biggest volcanic eruption
in recorded history rocked

the planet.

In the heart of
the Mediterranean,

a peaceful island exploded
with devastating force.

At a stroke, an
entire civilization

was wiped from the
face of the Earth.

Then at the dawn of
the 20th century,

the remains of a
spectacular palace

were discovered on
the island of Crete.

On a neighboring
Greek island, a town

was unearthed, preserved
beneath thousands

of tons of volcanic ash.

Teams of investigators are
examining every fragment

from these mysterious sites to
decipher their hidden secrets.

And out of the physical
clues lifted from the ash,

a radical theory has emerged.

These ruins could be the home
of an ancient civilization,

Atlantis.

Using cutting edge
visual technology,

we rebuild the incredible
towns, temples, and palaces.

We reveal the majesty and the
mystery of this lost world.

Every search for Atlantis
begins with the writings

of the great Greek
philosopher, Plato.

Plato was essentially the
father of Western philosophy.

And because what he had
to say was so important

and has remained important
throughout the history

of Western thought, it became
much more acceptable, much

more respectable if you
will, than if someone else

had written it.

NARRATOR: In one of the most
intriguing of his writings,

Plato describes a
remarkable Utopian society.

Rich and wealth and
knowledge, their skills

as builders and engineers were
advanced beyond imagining.

But he says, the peace of this
land was suddenly torn apart.

Legend has it that the entire
civilization was wiped out

in a single day and night,
engulfed by the ocean

and lost to the world
for thousands of years.

No other mystery on Earth
has sparked such obsession

or given rise to so many
extraordinary theories.

On the Mediterranean
island of Crete,

a discovery was made
in early 1900 that

would add a new chapter in
the search for Atlantis.

An archaeologist named Arthur
Evans, a real life Indiana

Jones, arrived on Crete.

He was searching for the
treasures of the ancient world.

Evans was looking for
something very specific.

He was looking for the
first European culture,

but he was also looking for
the roots to Greek mythology.

NARRATOR: Evans began his search
in a hilltop settlement called

Knossos.

He soon found something that
was beyond his wildest dreams.

In the very first trench
he dug, Evans unearthed

a magnificent stone throne.

It was the heart of a
spectacular palace complex.

Covering an area the size
of four football fields

and containing 10 times as many
rooms as Washington's White

House, the dig
exposed construction

on a massive scale.

What he found was
beyond all expectations

of anyone at the time.

And essentially, he defined
the civilization around it,

which he called the
Minoan civilization.

The name Evans Chose came from
a figure in ancient Greek myth

called King Minos.

Minos was said to
live in a great palace

at the center of which he had
imprisoned a terrible monster,

half man, half bull.

It was called the Minotaur.

Sir Arthur Evans thought that
he had found the palace of King

Minos, they probably had
nothing to do with King Minos.

But on the other hand, it
seemed like a good label

and it has stuck.

NARRATOR: Today, a
groundbreaking new theory

has emerged as to the
origin of this lost world.

It's entirely possible that
something like the Atlantis

myth comes out of here, and
it's passed on for centuries

and grew into some kind
of grand importance.

So there is this theory
that the Minoans were

in fact the early Atlanteans.

NARRATOR: It is the
sophistication of the palace

on Crete that is the first
linked to the idea of Atlantis.

The builders of this
remarkable structure

had achieved a level of
engineering excellence

that would not be
seen anywhere else

in the world for centuries.

It is littered with artifacts
dating back over 3 and 1/2

1,000 years.

The remains of hundreds
of decorative pots

and beautiful wall paintings
are being discovered.

As investigators piece
together the fragments

of this ancient art,
they are discovering

sophisticated
images of the people

and the lives of a
lost civilization.

People were
extremely interested

because this was going
back beyond the boundaries

of classical studies and
classical archaeology

into something entirely
new, which had not really

been envisaged before.

NARRATOR: The buildings here are
older than anything previously

discovered on the island.

And they are infinitely
more advanced.

Teams of experts are now
searching for the clues that

relate this complex architecture
to Plato's story of Atlantis.

Colin McDonald has scoured
every inch of the palace

above and below ground to
expose every technological

achievement.

