Wycombe Swing Riots

Here is just one day of High Wycombe’s part of the story.

A few weeks before our day begins, four strangers were spotted in High Wycombe, soon after this threatening letters were received by local farmers and mill owners. This followed a pattern that had been repeated in other Swing Riot centres. On 30th November Wycombe was the scene of a riot where between 100 and 600 (depending on the witness) people destroyed much mill property and several groups roamed the area demanding money with menace from any unfortunates they met.

Our part of the story began on Monday 5th December 1830, when a large group of paper-makers assembled at Flackwell Heath, armed with sledge hammers and crow-bars. They marched on the paper mill in Loudwater and forced an entrance. A shot was fired to intimidate the rioters, but it only increased their anger. The now rampaging mob broke windows and a quantity of vitriol was thrown over them, many were severely burnt.

The rioters continued and marched to Mr Allnut’s mill at Marsh Green, which was destroyed. Next they marched to Hayes Mill where Mr Hayes addressed the mob and told them that he had ordered his machine to be stopped and not restarted without agreement. He explained that if they destroyed his mill the 53 employees would be unemployed and he invited the leaders to enter and see for themselves.

Swing Riots

Sadly it was to no avail and the rioters’ demolition commenced. One of Mr. Hayes’s workmen tried to stop them by brandishing a red-hot poker, but eventually he had to flee. The Reverend Mr. Vincent arrived and read the Riot Act.

The rioters moved next to Lansdale farm and smashed his threshing-machine before heading on to the Red Lion pub. Here, according to local accounts, they “plentifully regaled themselves with beer” before moving on to the Plaistow’s paper mill in Loudwater. The owner, having seen what was happening elsewhere announced that his machine would no longer be used but the rioters broke in and destroyed it anyway.

Colonel Vyse, the High Sheriff, arrived on the scene and, with a number of gentlemen, and tried to stop the riot. They were showered with stones and the Colonel’s face was badly cut. The rioters moved on to Hedge Mill and quickly destroyed the machinery there as well. By this time many of the Swing Rioters were overcome by fatigue, and several of them were in a state of some intoxication.

A local hunt, complete with a pack of stag-hounds, entered the fray and after a brief meeting with the authorities, began to make an impression on the rioters. Several shots were fired. One rioter was wounded in the chest and two others were taken away apparently lifeless, nine further rioters including the ringleader, who was not a local man, were arrested.

Six grenadiers from the Foot Guards arrived in post-chaises and took the prisoners to Wycombe, where they were placed in custody. Around £12,000 worth of damage had been done.

Sadly the main outcomes, on top of several hundred mill workers losing their jobs, were that the wage of an agricultural labourer dropped from nine shillings a week in 1830 to just six shillings a week in 1834 to just six shillings. Also in 1834 the Tolpuddle Martyrs formed a trade union to protest about the conditions for rural workers, but they were famously transported. Unions were not decriminalised in the UK until 1876.

I am not sure what happened to the rioters arrested our day but of the rioters from a few days before, several were heavily fined (£30) and were bound over to keep the peace for the rest of their natural lives, some were acquitted and several were transported for seven years. The ringleader was told by the judge that he was lucky to escape with his life.

Entertainingly one of the barristers was named “Mr Bligh” and although we go not know if he was actually related to the captain of the Bounty from just 41 years before, it has to be said he spoke for the defence!

