The legend of Atlantis may be more than just a myth. Research on the Greek island of Crete suggests Europe’s earliest civilisation was destroyed by a giant tsunami. Until about 3,500 years ago, the Minoan civilisation was flourishing in the Eastern Mediterranean. But around 1500 BCE the people who spawned the myths of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth abruptly disappeared. Now the mystery of their cataclysmic end may finally have been solved. A group of scientists have uncovered new evidence that the island of Crete was hit by a massive tsunami at the same time that Minoan culture disappeared.
“The geo-archaeological deposits contain a number of distinct tsunami signatures,” says Dutch-born geologist Professor Hendrik Bruins of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. “Minoan building material, pottery and cups along with food residue such as isolated animal bones were mixed up with rounded beach pebbles and sea shells and microscopic marine fauna. The latter can only have been scooped up from the sea-bed by one mechanism - a powerful tsunami, dumping all these materials together in a destructive swoop,” says Professor Bruins. The deposits are up to seven metres above sea level, well above the normal reach of storm waves. “An event of ferocious force hit the coast of Crete and this wasn’t just a Mediterranean storm,” says Professor Bruins.