And beneath the surface, he has
discovered one of the site's

most advanced features.

Down beneath
all of this, there

is the most remarkable
water system

both for the drainage of
water and for the water

supply itself.

NARRATOR: Astoundingly, this
sophisticated network of pipes

predates the plumbing of the
great Greek and Roman empires

by over 1,000 years.

These terracotta
or clay water pipes

made up of 1 meter sections the
one tapering into the other.

They took water to lots of
different parts of the palace,

and equally impressive
systems were used actually

to get water out of the palace
for the drainage system itself.

NARRATOR: A vast subterranean
network carried wastewater away

from the palace.

Using the details
of Colin's survey,

we can now see how the drains
circled through the palace's

royal quarter.

We're right in the
middle of the main drainage

system of the palace
here on the East side.

It's stone built on either
side about a meter high here.

In times of torrential rain,
huge quantities of water

could be dealt with by
this drainage system.

NARRATOR: A similarly
sophisticated water management

system is described
in Plato's stories.

He wrote of a palace
where water was plentiful.

Collected from the
surrounding hills,

it was in abundant supply
throughout the city

just as it was here at Kenosis.

What's more, at the
Palace of Kenosis

the engineering above ground
is every bit as sophisticated

as that which Plato describes.

The palace contained 1,300
rooms spread over for floors

all interconnected by
miles of passageways.

It was centuries ahead of
anything seen from the same era

on mainland Greece.

What we have on the Greek
mainland in the period

of the palaces was nothing more
complicated really than maximum

three or four room, single
story mud brick structures.

There's no grand
architecture on the scale

that we see in Creten palaces.

NARRATOR: Plato describes
the palace of Atlantis

as an Acropolis sitting
atop a Great Hill.

At Kenosis, we find just that.

Construction must have involved
huge earth moving operations.

The entire hilltop
was flattened,

and terraces were carved
so that the palace could

be built on multiple levels.

The large foundation
blocks of the palace walls

were constructed of crystalline
stone called gypsum.

It was quarried locally and
then cut into massive blocks

with bronze swords.

We're right in the
middle of a large Quarry

used for quarrying
the gypsum that

was used in the construction
of the first palace at Kenosis.

Here one can see very,
very clearly the tool mark

of the bronze object which
sliced away an enormous part

of the face, and the resulting
block which would have fallen

down but then either
have been worked here

or moved the 800 meters or
so over to the palace itself.

NARRATOR: In the Atlantis
myth, the external walls

of the great palaces were
said to shine like silver.

Today the gypsum
walls of Kenosis

have been eroded
by the elements,

but in their full glory they
too would have sparkled.

You can almost imagine what
it felt like for a Greek coming

ashore in Crete and seeing
something like the glimmering

gypsum palace at Kenosis,
this giant shiny structure

glistening in the sun from
all this crystalline gypsum

and on a scale like they
couldn't have even possibly

imagined at that time.

NARRATOR: A vast
royal residence,

a place of worship and
ceremony at the center

of an advanced and
wealthy civilization.

Using their latest
evidence, our team

apply state of the
art imaging techniques

to rebuild this
prehistoric palace.

We can now see the structure as
it would once have stood here

supported by huge
Redwood pillars.

Many believe this was Atlantis.

Now our investigators are
going deeper to the very fabric

of this extraordinary palace in
search of the vital clues that

might provide proof.

What they find is evidence of
the cause of the destruction

of this lost world.

In the heart of the
Mediterranean Sea on the island

of Crete, a remarkably
sophisticated palace

has been unearthed, and the
find has reignited the search

for the most famous
of all lost worlds.

With its massive scale, its
complex water management

systems, and its
sparkling gypsum walls,

the engineering of this
extraordinary palace

ties it closely to Plato's
descriptions of Atlantis.

Hidden deep in the fabric
of this amazing place,

there are even more
compelling links.

Plato wrote of Atlantis that
it was a complex society that

lived a Utopian existence,
its people in harmony

with nature and
their fellow man.

That same harmony can be seen
here in the order and symmetry

of the building's engineering
in the way it makes use

of the natural flow
of the elements,

the palace engineers were
masters at controlling the path

of air and light through the
depths of the palace corridors.