By Gerry Palmer

Related posts:

1. Coach routes from and to Marlow Horse & Coach routes from and to Marlow Following the...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Related posts:

1. Archaeology in Marlow February 2011 Newsletter Click to download our February 2011 Newsletter newsletter...
2. Newsletter April 2011 Newsletter April 2011...
3. News Letter June 2011 Worldwide and local archaeological news crafted and produced for your...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Click in a corner to turn pages

Related posts:

1. Newsletter April 2011 On-Screen Newsletter April 2011 On-Screen Click in the corner of the...
2. Newsletter February 2011 – on-screen Newsletter February 2011 – on-screen...
3. News Letter June 2011 Worldwide and local archaeological news crafted and produced for your...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Related posts:

1. Newsletter on-screen June 2011 On-Screen Newsletter June 2011 covering local and international Archaeological News...
2. Archaeology in Marlow February 2011 Newsletter Click to download our February 2011 Newsletter newsletter...
3. Newsletter August 2011 Archaeology in Marlow Newsletter August 2011 bringing you the most...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Professor Chris Stringer by courtesy of the Natural History Museum, London

Some AiM members were fortunate enough to attend an extraordinarily good Hedgerley Historical Society lecture by Professor Chris Stringer from the Natural History Museum. Chris is a world authority on the early development of humankind and a leading light in the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain (AHOP) – see www.ahobproject.org. In fact, he wrote the book on it – Homo Britannicus, which sets out the project’s conclusions. (And excellent it is too!)

Here, in very general outline, is the story he told. Britain offers one of the richest records of early human history anywhere in the world. Our geographic position, which is reasonably northerly and on the edge of the Atlantic, has led to extreme changes of environments, plants and animals over the last 700,000+ years. For some, but by no means all, of the time we were connected to Europe by a land bridge, and this has made the evidence harder to understand.

AHOB has brought together a mass of archaeological, palaeological and contextual evidence (such as DNA and isotope analysis) and has built a much clearer history of our past.

But before I go into details, look at the graphic on the next page. The white line between the red (warmer) and blue (colder) is the average UK temperature and clearly shows the warm interglacial and the colder glacial periods. Early Britons had to cope with these extreme changes of climate, and at least seven times they failed to do so – and died out completely!

There are two big factors that have influenced history over this time – the climate and the presence or absence of the land bridge, and much of our story depends on them. Britain and the British people of today, are new arrivals – products of just the last 12,000 years.

Until a few years ago the oldest human occupation site known in Britain was Boxgrove in Sussex, which dates to 500,000 BP (Before Present). Findings from Pakefield in Suffolk a few years ago pushed this back to 700,000, and last year’s excavations in Happisburgh, Norfolk, took the date back by at least another 100,000 years, making these the earliest known northern Europeans. There are five separate sites in Happisburgh, which are dated to between 840,000 and 950,000 years.

Heidelbergensis (top), Sapians (left) and Neanderthal (right) skulls

The Happisburgh people lived on the bank of the ancient river Thames (whose outfall was then in East Anglia) close to cold pine forests, with few edible plants or animals to be found. Winters were harsh and there were added dangers from rhinoceroses and hyenas on the prowl. The tools found here are similar to those found in Spain dating to 1.2 million years ago (and where signs of cannibalism were found).

The country was sparsely populated over the next 200,000 years, with only a few known sites. The next major period of human activity coincides with Boxgrove, when evidence becomes more widespread – over 400 hand axes have been found. From the human remains that were discovered, including teeth and a tibia, we know that the Homo Heidelbergensis people living here were robust and, again, showed signs of cannibalism.

Boxgrove was followed by a major ice age. In Europe, Homo Heidelbergensis slowly evolved into the Neanderthals, but in Africa they evolved separately to become our ancestors.

The next warm period was around 400,000 years ago and is known from the human site at Swanscombe in Kent. Over 100,000 hand axes have been found from this period. The animals that roamed Britain matched those found on the Continent, so there must have been a land bridge, but by 300,000 years ago there was only a partial animal match, suggesting that by then we must have been cut off.

Chart reproduced by courtesy of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project (AHOB)

Surprisingly, the following 100,000+ years showed a gradual but steady decrease in the number of sites found, and by 180,000 BP they vanish entirely from the records.

There followed a warm period when Britain was, in some ways, a paradise. A pleasant climate, rich plant life and an abundance of animals provided conditions that were ripe for the easy life. There was just one thing missing – people! Not one piece of evidence has ever been found for human occupation over this 120,000 year period! The country was cut off, with people only on the other side of the Channel.

