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The Impact of the Minoan Eruption of Santorini on Mochlos, a Small Minoan Town on the North Coast of Crete

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The Impact of the Minoan Eruption of Santorini on Mochlos, a Small Minoan Town on the North Coast of Crete The impact of the Minoan eruption of Santorini on Mochlos, a small Minoan town on the north coast of Crete Je.ffrey S. Soles At the time of the Minoan eruption of Santorini toward the end of the LM IA period, Mochlos was a small harbour town in east C rete, a second order site in a region dominated by the larger town of Gournia where a snull palace stood. 1 It was located c. 140 kilometres southeast of Santorini along the eastern side of the Bay of Mirabello and lay directly Fig. 1. Satellite photograph showing relationship of in the path of the tephra fall and tsunami that Thera to Mochlos (NASA image). resulted fi:om. the eruption (Fig. 1). A Greek-An'lerican team, led by the author of this paper and Costis Davaras, resumed excavations was located directly on the north coast of Crete. here in 1989 after an interval of 81 years when the In the first year of the excavation, a thick deposit site was first excavated.2 The modern excavations, conducted in two campaigns in 1989-1994 and 2004-2005, have revealed dramatic evidence for 1 Soles 1991. the impact of the eruption on a small town that 2 Soles & Davaras 1992, 1994, 1996; Seager 1909. Fig. 2. The island of Mochlos (from the west). THE IMPACT OF THE MINOAN ERUPTION OF SANTORINI ON MOCHLOS 107 Mochlos Coastal Area Myrsine CHALINOMOURI Tourloti MOCHLOS Sphaka Fault Fig. 3. Topography of the Mochlos Coastal Area (drawing by J.C. Patton). of Santorini tephra was found in the settlement has been sinking for some time and we have been and immediately reported in the New York Times; 3 able to measure the rate of its submergence with additional evidence has come to light since in some degree of accuracy. Fish tanks dating to the practically every year of excavation. The evidence Hellenistic period, the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, is of three kinds: (1) deposits of tephra that fell on which are located along the Cretan coast, lie up the site at the time of the eruption, (2) destruction to 1 m below sea level today; 4 to operate in the of buildings caused by earthquake associated with Hellenistic period however the inlet channels that the eruption or possibly by the ash fall itself, and provided water to the tanks, which are cut out of (3) rebuilding that altered the whole nature of the bedrock, need to have been located at or just below settlement. sea level, so they give us a good fix on sea level The site is an island today that lies c. 120 m in the 1' ' century. In 2006 we found submerged offshore (Fig. 2), but in 1600 BC the topography of structures off the southwest side of the island which the area was quite different. The site is located at lie about 2 m below sea level resting on bedrock. the western edge of a tectonic valley with two fault It's not clear what these structures are yet (one is lines running down either side of the valley, one just a long wall, the other is a rectangular structure east of a Minoan farmhouse at Chalinomouri and with megalithic floor slabs and a low surrounding the other along the western side of the island where wall that may have served as a fish tank), but their the site is located (Fig. 3) . The valley is flanked by construction suggests that they are Late Bronze Age, mountain blocks; extension of the earth's crust is accommodated near the surface by faulting, and when this occurs the valley drops with respect to 3 Wilford 1989. the blocks on either side. As a result, Mochlos 4 Leatham & Hood 1958/ 1959. 108 JEFFREY S. SOLES Island of meters Mochlos 20 "'=" c 18~ 0 ..... ;; 16 r::: ~ 14-Q) :::ii:- iii 12 a; ...J 10 n; Cl Q) r::: Ill ·;: Q) ::I 6 > "'C o"C 4 ~ 3: 2 &. >< ..~ 0 w c: Ill 0 E >­ -4-2 ---Qi ~ .c Q) .. -6 a;~ IV LU ID -8 n; ...J Q)Cl -10 ;:·;:Ill r::: West -120 ::I QjC Isthmus During LMI Occupation m Fig. 4. The Mochlos Isthnms during the LM I Period (drawing by ].C. Patton). and probably LM I in date. They would have been impact of a tsunami on the tombola would have located above but near sea level at this time and been another matter, but since it is now submerged suggest that the shore line was at least 3 m lower in no evidence remains. 