® A publication of the American Philological Association Vol. 6 • Issue 1 • Spring 2007 THE MINOAN TSUNAMI, PART I Film Review: 300 by James P. Rooney by Monica S. Cyrino ne of the ways humans attempt he film 300, Warner Bros.’ brawny and Oto understand momentous Tcompelling new addition to the genre of events is to see if they have any modern films about the ancient world, precedent. Not long after the first takes its name from the number of Spartan reports of the devastating tsunami that warriors who, led by their king Leonidas, originated on December 26, 2004 off the west coast of Sumatra, the press held the narrow pass on the northern started to look for other tsunamis equal- Greek coast at Thermopylae against the ly as destructive. In Indonesia, you need massive forces of the Persian army led by look no further than 1883 when the King Xerxes in 480 B.C. (see Fig. 2). On eruption of Krakatoa in the Sunda Strait the film’s opening day (March 9, 2007), I between Sumatra and Java cost 36,000 joined about the same number of students people their lives, most of them killed by tsunamis. In the more distant past, from my epic film class at the local cinema 3,500 years ago, similarly powerful where the audience was filled with boister- tsunamis may have struck in the Aegean ous fans. Sea, as reporter Donald G. McNeil, Jr. The film is based on 300, the graphic noted: novel by Frank Miller and colorist Lynn Var- ley (published in 1999). Miller was Roughly three centuries before the Trojan War, the Santorini volcano, 200 Fig. 1. Detail of fresco of life-sized inspired by the earlier epic film, The 300 times as powerful as the Mount St. papyrus plants from Room 1 of the Spartans (1962), directed by Rudolph House of the Ladies (ca. 1500 B.C.). Helens explosion, sent waves hun- Maté. When he first saw the film as a boy, dreds of feet high across the Mediter- Found in the excavations at Akrotiri, ranean, devastating Crete, capital of Santorini. Miller recalls: “I stopped thinking of heroes the Minoan empire, its fleet and its as being the people who got medals at the ash on Santorini (see Fig. 1), the evi- coastal cities. Fatally weakened, the end or the key to the city and started think- empire was conquered by the Myce- dence remaining of any tsunamis associ- ing of them more as the people who did naeans of the Greek mainland. (The ated with the eruption of Santorini’s New York Times, January 2, 2005) volcano is sparse, sometimes microscop- the right thing and damn the conse- ic. In the absence of any written records, quences” (Lev Grossman, “The Art of McNeil repeats a well-known and researchers have relied on pottery War,” Time, March 12, 2007, 60). The remarkable theory to explain the shards, buried volcanic ash, shell historical battle of Thermopylae, one of the destruction of the Minoan civilization fragments, and tree rings. by a volcanic eruption on Santorini continued on page 2 continued on page 4 (ancient Thera), an island sixty miles Book and Audio Review: PAKISTAN’S PESHAWAR MUSEUM, HOME north of Crete in the Aegean Sea. But “Mater Anserina” ...............................................3 OF GRECO-BUDDHIST TREASURES, after the passage of so much time, how CELEBRATES ITS CENTENNIAL......................12 can we know if it is true? Immediately “From Gatekeeper to Gateway”: Progress in the APA's Campaign Book Review: “Empire of Ashes” ............15 afterward, it was all too easy to see the for Classics...........................................................5 horrific destruction wrought by the Book Review: “Heroes: Saviours, THE HOPI MYTH “FIELD MOUSE Traitors, and Supermen”..........................16 tsunami of December 26, but with time, GOES TO WAR” AND THE WORLD OF that will no longer be so. Some of the GREEK EPIC ..............................................................6 APA Comic Contest: Thai resorts hit by the tsunami Ceres in Chicago ............................................17 “ORBIS GRAMMATICUS: PARTIUM reopened quickly. Now two years later, GRAMMATICARUM EXPLORATIO”.................8 Book Review: “The Orchard many towns, roads, and bridges Book of First Greek Myths”...................18 throughout the region have been Inside A PLUM EATER AMONG THE GOPHERS: TEACHING CLASSICS FIFTY YEARS NICOLAUS HUSSOVIANUS: rebuilt. After 3,500 years, despite the AGO IN MINNESOTA..........................................10 HUNTING THE LITHUANIAN BISON .......20 excavation of numerous Minoan-era sites on Crete and the discovery of Ask a Classicist..................................................11 Did You Know ...................................................21 Akrotiri, a town buried under volcanic Guidelines for contributors ...........24 THE MINOAN TSUNAMI, PART I continued from page 1 The theory that the Santorini erup- central Crete survived but showed evi- Before erupting, the volcano on tion devastated Crete and the Minoan dence that the Mycenaean Greeks had Krakatoa was one-half-mile high