They devised systems that
appear advanced even today,

even though they are
almost 4,000 years old.

Internal rooms were divided
with an ingenious system known

as peer and door partitioning.

Rows of pillars were linked by
discreet wooden shutters which

could be controlled
independently of each other.

They could be set to block
the path of a cold wind

or channel a breeze to
the palace innermost room.

At the very heart of the palace
is the central court providing

light and air to all
areas of the complex.

To the East is the
royal corridor,

a multistory structure to rival
anything described in Plato's

accounts of Atlantis.

At its heart, a huge four
story spiraling staircase

was built around pillared
balconies open to the elements

to form a vast like well.

This impressive
structure was really

one of the great achievements
of my own engineering.

And in the middle
of the staircase

is this marvelous
rectangular light well,

which allows the natural
sunlight to diffuse all the way

down to the bottom and then
outwards into all the rooms

which would otherwise have
been very gloomy indeed.

NARRATOR: This
awesome technology

and the sophisticated
culture that

created it appear to have
thrived in the Mediterranean

for centuries, but then
they simply disappeared.

Just as in the
story of Atlantis,

it seems this entire
civilization was wiped

from the face of the Earth in a
sudden and violent catastrophe.

The first clues to what
might have happened

lie in the sea that
surrounds the island.

The whole of the
Mediterranean is divided

into two tectonic plates with
Europe on one side and Africa

on the other.

These two colossal land masses
collide and periodically

the energy of these collisions
is released in earthquakes.

The archaeological
evidence for earthquakes

is very difficult to
detect here partly because

of course they rebuilt
and repaired immediately

afterwards.

There is one instance
however on the South side

in the so-called house
of the fallen blocks.

It seems that at the end
of the first palus period,

there was a huge earthquake,
and these enormous blocks

were thrown several
meters to the South.

And there they remained
today as evidence

of this enormous earthquake.

NARRATOR: Our experts have
discovered that the palace

engineers devised new and
innovative techniques to create

structures that would
withstand the destructive force

of these violent quakes.

Simply put, today our
team are keen to learn

from the experience of
the palace engineers

and they study closely the anti
seismic techniques deployed

at Kenosis.

In order to make
their tall, skinny wall

stand up it's quite probable
that the first thing they did

was to buttress them
up rather like this.

So if I pretend to
be an earthquake

and shake this table here,
well, as we can see buttressing

on its own doesn't do the job.

NARRATOR: In the final phase
of building at the palace,

walls were constructed
of stone and supported

by an ingenious system
of wooden frames.

This combination of
materials gave the structure

both enormous strength
and flexibility.

So what the people
of Kenosis did

was to use timber framing to
reinforce their thin masonry

walls and support the framed
up pool of big heavy walls

buttressing like this.

And if I pretend to be an
earthquake machine again

and give it a good old
shake, we can rapidly

see I could be shaking
that all day long,

and this wall is going
precisely nowhere.

NARRATOR: Despite these
incredible engineering

achievements, nothing was
going to save the palace

from the devastating
cataclysm to come.

Seismologists that have been
studying the geological history

of the area now believe
that Crete suffered

a cataclysmic event
around 1,500 BC.

This new evidence shows
that Crete was struck

by a massive and deadly wave.

Dozens of tsunami swept across
entire Asian, tsunami, tsunami,

tsunami, trains of these waves.

NARRATOR: On the
Mediterranean island of Crete,

archaeologists have
discovered the remains

of an ancient palace.

These stunning buildings are the
first trace of a culture that

has been missing for 3
and 1/2 thousand years,

and many believe that the palace
was at the heart of the most

famous of all lost worlds,
the civilization of Atlantis.

Just like Atlantis,
the palace of Kenosis

and the island of
Crete were devastated

in a cataclysmic event.

In search of the source
of this destruction,

experts have focused on a
volcanic island 100 miles North

of Crete.

It was known in
ancient times as Thera.

Today it is Santorini.

Vulcanologist Floyd McCoy
has made it his life's work

to decipher the geological clues
and piece together the island's

destructive history.