Reconstructions of the English Channel over this period show that the Thames and the Rhine joined to become a single major river, which created a massive lake in what is now the English Channel, before flowing south-west and out to the sea. Eventually, the lake overflowed catastrophically and in just a few days cut a deep, steep sided channel that drained the lake and separated us from the Continent once more.

The resurgence of humans came around 60,000 years BP, which is shown by some 50 stone tools found in Norfolk that are all of European design. The Neanderthals ranged widely across Europe – including as far north as Byzovaya in Siberia, home of the recently announced find of more than 300 stone tools from the Arctic Circle.

The main theories for the extinction of the Neanderthals are whether a climate change to which they could not adapt, or a “Competitive Exclusion” by humans (Homo Sapiens?), led to their disappearance: evidence is growing in favour of exclusion. A recent academic paper showed that the southerly contraction of the Neanderthal range in south western Europe was not due to climate change or a change in adaptation, but to the expansion of the modern Human (Homo Sapiens’) sphere of influence. And as around 2.5% of our DNA is Neanderthal, we must also have met and interbred with them.

One last surprise came from the Denisova Cave, also in Siberia. It seems that we and the Neanderthals were not alone but there was a third species of humans around until 40K BP! To read more you will have to check out the story on the next page!

By Gerry Palmer

Related posts:

1. The Thames – a Late Stone Age Lost & Found The Thames – a Late Stone Age Lost & Found...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Stagecoach

Horse & Coach routes from and to Marlow

Following the AiM Walk on Sunday the 13th of March, AiM has conducted some research that provides a few more pieces in the jig-saw.

In the last AiM newsletter we speculated on various possible coach routes that might have left Marlow bound for Oxford and/or High Wycombe and vice-versa. These routes were from Chapel Street to Seymour Court, via the Dell, through Henley, via Watlington, up the Wycombe road towards Handy Cross, along Berwick Road and Mundaydean Lane, until it joined the Lane End road south of Lane End and the along Oxford road towards Frieth.

Another possible route avoiding any hills, would have taken the Bourne End, Wooburn, Loudwater roads to High Wycombe.

There are various directories at Wycombe library and the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies that throw a little light on transportation before automobiles. A selection is listed below.

1794 – The ‘Bye Post’ was a postal coach that travelled from Wycombe and arrived at the Upper Crown in Marlow at 9.00am.

1830 – Pigot’s Directory, “Thomas Hall’s Sociable’’ first left his House, then the White Hart Inn Henley, leaving for Wycombe, via Marlow, every Tuesday and Friday at 9 am.

1831/32 – Pigot’s Directory, ‘The Industry’, went from Wycombe to Reading, via Marlow (Red Lion, 8 o’clock, every Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday) and Henley; ‘The Industry’ from Reading via Marlow (the Crown) to Wycombe arrived at 7 pm, every Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.

1831/32 – Pigot’s Directory, ‘Hall’s’ departed from the Falcon in Wycombe to Marlow and Henley every Tuesday and Friday afternoon; and Chs Busby departed from his house in Wycombe to Marlow every Wednesday and Saturday night.

1842 – Pigot’s Directory, ‘Loftin’s Van’, travelled from Marlow to Wycombe from the 3 Tuns and the Greyhound, Tuesdays and Fridays, about 11 am.

1847 – Kelly’s Directory, Omnibus from Henley to Wycombe, through Marlow, every Tuesday and Friday.

1850 – Slater’s Directory, an Omnibus from the Falcon Inn in Wycombe departed every Tuesday and Friday at 3 pm. via Marlow to Henley

We have also investigated main roads and toll roads. From the Jefferey’s map of 1766/68, a turnpike road existed from Marlow to High Wycombe along the Wycombe Road/Handy Cross route. This route also appears on the 1 inch OS map of the 1870s. The turnpike road to Wycombe, via Bourne End, Wooburn and Loudwater is present on the 1940/47 1 inch OS map, but not on the 1870s version.