and civilization came not from an examina- taken over (see Fig. 2). the volcano on Santorini twice that. tion of the physical evidence that Sir Arthur Evans, who discovered Afterwards, little was left of either remains of the eruption but from an and excavated Knossos beginning in mountain except a deep, watery caldera analogy made in 1939 between the San- 1900, thought an earthquake was the where the volcano once stood. Having torini and Krakatoa eruptions by Spyri- culprit. Knossos had previously been read the official account of the Krakatoa don Marinatos, who later served as destroyed by a quake in 1700 B.C. and eruption by engineer Rogier Verbeek Director of the Greek Archaeological shows extensive rebuilding occasioned for the Dutch colonial government, Service. What was known at the time by minor quakes. Marinatos was skepti- Marinatos knew that, during the erup- was that the idyllic existence of the cal that a quake wiped out the entirety tion, a series of tsunamis, some as much Bronze Age Minoans came to an appar- of eastern Crete because, historically, as ninety feet high, broke on the coasts ently abrupt end in the Late Minoan earthquakes on Crete tend to have a of Java and Sumatra and swept miles period when the palaces and settle- more localized impact. So he turned his inland destroying villages and lives. ments in eastern Crete were destroyed attention to the nearby island of Santori- Marinatos thought the consequences to and abandoned. The main palace at ni and to Krakatoa, thousands of miles Crete from the Santorini eruption must Knossos (Gnosos on the map) in north to the east. have been worse, in part simply because Map by Richard A. LaFleur and Tom Elliott. Copyright 2000-2001, Ancient World Mapping Center: http://www.unc.edu/awmc This map may be reproduced and redistributed for non-profit educational and personal purposes only. The authorship, copyright and redistribution notices may not be removed from the map or altered. Fig. 2. Ancient Greece and the Aegean. 2 the Santorini eruption was larger – it immediate, interest in Marinatos’ theo- Book and Audio Review: created a caldera four times larger than ry. Not until the 1960’s did Marinatos the caldera left by Krakatoa’s volcano. get around to excavating at a selected Mater Anserina But for all the havoc Marinatos attrib- site, Akrotiri, a Minoan town on the by Diane Johnson uted to tsunamis, he recognized that southern shore of Santorini. By then, he wave impact on Crete would have been was not alone. Given the extraordinary Milena Minkova and Terence Tunberg. limited to the coastal plain. With Crete possibility that a volcanic eruption Mater Anserina: Poems in Latin for Children criss-crossed by three mountain ranges brought an advanced civilization to its with accompanying audio CD. Focus Pub- each 6,000 feet high or more, the knees, it is not surprising that the sub- lishing (http://www.pullins.com), 2006. Minoan palaces and towns of the interi- ject has attracted the attention of or would have been beyond the reach of archaeologists, geologists, and volcanol- Pp. 68. Hardcover $24.95. ISBN 978-1- any tsunami. The eruption on Krakatoa, ogists worldwide, much of it encouraged 58510-193-1. however, offered other destructive pos- by Marinatos and his successor at the sibilities. Ash spewed forth from the Akrotiri excavation, Christos Doumas, his slender volume, which has the sturdi- volcano on Krakatoa, turning day into who organized three conferences in ly bound cover and the bright, simply night for one hundred miles around, and 1969, 1978, and 1989 to discuss the T the blast from the explosion cracked implications of the Santorini eruption. drawn illustrations of a book intended for walls to that distance as well. Marinatos After persistent scientific scrutiny, children, contains twenty-eight English hypothesized that, similarly, a “rain of some of Marinatos’ contentions have poems rendered into Latin. Each original mud and ashes, some cold, some blazing been rejected. The ash that fell on English text is set out with its Latin version and burning” struck Crete. And to finish Crete was cold, not hot – the ash did not facing. Below the Latin text is “a list of it off, a series of earthquakes occurred. even burn wood in the houses excavat- words that the reader may not remember The Minoans were dealt an “irreparable ed at Akrotiri – and any earthquakes blow,” in Marinatos’ view, from the ash associated with the eruption on Santori- immediately” (Preface). Attached to the fall, tsunamis, and then earthquakes, ni were too weak to ruin buildings on inside back cover is a CD containing per- and “from then onwards declined and Crete. Other contentions have been formances, by vocalist William du Cassé sank into decadence,” leading to the reworked. Marinatos’ rough comparison and by the authors, of all of the lyrics in the takeover of the island by the Myce- of the size of the Krakatoa and Santorini collection: some are sung, others recited.