This volcano has an amazing
history of repeated giant

explosions.

With every explosion,
this hole in the ground,

which we call a caldera is
be excavated repeatedly.

And every time it
blows itself apart, It

leaves a deposit on the
landscape and layer by layer

it built itself up.

And so what we see over
there are the layers

of these repeated explosive
eruptions through tens

of thousands of years.

NARRATOR: At the center of
Santorini inside the cliffs

of the main island is Neya
khamenei, the new furnace.

It is a barren and hostile
island piqued by the crater

of an active volcano.

Floyd McCoy has discovered that
there was once an island right

at the center of the caldera.

It was swallowed up by a
terrible volcanic eruption.

Occupying this
large caldera then

was this large, large island
that civilization lived on.

It's gone.

The island was blasted to bits.

NARRATOR: Plato wrote of a
devastating cataclysm that

destroyed the great
civilization of Atlantis.

And Santorini, the
closest neighbor to Crete

and the palace of Kenosis
was the location of one

of the biggest explosions
in recorded history.

Researchers have developed a new
theory that Santorini and Crete

were both a part of Atlantis.

The theory has its basis in the
dramatic color of these cliffs.

Plato described
queries in Atlantis

where rocks of
white, black, and red

were extracted from the hills.

The rock was then used in the
construction of a great Island

city.

The description matches the
rocks found here in Santorini.

This Island City was
described as being laid out

in a series of concentric
circles of land and water,

each one connected to the ocean
by an immense canal 100 feet

deep.

There were also docks for huge
numbers of ships and a causeway

over which they could offload
the riches whatever that were

coming into Atlantis.

In other words, everything
that human beings could need

was available in
Atlantis itself.

NARRATOR: Plato's description of
the island as circular relates

perfectly to the
symmetrical formation

of the central volcanic
island on Santorini.

But to prove a link is
impossible without proof

of life on the island before
its last big eruption.

Then in the early 1900s during
excavations in a quarry here,

a fantastic discovery was made.

That layer, that white
layer on top of the cliffs

is it deposit left from
the catastrophic eruption

in the bronze age.

And it was digging there
that they found a house site.

Another case found a burial.

They realized this eruption had
buried a civilization a culture

lived there.

The story then of that
ancient civilization

starts there with that
layer of white ash.

NARRATOR: These
volcanic deposits

which still cover the
entire island fell

in the course of a single
cataclysmic eruption.

Now our experts are stripping
back the ash layer by layer

to expose evidence of the
lost world that lies beneath.

Here it is.

This is a level of man
lived on right here.

Here in fact is what appears
to be a remnant of a wall built

by man on top.

And then the eruption
came, the big blast started

and all of this was deposited.

This is pumice, and the
pumice piled up very rapidly,

and then the eruption
continued for days

of a massive accumulation of all
of this material all up here.

30, 50, 60, 80 feet of this
material piling up and then

way up at the top the
debris flows, the mud flows

have scoured the surface.

All of this when the giant
eruptions in human history.

NARRATOR: The
first signs of life

from before this big
eruption had been found

and the search was on to reveal
proof of a culture that would

link the island to the
great civilizations of Crete

and Atlantis.

The answer was unearthed in 1966
by an American archaeologist

named James Mavor Jr.
Mavor assembled a team

to search the islands for
signs of ancient artifacts.

They began their dig on the
Southern tip of the island

in the tiny village of Akrotiri.

In their very first
trench, they struck gold.

They unearthed an
ancient wall buried

under 30 feet of volcanic rock.

As they dug deeper, the wall
became a house and the trench

revealed a cobbled street.

At their very first
attempt, Mavor's team

had discovered an extraordinary
town perfectly preserved

in the ash of a
volcanic eruption.

We are talking about
a brilliant culture,

brilliant civilization with
a very advanced technology

in all ways, and especially
building technology.

The discovery was hailed as
one of the most important finds

in classical archaeology.

The town remained
substantially intact.

Just like the city
of Pompeii in Italy,

volcanic ash had filled
the city and sealed it

from the elements.

Its contents had been preserved
for more than 30 centuries.