1600 BC than it is today (Fig. 4). Thus, at the time Before the final cataclysmic collapse of the of the Santorini eruption, Mochlos was connected Santorini volcano, tephra from the initial eruption to Crete by a low isthmus or tombola; the island, was blown by the prevailing winds and settled which rises steeply on its north side to a height over the site. We have found seven deposits since of c. 45 m above sea level and slopes more gently the excavations began in 1989 which we have on its south, was then an offshore hill that bent identified as Deposits A-G (Fig. 5). They belong the incoming waves around it so that their energy to three different kinds of deposits. Some fell in swept sand and gravel onto the tombola fi:om both open spaces and were buried soon afterwards by sides. As a result, it probably rose 3-4 m above sea subsequent construction on the site (Category level and resem.bled many tombolos that can be 1) ; some fell on the roofs of houses, probably seen today, such as the one at Goat Rock, CA. 5 contributing to the collapse of these roofs, and are The settlement was located on the southern preserved in the rubble debris of collapsed roofs slope of the hill; there was no building on the shore and walls inside houses that were subsequently opposite that we know ofwhen the volcano erupted. rebuilt (Category 2); one or two were collected If the eruption created a tsunami 30-40 m high, as after they fell and put to use in one way or another some have suggested, the back of the hill would (Category 3). Deposits A and B, and n1.aybe C and have protected the settlement on the south slope D, belong to the first category. They fell in open from the full force of the tsunami. The distribution spaces and were preserved by structures that were of tephra on the site, which fell before a tsunami hit and which would have been washed away by a tsunami, suggests that it did not in fact cause much 5 http:/I geology.about.com/ od/structureslandformslig/tom­ if any damage to the main area of settlement. The bolos/ tombologoatrock.htm. THE IMPACT OF THE MINOAN ERUPTION OF SANTORINI ON MOCHLOS 109 Fig. 5. Mochlos tephra, Deposits A-G. MAIN SETTLEMENT E3 0 20m A N Tc>1: 5~00:=-.....== ..... ~ • TEPHRA DEPOSIT ARTISANS" QUARTER 2 built on top of them before the tephra could be of approximately 7. 5 m , extending beneath walls of eroded by wind or rain. A is the most famous of the house, and averaged 5-10 cm in depth; where these. 6 It is also the largest, thickest, best preserved, a stone column base was bedded in the tephra, the and best documented (Fig. 6). It lies beneath the tephra was scooped up and formed a mound 20 eastern side of House C.1, which was built soon cm thick. Originally the deposit extended over a after the tephra fell. 7 LM IB pottery lay on the much larger area and it was clear at the time of floor of the house above the tephra layer, and LM the 1989 excavation that the western side of the IA pottery was found in and around a plastered pit deposit had been dug away along a straight line in beneath the tephra layer. Its importance then was the earlier 1908 excavation of the site although no its stratigraphy; sandwiched as it was between these two levels with their two different pottery styles, it placed the ash fallout at the end of one pottery style " Wilford 1989. and the beginning of the other. It covered an area 7 Soles & Davaras 1990; 1992, 434-8, figs . 1-2, pls . 98-100. 110 j EFFREY S . SoLES Mochlos -l;oo - - - - ;:."__ ---+ I I I I Element 2 3 4 L __ -·.....,-·r - - -- ·-, I 76.8 74.3 i Si02 69.0 70.7 Ti02 0.45 0.44 0.29 14.0 Al20 3 14.9 14.9 14.2 1 FcO 3.60 3.14 2.2 2.0 M nO 0.10 0.09 0.08 MgO 0.95 0.97 0.13 0.3 CaO 3.89 2.46 1.4 1.1 4.9 Na20 4.11 3.94 2.0 3.4 K 20 2.96 2.99 3.0 E 99.98 99.7 100.1 100.00 I 1 Volcanic tephra, Moch los, Crete. I 2 Volca nic tcphra, base of 'Rose Pumice', Phira Quarry, Santorini I (sample C- 1, Vitaliano et al. 1990, 62, table 5). i 3 Glass from tephra, Mochlos, Crete (I. A. Nichols electron probe). i 4 Glass from C-1 sample, base of'Rose Pumice', Phira Quarry, Santorini i i (Vitaliano et al. 1990, 60, table 2). i I i i i i • Mochlos, Crete i • C-1 Base of Rose Pumice, -f!BJI!l _ _________ _ _ -·-- - --- -/~9QQ _ Santorlnl MOCHLOS BLOCK C: HOUSE 1 2 m JSS •EarfyByzantine • Tephralayer Figure 7 Comparison between rare-earth c/eme/11 ( RE£) abundances inlhe Moch/os lep!Jra and the 'Ro.fe Pumice' Fig.
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