Secrets of the Dead (2000–…): Season 8, Episode 2 - Sinking Atlantis - full transcript

5,000 years ago, the great
civilization of the Minoans

flourished on the island of Crete.

Centuries before the
Greeks built the Parthenon,

the Minoan artists
recorded their achievements

with exquisite carvings
and beautiful frescoes.

The Minoans were the first
Europeans to use writing.

But then, at the height of their power,

they were wiped from
the pages of history.

Their disappearance is still
one of the ancient world's

greatest mysteries.

Some thought the Minoans
were slaughtered by invaders.



Others, that a volcanic
eruption had engulfed them.

But now a team of scientists

is looking for more definitive answers.

Their research is casting
doubt on previous theories

and unearthing new evidence of
an unexpected natural disaster.

You spend a lot of
time looking for something,

and then when you find
it, you wish you hadn't.

Did the Minoans' terrible fate

give rise to the
famous myth of Atlantis,

the ancient city that
vanished beneath the waves?

More than 2,000 years ago,

the Greek historian Plato
wrote about Atlantis,

the fabled civilization that
was swallowed by the sea.

But the origins of Plato's
story have never been identified.



It is only recently
that some archaeologists

have begun to believe the legend
may have started here on Crete.

They are hoping that
scientific investigation

can provide an actual link to
Plato's ancient folk memory.

It's an ambitious goal,

given that our modern understanding
of the Minoans is sparse,

culled in large part from Greek myths

about monsters and human sacrifice.

Archaeologist Sandy MacGillivray

has been spellbound by the beauty of

Minoan art and architecture

for 25 years.

He's always wondered how
such an advanced culture

disappeared so mysteriously.

Sandy is on his way to
explore ancient mines

in the center of the island.

For hundreds of years, they
were thought to be the labyrinth,

the Minoan home of
the legendary minotaur.

Greek tales describe the creature

as half-bull, half-man.

It was imprisoned in the
great maze by king Minos.

It fed on human flesh.

There were all kinds of stories

of hauntings and weird
happenings in here.

It's still a place associated
with doom and death.

The minotaur had particular tastes.

It liked to consume
its human prey alive.

To keep the minotaur fed,

Minos exacted a tribute
of 7 maids and 7 youths

from the Athenians,

and once you entered the labyrinth,

you never left the labyrinth.

At the peak
of king Minos' power,

Athens was just a small settlement,

dwarfed by the Minoan empire.

The minotaur myth may have been
created by the ancient Greeks

as a way of expressing
their fear or resentment

for their powerful neighbors.

But archaeological remains found
at the Minoan capital of Knossos

hint at a grisly
reality behind the myth.

One of the most
telling and horrifying deposits

was a deposit recovered
in the town of Knossos,

up along the royal road,

and that was these cannibalized youths.

The analysis of these bones from
this burnt destruction deposit

strongly suggested that
they'd been hacked up

in order to take the flesh
off in order to eat them.

This cannibalistic aspect of the Minoans

is probably one of the
things that was recalled

when the Greeks first arrived in Crete.

Fear and loathing at Knossos.

The dark stories
and evidence of cannibalism

alongside such beautiful
buildings and artwork

seemed to indicate a
strangely enigmatic society.

British archaeologist sir Arthur Evans

first began exploring
their secrets in 1900.

Evans started excavating near
the modern village of Knossos.

His finds of a sophisticated
bronze age civilization

astonished the world.

While the ancient Greeks were
living as barbarian warriors,

these people were building
magnificent palaces.

Knossos was the largest Minoan city.

A masterpiece of ancient town planning,

its temples and granaries were connected
by the first paved roads in Europe,

built more than 1,000
years before the romans.

The Minoan empire stretched wide.

Archaeologists have discovered
settlements throughout Crete

as well as on other Aegean islands

and parts of mainland turkey.

The Minoans shipped their
intricate artifacts and pottery

as far as Spain and Mesopotamia.

They were masters of the sea.

Their vast reach and influence

rivaled that of the ancient Egyptians.

Minoan artists produced
the first great treasures

of ancient Europe.

This tiny gold seal is so
small, it must have been created

using some form of magnifying lens.

This molding is less than an inch high,

yet it contains a portrait
of an entire Minoan town.

Another masterpiece
is the harvester vase.

You've got a little choir
of men with skullcaps on,

whose mouths are open.

The reeds that some of them are holding,

you can almost hear
them blowing in the wind,

rustling against each other.

These pieces are symphonic in every way.

It's a revolution in art.

As Evans excavated
the ruins of Knossos,

he felt certain he had uncovered
the palace of king Minos.

He even imagined he'd
found the royal throne.

But Sandy MacGillivray thinks
Evans misread the evidence.

He believes Knossos was
not a palace but a temple,

carefully constructed to harness
the magical power of the sun.