The huge task of uncovering
the town continues today.

With every inch of
ash that is removed,

new clues to the civilization
that was here are revealed.

And just as described in
the legend of Atlantis,

we see engineering skills
that were sophisticated way

beyond their time.

When I first came
to our Akotiri,

I was expecting
something rather simple.

But then I realized
that this town was made

of multi-storey
buildings, and well, we

are talking about multi storey
you are talking about two

and three story buildings.

And at some point, I
realized that I was walking

on the third floor of a building
that had been constructed 3,500

years ago.

That was really
extremely impressive.

NARRATOR: Akrotiri is a
truly extraordinary find.

It is a city arranged
with a structured assembly

of interconnecting
roads and paths,

the earliest form of organized
town planning ever discovered.

And centuries, more
advanced than anything

that has ever been seen
before from this period.

Archaeologists have mapped
every inch of the town,

and from their data our team
have built computer generated

models.

You are now traveling
down the streets

and interacting
with the buildings

of a sophisticated
community that

was destroyed at the height of
its power thousands of years

ago.

Just as we have seen in the
palace of Kenosis, at Akrotiri

there are complex
multistory buildings

constructed of wood and stone.

And the plumbing was
even more elaborate.

Fresh running water
fed each house,

and a sewage system ran
throughout the entire town.

There is a perfect
sewage system

running under the streets.

And these are connected to
lavatories on the upper floors

of the buildings.

NARRATOR: Not for at
least 1,000 years would

it become commonplace to find
bathrooms inside people's

homes.

The discovery of this
lavatory as you can imagine

is truly very important.

If you just stop to think,
I mean that it again.

I mean it took ages,
hundreds of years

to have lavatories
within a house.

NARRATOR: It was not just the
discovery of a toilet that

so amazed the engineers, but
also its ingenious design.

The waste fell through
a clay pipe to a chamber

below where water
from the town drains

flushed it into a cesspit.

The pipes interconnected
in such a way

that a siphon effect
was formed, drawing foul

smells down the pipes and
away from the lavatory.

The design was centuries
ahead of its time.

This sophisticated system
of water management

matches up to the stories of
Atlantis in which Plato wrote

of ancient towns equipped with
hot and cold running water.

But there was one crucial
discovery at Akrotiri

that lent new
credibility to the idea

that Santorini was the island
at the center of Atlantis.

A Fresco was unearthed that
revealed an image of life

on the island 3 and
1/2 1,000 years ago.

Can we be so lucky as
to have a snapshot of what

this landscape looked like?

Here is the peninsula,
Akrotiri peninsula.

It shows a profile of the
island one, two, three peaks.

Going down further,
we see a waterway

that surrounds a central
island, a fairly large island.

And on that island, a city.

They were living on
the central island.

That central island was
a developing volcano.

NARRATOR: This idea of a
central island port and circled

with layer upon
layer of buildings

fits perfectly Plato's
description of the Island City

of Atlantis, a city that
at the height of its power

was blown to bits in a
devastating eruption.

Seismologists are
now following a trail

of clues that lead
from Santorini back

to the palaces of Crete.

They will reveal the full extent
of the horrific disaster that

tore Santorini apart and
led to the destruction

of an entire civilization.

In the heart of
the Mediterranean,

a lost world has been
discovered, a palace on Crete,

and a town on Santorini linked
by the unique engineering

of their buildings.

Archaeologists have
opened a window

on a highly advanced culture
known today as the Minoans.

They thrived 3,500
years ago, and many now

believe that what
they left behind

gave rise to the
myth of Atlantis.

Since the discovery of the
palace at Kenosis in 1900,

archaeologists have
expanded their search.

Today, a network of
ancient towns and palaces

has been revealed across the
length and breadth of Crete.

What all these
sites have in common

is that they were
destroyed in the middle

of the second Millennium BC by
a series of terrible disasters.

According to the Greek
philosopher Plato,

Atlantis too was destroyed
in a single day and night.

The land was
swallowed by the sea.

100 miles North of
Crete on Santorini,

Floyd McCoy has
been gathering data

to determine if the magnitude of
the eruption that happened here

in 1,500 BC was enough to
cause the devastation of Crete.