Again if members (and non-members) have any additional information they would like to pass on, please let us know, so that we can build up and put together a better and more accurate record of Marlow transport before the age of the train and motor car.

Many thanks to Julian Hunt, the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, Bath Postal Museum and Gerry Palmer for their help in furthering our research.

by John Laker

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Click in the corner of the page to move forward or back

Related posts:

1. Newsletter on-screen June 2011 On-Screen Newsletter June 2011 covering local and international Archaeological News...
2. Newsletter April 2011 Newsletter April 2011...
3. Newsletter February 2011 – on-screen Newsletter February 2011 – on-screen...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Related posts:

1. Newsletter April 2011 On-Screen Newsletter April 2011 On-Screen Click in the corner of the...
2. Archaeology in Marlow February 2011 Newsletter Click to download our February 2011 Newsletter newsletter...
3. Newsletter February 2011 – on-screen Newsletter February 2011 – on-screen...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The veneration of water extends back “well” into prehistoric times.  Ritual offerings were placed in it, shrines, temples, stone circles and avenues were built next to it, and ritual shafts and wells have been dug into and towards it.   Even today people continue to throw coins into wishing-wells and fountains.

Local stories, legends and archaeology all show that the good burhgers of Marlow and its environs were by no means immune to the lure of water.   A well in Bisham was said to cure people with bad eyesight, and the Hughenden dragon’s dragon-pool exists to this day next to the road from Terriers (though, somewhat sadly, its flayed skin has gone!)

An Altar from Covantina’s Well

But what is a holy well?  A holy well or sacred spring is a well, small pond, spring or minor body of water that was revered by Christians or Pagans, usually both.  Many belong to local folklore and are imbued with mystical properties, such as healing, good luck or wealth creation.   Many were said to flow where a (thirsty?) saint had struck the ground with his staff.
Many of the stories of wells probably date to Celtic times.

The Celts practised an outdoor religion, with sacred groves of trees, sacred rivers, streams, pools and springs. They revered the head – whether the head of a well or of an enemy, as the source of the attributes they admired most.  They carried home the heads of vanquished enemies and displayed them to visitors. They used carved heads as decorations, which can still be seen on many Celtic artefacts.

As with many practices, the Christian church simply took-over and “Christianised” some ancient rituals, possibly as it was easier than eradicating them.  This worked well with water cults and many wells were converted for use in Christian baptisms.  Chapels and baptisteries were built next to them, many of them grew into the churches of today, such as High Wycombe’s All Saints, which seems to include both Celtic & Roman remains.  Within a few feet of the church are the sites of both a Roman well and of tales of another well immediately east of the Chancel.

Some wells were said to have the ability cure all illnesses, others were highly specific, with eye troubles being the commonest.  Others were reputed to heal infertility, rickets, whooping cough, rheumatic pains, skin complaints, indigestion, deafness, headache, toothache or even madness.  Although rich, ritual offerings could be expensive and impressive, most people would leave a simple pin, pebble, or a piece of clothing tied to a nearby tree.  Nobody understands the significance of this – is the cloth a gift, or was it hoped that the disease would transfer to it, and disappear as the rag rotted away?

Folklore has tales of holy well water divinities that took many forms, from fairies and mermaids to ghostly women in white or animal forms.  Many wells had sacred fishes or eels that were highly respected.  Their movements were said to predict future events – such as the course of an illness or love affair.

One of the country’s richest holy well sites in the UK is Northumberland’s  Coventina Well, where they found 14,000 coins as well as stone and bronze heads, a human skull, models of animals, jewelry, pottery, and twenty-four altars – many carved with water nymphs and goddesses.

In their heyday there were thousands of holy wells spread across the country and many still survive.  Indeed, in some parts of Ireland and Scotland, pilgrims still visit occasionally.