In 2001, sandy realized
that each of these doorways

aligns with the rising sun

on different key days of the year.

What we're looking at
here is the solar temple.

Like the Egyptians,

the Minoans worshiped the changing
cycles of the sun, moon, and stars.

What we have here, then, is
essentially a theater of the senses.

You can start off with
complete blackness,

and then you can fling open these doors

at that moment of sunrise

and experience that
beginning of something new.

And in the winter, the sun comes through

on the winter solstice

and illuminates the throne.

But it's unclear
who sat on the throne.

Evans believed it must have
been a powerful male ruler,

like the Egyptian pharaohs.

But although there are
myths about king Minos,

there is no evidence
of kings in Minoan art.

Instead, there are celebrations
of striking female figures,

like this one found at Knossos.

Sandy believes she may
have been a snake priestess,

perhaps part of a fertility order

that wielded religious power

and possibly also political
influence in Minoan society.

The Minoans left many tantalizing
clues about their world.

Their written language, called linear a,

has only recently been decoded.

Surprisingly, it shares DNA

not with other Mediterranean languages

but with hieroglyphs from the
Persians in the middle east.

Sandy believes the words tell
us far more about the Minoans

than their art.

A decipherment for linear a

has given us a language
for this Cretan civilization

which is akin to the
early language of Iran,

which found its way from
the highlands of Iran

all the way to India on one side

and to Minoan Crete on the other side.

Their origins seem to explain

why the Minoans were so
different from the ancient Greeks,

who succeeded them.

Their language and religion
were more Asian than European.

But it doesn't explain
why 3,500 years ago,

the Minoans disappeared.

Although there are some indications

that the Minoans were
attacked by armed invaders

from the Greek mainland,

records of a nearby volcanic eruption

seem like a more
promising place to start.

The island of Santorini,

which lies 70 miles north of Knossos,

is ground zero for the volcano theory.

Today, the jagged cliffs
and beautiful scenery

draw countless tourists.

Many fail to realize
they are vacationing

on a highly explosive volcano.

In ancient times, it was called Thera.

The Minoans built the
thriving city of Akroteri

in the volcano's shadow.

It was discovered in 1967,

buried on the slopes of the vast crater.

In its heyday, Akroteri

was as wealthy and highly developed

as the settlements on Crete.

Volcanologist Floyd McCoy

has been studying the geology
and history of Santorini

for 20 years.

If you take a look at the wall
paintings that have been discovered here,

they are portraying their landscape.

It's a happy landscape.

Animals bouncing around
and people picking saffron.

Saffron was
a valuable commodity

in the classical world.

It was prized as a spice

and it was also used
for medicinal purposes.

The Minoans documented
the saffron harvest

on their frescoes.

They were showing
a nice, nice lifestyle,

a comfortable one.

It's a pity it was all destroyed.

The Minoans had
built their prosperous city

on one of the most
dangerous islands on earth.

Around 1,600 BC, Akroteri was shaken

by a violent earthquake.

Sometime later, the eruption occurred.

And suddenly, this thing exploded.

This was fire and brimstone

of epic proportions.

The huge volcano blasted
gas, ash, and rock

25 miles into the stratosphere.

Evidence of the volcano's power

can be found all around Santorini.

Some of the deposits are
more than 100 feet deep.

There, in that cliff face,
all 4 layers representing

the 4 major faces of this
huge, dramatic eruption.

The first layer that we see is
that brown layer at the bottom,

that granular brown layer.

That's pumice.

Pumice is frothy rock.

It represents magma frozen in place,

a frozen explosion.

The 2 layers above

are testimony to the lethal
impact of Thera's eruption.

This is the debris left
by pyroclastic flows.

Pyroclastic
flows hot gas material

that comes up and flows
laterally across the landscape,

sometimes at supersonic speeds.

Hot, hot gases.

These gases were forced out

by massive explosions in
the heart of the volcano.

When the initial magma surge

erupted out of the Theran caldera,

it left behind a vast, empty chamber.

The surface above the chamber collapsed,

creating a gaping cavity.

Then, the sea rushed in.

Magma and water do not mix.

They make an explosion.

The entire Aegean sea is
pouring into this event,

mixing with new magma coming up,

and the explosion was tremendous, huge.

And from that come
these pyroclastic flows.

The destructive
force was incomprehensible.

The third layer of the deposit
is a 33-Foot wall of ash

from a single flow.

Above it lies the
fourth and final layer.

It started to rain.
Torrential rains came down.

And then all this loose ash
and pumice on the surface

started to move down slow.

That's what we call debris flows.

And then it was over.

The thriving Minoan
settlement on Santorini

was buried under the huge mounds of ash.

But did the eruption
also obliterate Crete,

70 miles to the south?