What he has discovered is
beyond all expectations.

So how big was this eruption?

It was huge.

How do we determine this is by
how much material is blown out

during the eruption,
and the more we look,

the more find there
are huge thick deposits

of this ash and pumice on
the seafloor that surround

this island.

It's been found down
to the Nile Delta,

it's been found up
in the Black Sea.

When we take all
of this material

and calculate the
volume of it, we

come out with an eruption that
is perhaps 10 times Krakatoa

in 1883.

NARRATOR: Because
Krakatoa exploded

in the late 19th century, we
have comprehensive records

of the eruption, and the
details are spine chilling.

The eruption ejected
more than six cubic miles

of rock ash and pumice
into the atmosphere,

killing 36,400 people.

But it would have been dwarfed
by the Santorini eruption.

It was enormous, and it
occurred right in the middle

of a flourishing civilization.

Now things got nasty.

In this eruption, things
got terribly violent.

And the mixture of
water with this magma

produced what we call
pyroclastic surges and flows.

As they swept across
the landscape,

they destroyed
everything that had not

been buried in this palace.

NARRATOR: At the heart of
this civilization in Akrotiri,

archaeologists have found
signs that the residents were

preparing to leave.

Belongings were piled
up outside houses,

and beds were found pulled
out into the streets.

Sadly for the few who took
to the sea to head for Crete

and the shelter of the
palaces of Kenosis,

escape was no
guarantee of survival

because the settlements of
Crete would be devastated not

by the ash and pumice that
was raining down on Santorini,

but by the next even
more devastating phase

of the eruption.

Every pyroclastic flow
that entered the ocean also

pushed the ocean aside.

We pushed the
ocean aside tsunami.

NARRATOR: Our investigators
have turned to the experts

at the National
observatory in Athens

for proof of what happened.

Using the very latest
Investigative techniques,

they have discovered
evidence of a killer tsunami.

Because of this
new field of science,

we have been able to
discover a number of about

10 distinct tsunami events.

So there's no doubt today that
this very big tsunami event

really existed
and possibly contributed

to the collapse of the
Minoan civilization.

Dozens of tsunamis swept
across the entire Aegean.

They made their way
into the Mediterranean.

NARRATOR: These
massive waves surge

towards the unprotected
North coast of Crete.

First in the firing line was
the coastal town of Mallea.

Just yards from the seashore
stood a magnificent palace,

its sophisticated
structures engineered

with the same complex layout
as the palace at Kenosis.

The three story
facade facing North

was directly in the path
of the approaching waves.

The inhabitants of
the region probably

gathered here at the
palace because they

saw this great plume of ash
shooting up into the sky

off to the North.

It would have been visible all
the way down to the Nile Delta.

NARRATOR: When the ash
cloud reached the island,

the sky above this ancient
Minoan palace turned gray.

During excavations on
Crete, Alexander McGilvray

discovered this volcanic
ash in the deepest parts

of the palace's ruins.

It's a clue to the catastrophic
sequence of events that

overtook this society.

When the first wave came
pushing ashore bringing with it

their fleet from fishing
boats to great trading ships

would have all come
crashing through here

and gone all the way to
the foot of the mountains

over there, ripping away at this
architecture rubble, and trees,

and smashed up ships come
crashing back through here

and over back into the sea.

NARRATOR: This
scene of destruction

was repeated all along the
coast of Crete and far beyond.

Not even the brilliant builders
of the great reinforced walls

at the Palace of
Kenosis could have

foreseen the power of the
tremors that accompanied

these waves.

They rocked the island.

Massive earthquakes
caused by the volcano

shook the palace
to its foundations.

The devastation of this ancient
civilization was complete.

Today long after the destruction
that struck the Mediterranean,

the search for the links that
bind these places to the story

of Atlantis has
taken a new turn.

The final extraordinary clue
leads East to the ancient land

of Egypt.

For the survivors of the largest
volcanic eruption in history,

life in the Mediterranean
became hell on Earth.

Thousands were dead.

Tsunamis had poisoned
the land with salt water,

and the air was thick with
ash and noxious gases.

