The highly advanced Minoan civilization existed in the Aegean sea from about 3000 b.c. until its collapse around 1450 b.c.. Archaeological evidence comes from the Minoan center on the island of Crete, where the famous Palace of Knossos has revealed a wealth of exquisite wall frescoes, vases, and other art objects. Still more evidence comes from the volcanic island of Thera, where archaeologists began to uncover a vast underground city 30 years ago, estimating that teams of archaeologists will need 300 more years to reveal and study the large quantity of finds.

As far as written history goes, knowledge of the Minoans reached us from Egypt, and from Plato, whose ancestor knew the great Athenian statesman Solon, who traveled to Egypt in 559 b.c. and heard the strange tale of the land of Keftiu, that “disappeared in a single day and night... and was sunk beneath the sea”, and put and end to a culture far ahead of its time.
“Keftiu”, hellenized to Atlantis by Solon; a land very real to the Egyptians, but of mythological proportions to the Greeks. So great was Atlantis that Plato had to shift its location to “beyond the Pillars of Hercules” (outside of the Straits of Gibraltar) which in classical times was the standard location used in stories about lands far away in distance and/or time.

Plato wrote about Atlantis in 2 of his dialogues, describing a civilization very much like the Minoan one which archaeologists have been uncovering on Thera and Crete.
•Thera and Atlantis both experienced severe earthquakes and a volcanic eruption(s) so huge that only 5 islets, some no more than rocks, remain of Thera, and of Atlantis remained “small islets, only the bones of a wasted body”.
•Both were wealthy, highly developed cultures, concerned with art, beauty, entertainment and personal comforts.
•Plato spoke of bulls hunted with ropes in a temple in Atlantis. Archaeological evidence has shown the Minoans built bull rings, hunting the animals with nooses, (the only example of this kind of “bullfight” in world history) and practiced “bull jumping”, either a sport or a religious ritual. These practices gave rise to the legend of the Minotaur secured within the labyrinth.
•Atlantis was a powerful thalossocracy, and ruled areas “larger than Asia and Libya”, with “the docks full of tiremes and naval stores... the largest of harbors were full of vessels and merchants coming from all parts”. The Minoan area of sea control and economic influence included all of North Africa, the Mediterranean and Asia Minor. Their fleet was unsurpassed in its size.
•Plato described Atlantis as alternating rings of sea and land, with a palace in the center “bull’s eye”. Interestingly, the remnants of post eruption Thera are circular around a wide lagoon, with another small island in the center of the lagoon. Perhaps Egyptians or other ancient travelers visited Thera after the destruction and began the legend of the rings of Atlantis. Looking 70 miles south to crescent shaped Crete, the ancient traveler could have easily assumed the ring system reached as far.
•From the quarries of Atlantis- “one kind of stone was white, another black, and a third red”. The first sight of Thera that tourists going there today have are the sheer cliffs remaining when the rest of the island dropped into the sea, and these cliffs are a breathtaking mix of white, black and red stone.
•Archaeologists have found a sophisticated system of sewers and water pipes in Crete and Thera. Private homes had flush toilets and bathtubs. Minoans heated their houses and had hot and cold running water from hydrothermal vents. Plato describes the “bringing up of two springs of water from beneath the earth...fountains, one of cold and another of hot water...there were the king’s baths and also the baths of private persons.”
Were the Minoans the people of Atlantis? Many archaeologists believe so. The total destruction of Thera, the heat blast and tidal waves which likely destroyed the great shipping industry on Crete; earthquakes, and the agricultural crisis caused by ash fallout, combined to put an end to the might Minoans, and in a short space of time, 50 years or less, the great Minoan civilization had already started to become a legend.
The “Prince of Knossos” fresco exists in the Palace of Knossos on Crete, as part of the large “Processional” wall painting painted around 1500 b.c. Surrounded by lilies and wearing an ornate headdress, the Prince leads a griffin or other strange animal on a rope. He is wearing the traditional Minoan short woven skirt , and is shown with bracelets, the wearing of jewelry being common in the Minoan frescoes. Minoans, both male and female, wore their hair long, usually with a waved or curled lock in front of the ear. The unusual thing about the Prince fresco is his coloring. According to other Minoan frescoes, women were painted in a pale color, and men in a brownish red. Why then is this male prince with a pale skin tone? Some archaeologists have speculated that the fresco was reconstructed wrong by Sir Arthur Evans, while others maintain it is accurate and holds a mystery. The Minoans preferred profiles like the Egyptians with whom they traded. However, their art is much more fluid and natural than the stiff Egyptian portrayals, as evident in the shifting of weight in the Prince’s legs, the curving musculature, and the strength and gracefulness with which he leans slightly back, his arm stretched out behind him.