Floyd and his colleagues
found ash deposits

on the sea bed surrounding the island,

certainly an ominous sign.

We calculated the amount,
the volume of this material,

which is how we figure out
how explosive an eruption was.

It came out something like
Krakatoa. "Wow," we said.

When Krakatoa,

the volcanic island that
lies between java and Sumatra,

erupted in 1883,

the explosion was
heard 2,000 miles away.

The volcano claimed 36,000 lives.

But if Thera was that powerful,

there should be widespread
evidence of its eruption.

And there is.

A search turns up Theran ash
500 miles away in the black sea.

Archaeologist Stuart Dunn
plots the known deposits.

We've put together a database
of all these ash thicknesses,

recording their locations
and recording the thickness.

Each numbered triangle

represents a deposit of ash from Thera.

The location and
thickness of these residues

allows Dunn to calculate how
many millions of tons of material

were blasted across the region.

We concluded that the eruption
was very, very much larger

than had been previously thought.

We were all wrong. This
was highly explosive.

Now we're up to 10 times the
explositivity of Krakatoa.

We really are talking about the largest
volcanic event in human history in Europe.

The volcano spewed
out huge plumes of ash.

When the dense clouds
headed towards Crete,

the Minoans must have thought

the gods were turning against them.

Imagine this ash coming over the island.

And we know it happened.

It blackened the air.

It blackened the blue sky
for several days, probably,

and that is pretty bad for
people living with nature.

Until recently,
many archaeologists

believed that ash from Thera
had smothered all life on Crete.

But although the explosion was huge,

prevailing winds carried much of the ash

away from the island.

The deposits that did reach Crete

were not deep enough to
have destroyed the Minoans.

But if the ash hadn't
wiped them out, what had?

Sandy MacGillivray
hopes he can find out.

He's been excavating the Minoan
coastal town of Palaikastro

on eastern Crete.

The extent of the ruins suggests

this was the second-largest
Minoan settlement on the island.

Home to 5,000 people, it
covered the whole of this slope,

from the mountainside to the sea.

Palaikastro was a thriving community,

with many skilled workers.

Its paved roads were laid out

in a carefully executed grid pattern.

Today, the hill where the town stood

is eroding into the sea.

As the soil crumbles, it reveals

a chaotically-mixed layer of sediment

that may contain hints about
the fate of the Minoans.

I used to come down here to the beach,

and I would see these gravel deposits.

We had Theran ash, we had pottery,

and there was building debris.

There was all this chaos.

And brought a number
of specialists up here

and said, "well, can you explain

how this gravel got up here?"

And one of them suggested that
there was a river flowing up here,

and I thought, "A river?

"Why would a Minoan build their
house in the middle of a river

and how could a river
run over a hilltop?"

That made no sense whatsoever to me,

and I thought, "let's get people to
really investigate this properly".

Sandy has never seen
anything like this mixed layer,

so he calls in Hendrik Bruins,

a soil scientist from
Ben-Gurion university in Israel.

Hendrik specializes in
dating and identifying

unusual layers of sediment.

Bruins: Look here. We
have stone, pottery,

and lots of lumps of volcanic ash.

This is one lump. This is another lump.

These chaotic
layers are very different

from what Hendrik would expect to find

on a shoreline like this.

This is, from a
sedimentary point of view,

this is impossible to get,
let's say, by an earthquake,

and it's impossible to get by

natural archaeological stratification.

So what could have
caused the untidy deposit?

Hendrik takes samples, hoping
a microscopic examination

will reveal clues about
how the layer was formed.

So this is the hardened block

made from the sediment which we
took in situ at the promontory,

the soft, brittle material,

hardened afterwards.

Here we have the slide, the thin section

that was made from the block.

Under the microscope,

Hendrik makes an unexpected find.

Bruins: We were really
very, very thrilled

when we saw foraminifera
in these deposits.

Foraminifera
are tiny marine organisms,

usually found on the sea bed.

It's unusual to find them on land,

even in soil close to the water's edge.

And they're not the only undersea
creatures Hendrik discovers.

There are also coral
and algae in the sample.

These come from below the sea level

and in order to deposit them in that
level where we found them at a promontory,

I mean, it has to be
scooped up by something.

It has to be lifted up
to a much higher level

where the sea normally never comes.

There is only one natural force

that could have lifted these
organisms off the sea floor

and onto the headland...

A sudden, powerful,
and devastating wave.

In 2004, the Indian Ocean
tsunami stunned the world.

It killed 230,000 people and
wiped out entire coastlines.

Could the same thing have
happened to the Minoans,

3,500 years ago?

Is the Palaikastro beach deposit

the footprint of a massive tsunami?

Here you can see bits of paving.

Sandy calls
in leading tsunami expert

Costas Synolakis

to corroborate Hendrik's findings.