Just as Plato wrote when he
described the end of Atlantis,

the island of Santorini at the
center of this newly discovered

world had been destroyed.

It had been blown to smithereens
then swallowed by the sea.

And 100 miles away, the
great palaces of Crete

had been devastated
by quakes and engulfed

by terrible tidal waves.

In their search for
evidence of the survivors

of this devastating
cataclysm, our investigators

are piecing together
the final chapter

in the life of this
extraordinary civilization.

When the tsunami swept through
here and reduced this building

behind me to foundation level,
the best way for the survivors

to cope was to go to the
most powerful nation.

And the wealthiest nation
of the time to ask for help.

NARRATOR: Alexander McGilvray
believes that the survivors

turned to their
long term trading

partners, the Egyptians.

They may have been people
brought in from elsewhere

to help with all of this
with the pharaoh in Egypt

contributing the wealth
and perhaps the manpower.

NARRATOR: This close
relationship with Egypt

is probably the single most
important link that researchers

have established between this
newly discovered civilization

and the stories of Atlantis.

Because the origin of the story
of Atlantis was not Greek,

it was Egyptian.

In 590 BC in the holiest
shrine of Egypt's capital,

the great Greek statesman Solon
was shown ancient inscriptions.

They date back to almost
1,000 years before, 1450 BC.

These documents told of the
existence of a civilization

of great power and prestige,
ruler of all the lands

to the West of Egypt.

When Solon returned to his
homeland, the story of Atlantis

became part of Greek folklore,
a tale told at parties

and passed down
through the generations

until in 370 BC Plato penned his
version of this Egyptian tale.

Now on the wall of
an Egyptian tomb,

researchers have
discovered inscriptions

that they believe are the
original texts that were shown

to Solon.

It turns out that Solon must
have invented the name Atlantis

because the Egyptians called
the people of this ancient world

by another name.

That name was Keftiu and
Keftiu is the Egyptian name

for the people of Crete,
the very island at the heart

of this lost world.

So what happened
to the survivors

from this remarkable
civilization?

There are signs on
Crete that the Keftiu

did begin to recover
after the effects

of the catastrophic volcano.

But the survivors were
dangerously vulnerable

and soon after the
catastrophe warriors

from the Greek
mainland invaded Crete.

The Minoans did not have
the strength or the numbers

to repel the invaders
and the island fell.

This finally spelled the
end of one of the greatest

civilizations in human history.

The sophisticated
engineering techniques

and the extraordinary
architecture

that gave them their unique
identity disappeared forever.

The Greeks went on to dominate
the entire Western world.

They gave birth to a culture
on which Western societies are

based, but things could
have been so different.

If it weren't for the tsunami
and the fear and eruption,

we would probably be
reading Plato in Minoan.

The Minoans would have
continued to expand their empire

onto the Greek mainland.

The White House would
probably look more

like the palace source than
classical Greek architecture.

NARRATOR: There are
still many questions

to be answered that
could shed light

on the links between the
great palaces, towns,

and temples of
Crete and Santorini,

and the mysterious legends
of the Egyptians Keftiu

and Plato's Atlantis.

On Santorini, vast areas
wait to be excavated

and the ocean bed remains
largely unexplored.

But time may be running out.

At the heart of the caldera
beneath the towering cliffs

of the modern day Santorini
is the Nia khomeini

or new furnace.

It is the site of
the present volcano,

and it is still very much alive.

When the volcano collapsed after
the eruption 3,500 years ago,

it left behind a hole in
the ocean 1,000 feet deep.

Since that time, the volcano
has been growing again, pushing

back up through the ocean.

Today it rises 400
feet above sea level,

back almost to the
size that it was when

it erupted 35 centuries ago.

Seismologists believe
that it will erupt again.

The question is when?

When that next big blast
comes, the best we can do

is hope that we can
predict it and get away.

If we don't, if we stay here
for that next big explosion,

we'll be a piece of the
volcanic ash deposit.

NARRATOR: When the
volcano does blow,

it will engulf the surrounding
islands again, freezing life

in a moment of time,
burying it under a new layer

of volcanic ash.

A new lost world
will be created.