A well dressed Tissington well

Well dressing

Well dressing, or flowering is a summer custom where wells are decorated with flower petals. The custom is mainly linked to the Peak District but was only celebrated in one or two villages by the 19th century when the Duke of Devonshire reintroduced it to commemorate supplying Buxton with water.

The origins of well dressing may be Pagan, though some think it was to give thanks for the purity of specific wells during the Black Death.  Well dressing was revived, almost singlehandedly, by the Shimwell family in Tissington in the 1920s and 30s,

But let us move closer to home and a look at some of the many local wells.  Unfortunately there is no comprehensive or even generally agreed list – perhaps because almost all wells were once considered holy.  These are just some of my favourite local wells, with the stories that surround them:-Bisham
We know there was once a holy well in Bisham because Bishop Erghum of Salisbury tried to stop people visiting it!  He covered the well with stones but some ‘sons of the devil’ from Marlow and High Wycombe removed them and quickly restored the well to use.

A 14th century account tells of a bird that sat in the tree overhanging the well – it was so tame it could be easily handled.    Then we hear of an hermit who took up residence in the tree alongside the bird – no doubt so he could plunder the offerings!

The well still existed in 1905 and although I haven’t visited it, Alan Carver wrote that he followed a stream by Bisham Abbey and then a tributary that led to a small clump of trees to a spring.  In the banks were old brick walls, possibly Victorian, indicating that it had once been properly cared for.

High Wycombe

One report mentions not one but six holy wells in Wycombe – Malmers Well, Castle Well, Bowden Lane Springs, Priory Wells, St Mary’s Well and the Round Basin and indeed all of  these were once the site of wells (there are many other sites as well).  The first of my two favourite Wycombe wells is by All Saint’s Church (see above).  Although I couldn’t definitely identify the well to the east of the Chancel, the site of the Roman well sits prosaically under the pavement opposite, outside the Polish food and bicycle shops.

The Round Basin well was at the east end of the Rye, which fed the watercress beds past Bassetsbury Manor.  The water from this well may have been used by St Wulftstan in one of his two Wycombe miracles (see December 2010 issue).  The well was regularly visited by pilgrims until this was forbidden by Bishop Hugh of Lincoln soon after Wulfstan’s death.

Taplow

Bapsey Pond in the grounds of the Buddhist Nichiren Shoshu’s manor house in Taplow is amongst the most significant holy wells in the UK (it is only accessible, with permission, see the background image of the pond on the last page).  The spring that fills the pond once rose at the top of the hill besides the church of St Nicholas, which was demolished in 1828, and the spring culverted to the pond. This was also the site of the stunning Taplow Anglo-Saxon hoard, which was the UK’s richest treasure before Sutton Hoo.

Legend says St Birinus converted the local chieftain and baptised him in this pool.

Lane End

Black Well is a brick-built keyhole shape well – a type known from other ancient wells, but sadly we don’t know its history, other than it was renovated in the 1980’s and a plaque records it as circa 1850.

Hughenden
The Dragon’s Pool in Hughenden is named after a dragon that terrorized the area. The October 1758 edition of The Gentleman’s Magazine ran a letter from Edgar Bochart, who told of his visit to the area where, on a farm wall, he found a painting of a dragon-like creature and a pencilled record of its history.

It said that in 1578 a woman from the farm was troubled by a large water serpent, which she often saw while pulling water from the well.  Being frightened she told the neighbours who, planning to kill it, hid behind some briars near the pond. The woman acted as a lure to the serpent, the neighbours sprang and the dragon was slain.  To mark the event the dragon’s skin was stuffed with straw and hung outside the house.  Eventually the skin rotted and the likeness of the creature was painted on the wall.

Hartwell

The Egyptian well at Hartwell near Aylesbury is said to have been named by Julius Ceasar, who saw a hart drinking there while campaigning during the invasion of Britain.

Actually it was built in the 1840s by the eccentric Dr Lee, a campaigner for teetotalism.

Stay traveller! Round the horse’s neck the bridle fling
And taste the water of the Hartwell Spring
Then say which offers thee the better cheer –
The Hartwell water or the Aylesbury Beer!

I’m afraid I would go for the beer!

By  Gerry Palmer

Related posts:

1. The Thames – a Late Stone Age Lost & Found The Thames – a Late Stone Age Lost & Found...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

A common element to all cultures is the desire to tell stories:  they serve as explanations and warnings, and a promise of better things to come.  One of the most familiar stories tells of an ancient sanctuary filled with wonders (the glittering gold of El Dorado, the apples of Avalon) – a sanctuary that’s now lost to us.  Sometimes – as with Shangri-La, and Arthur’s Camelot, the stories say they will return in the hour of our greatest need.  Sometimes – as with the Garden of Eden – they’re lost forever, taken from us as punishment for our sins.   One of the greatest of all legends concerns the lost city of Atlantis.

Under Alexandra’s harbour

Atlantis is reputed to have had an ancient and mighty seafaring island-nation located in front of the Pillars of Hercules, nowadays associated with the Straits of Gibraltar. Its people were descended from Poseidon and a mortal named Cleito and lived good and pure lives, though eventually their mortal blood corrupted them.  The Atlanteans amassed a mighty empire and invaded Athens.  As punishment for the attack the Gods sent earthquakes and the sea swallowed Atlantis – which vanished in a single day and night.

The earliest record of Atlantis comes from two of Plato’s discourses: Timaeus and Critias, both written around 360 BC.  In them, Solon, an Athenian statesman from 600 BC, travelled to Egypt, where the priests told him the history of Atlantis, which they said existed 9000 years earlier.

Like all the stories of lost worlds, Atlantis may be just that – a story.  Even in ancient times, many people didn’t believe it was real, but simply a tool Pluto used to help his arguments.  However, parts of many ancient stories could have a basis in fact.  Troy is accepted as being more than mere myth, and it’s postulated that the Buddhist legends of Shambala can be traced to the city of Tsaparung.

With the changes in sea levels that have occurred, as well as natural disasters, it’s almost inevitable that entire cities will have been “swallowed up by the sea”, as Pluto says Atlantis was.  In fact, we know it’s happened: we have evidence of great floods (another popular mythical topic!) and underwater remains have been found all over the world, including Alexandria, Yonaguni-Jima, and in the Gulf of Cambay in India (although some of these remain controversial).   The location of the ‘real’ Atlantis has been discussed for millennia and has attracted its fair share of theories, ranging from the truly ridiculous, (space aliens or an island off Sweden), to the surprisingly plausible.

One popular theory concerns the underwater Bimini Road in the Bahamas, a somewhat odd choice of location for the Mediterranean legend of Atlantis.  The Bimini Road is a half mile ‘pavement’ of rounded stones in a long straight line.  Some claim it’s the remains of an ancient road, or a collapsed wall, or even the top of buildings.  It’s thought likely, by scientists at any rate, that it is just an unusual but natural rock formation, as there’s no evidence whatsoever of tool marks or ancient human interference.

One much more reputable idea was the ‘Spartel Bank’ theory.  The ‘facts’ provided by Plato about the island’s location and geography, the date of the civilisation, and the method of its destruction were analysed and studied, and a match was found with ‘Spartel Bank’, an island in the western part of the Straits of Gibraltar that sunk around 11,600 years ago, at roughly the time Plato gave for Atlantis.  From a geological point of view, all of the facts seem to fit – but there’s a problem.  Plato’s dialogues talk of both Athens and Atlantis as advanced classical societies, with agriculture and art, temples and aqueducts, ships for international trade and craftsmen who worked with silver and gold and bronze.  Although we can’t say anything for certain about Atlantis, Athens – along with everywhere else that’s known to have existed – certainly didn’t have an advanced society at this time.  Cattle and horses weren’t domesticated; there was no large architecture or large settlements, no ships, no roads, and no bronze work.  So Plato’s date can’t be accurate.
This means Spartel Bank can’t have been Atlantis – by the time such societies existed (around 4,000-2,600 BC), the island had long since vanished.

Sonar of the “Atlantis Plain”

A few years ago it was suggested that Atlantis was located between Cyprus and Syria, at a depth of about a mile.  Maps of the seafloor of the eastern Mediterranean were studied and over 50 ‘matches’ with the physical description in Plato’s works have been claimed.  Subsequently, sonar images of the sea floor showed what looked like some of the man-made canals that were present in Atlantis, but these were later shown to be natural formations, many hundreds of thousands of years old.  Due to the depth of the ‘Atlantis Plain’, further excavation is too difficult.  It is still claimed that Atlantis was located here as, even if structures are natural, it would still be an ideal spot for settlement, (at a mile underwater I hope they could hold their breath!).

A much better ‘fit’ is Akrotiri – a Minoan settlement on the Greek island of Santorini.  The settlement, which has been excavated since 1967, was destroyed by Thera (a volcano on the island), which erupted in the middle of the second millennium BC – so the society was advanced enough to match Plato’s description.  And we know that the Egyptians, who told the story of Atlantis to Solon, were in contact with the Minoans as there are Minoan frescoes at Avaris, Egypt’s capital city under Hyksos rule in the early second millennium BC.

The exact timing and size of the Thera eruption is currently under debate.   Recent estimates say that the volume of ejected material was around 100 km3 – some four  times bigger than Krakatoa in 1883.  Geological evidence suggests that the main eruption was preceded by a smaller one a few months earlier, which led to the settlement being evacuated before the main eruption.   A tsunami, probably more than 50m high, followed the explosion, possibly destroying coastal cities such as Palaikastro and devastating the northern coast of Crete.  The Minoan Empire did not fall immediately as there is archaeological evidence of their civilization above the Thera ash layer, but it was not long afterwards that the decline began.

Theran wall painting

As at Pompeii, Thera created an extremely well preserved ancient settlement.  Best known for its superb frescoes, Akrotiri has yielded impressive buildings with at least three storeys and drainage systems, as well as the usual pottery and furniture.  Unlike Pompeii, however, the evacuation of the site before the main explosion meant that many of the more precious (and moveable) objects were removed – so far, only a single piece of gold has been found and that was hidden under a floor!

The two storey West House is associated with weaving owing to the large number of loom weights found there.  It is beautifully decorated, with images of fishermen and priestesses, ikria and flowers, as well as the truly magnificent ‘Miniature frieze’, which shows a long and important sea-voyage.  The exact nature of the story told in this frieze is unclear – it shows five towns, pastoral scenes in the Greek countryside, wrecked ships and drowned men, detailed images of harbours and buildings, Aegean soldiers with their boar-tusked helmets, and exotic lands, filled with wild and mythical beasts.   The style of the paintings is interesting as it shows many parallels with Egyptian art, including different scenes shown on different registers or levels.

The impressive House of the Ladies had three storeys, two staircases and a light well (the only one found in Akrotiri so far), and was probably the private home of a wealthy citizen.  The building is famous for its paintings of female figures, possibly engaged in a ritual act, but it also contains an unusual image of Pancratium, or Sea lilies, that are painted much larger than real life.

Of course, it’s impossible to say whether the destruction of the settlement on Santorini was the foundation for Plato’s Atlantis, but it is certainly a plausible basis for the legend.  A great empire, a city destroyed by ‘an act of the gods’, the fall of a civilisation: it’s easy to spin a yarn from those ingredients.   And, whether or not Atlantis ever really existed, it seems likely that we will go on searching for it for some time to come.  Stories of lost or hidden utopias have persisted throughout recorded history – the idea of finding them is simply too tempting to give up.

By Sophy Palmer

Related posts:

1. The Thames – a Late Stone Age Lost & Found The Thames – a Late Stone Age Lost & Found...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.