Costas has studied tsunami deposits

from the 2004 wave

and from other, smaller
waves around the world.

As soon as they reach the beach,

they find newly exposed
Minoan pottery fragments

mixed in with the gravel.

These are cattle bones here.

You can see floor
plaster and wall plaster.

You can see building material

and you see a lot of typical pottery.

Ok. Have a look at this
deposit here, Costas.

There's the conical
cup sitting right there.

It's 5 meters above Minoan sea level.

By comparison, the waves

that hit Sri Lanka in 2004

were estimated at 5 to 10 meters high,

and they killed 30,000 people.

Synolakis: When Sandy
invited me to come out here

and look at some of the evidence,

I was very skeptical, but nonetheless,

I was really keen to see what Sandy had.

Sandy, I mean, if this
is all the Minoan deposit,

must have been something really massive.

I mean, something of a
scale that would have just...

Not even started thinking about.

What happened here?

Costas wants
to look further inland

for more signs of damage.

The main ruins of
Palaikastro are 300 yards

from the chaotically-Mixed
layers at the water's edge.

Now that they know what to look for,

they see striking
evidence of tsunami damage.

We find some walls
entirely missing. We find...

Entirely missing?

Yeah. Well, like the late Minoan I wall

along the bottom there is gone.

About half of the building is gone.

And, of course, this is what
we see in modern tsunamis.

We call this the blowout.

The sea comes in, tsunami comes in,

blows out the walls.

If the building is strong enough,
the side walls will survive.

But the walls facing the ocean,
they're just going to collapse.

MacGillivray: All of a
sudden, a lot of the deposits

began making sense to us,

because we had these
buildings pulled away,

we had the fronts of buildings missing,

we had buildings razed right
down to foundation level.

Like the victims
of the 2004 tsunami,

the Minoans in Palaikastro

would have had no warning
of the approaching waves.

Costas believes that with
the right information,

he can build a full picture of the scale

and impact of the tsunami.

The first step is to create a
3-Dimensional map of the bay.

Costas uses sonar to
plot the bay's contours.

The shape of the sea bed

would have influenced the
speed and height of the tsunami

as it approached the land.

Though the sands may have
shifted since Minoan times,

the data will still provide
a useful approximation.

The next day, Costas extends
his search back onto firm ground.

He wants to explore the
plains around Palaikastro

to find out exactly how far
inland the tsunami traveled.

First stop is a new
road construction project

more than half a mile from the shore.

That's a seashell.

That's outrageous.

I don't believe this.
And it's all exposed.

And, look, there's more.

That looks to me like the
rim of a hemispherical cup.

The period of Thera eruption.

The items are far inland

and high above sea level.

Looks like we're at 31.46 meters.

Can't believe we just...

That's about right.

We're cooking. We are cooking.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

The new finds
are making a strong case

for a tsunami,

and the theory also provides the impetus

to reexamine old evidence.

Environmental scientist Ania Sarpocky

has kept soil samples from 20
years of Palaikastro excavations.

She is now going back to check them

for signs of the
microscopic marine organisms

that were found at the beach.

Sarpocky: In this particular
sample, we have found foraminifera.

Oh, my goodness. Is
that what they look like?

Sarpocky: Uh-Huh.

Ania's finds are
an important confirmation.

All the pieces are falling into place.

Synolakis: What Ania has
found is extremely exciting.

Ania's foraminifera. The wall.

And in the debris layer,

well, there's no other
alternative explanation

that can simultaneously
explain all these findings

other than the fact that
the tsunami was really big,

much bigger than we thought.

Came through. Destroyed the town.

And pretty much covered
most of the plain behind me.

The next question
is what caused the wave

that destroyed Palaikastro.

Tsunamis are often generated
by enormous sub-sea earthquakes,

like the one that created the 2004 wave.

Could such an earthquake have
caused the Minoan disaster,

or was it generated
by the Theran eruption?

Hendrik Bruins hopes this
single fragment of cow bone

from the Palaikastro shoreline

will provide the answer.

What I would like to
see is, first of all,

that the bone would give
a date, a radiocarbon date,

that is similar to the date for
the Minoan Santorini eruption,

because then we have very,
very hard scientific evidence

that we're talking about the same time.

So if this radiocarbon date
that comes from this bone

would be similar to the radiocarbon date

of the Santorini eruption,

then it's very, very
important scientific evidence.

That's one piece.

The radiocarbon dating test

will take at least a week.

Meanwhile, the team sets
out to explore the extent

of the wave's impact beyond Palaikastro.

They search along the north coast,

where any tsunami generated by Thera

would've struck the island.

But centuries of erosion have
erased any evidence of wave damage.

Initial attempts near Palaikastro

turn up little,

so they travel 30 miles
west to the town of Mallia.

These are ruins of what was once

the third largest
Minoan palace on Crete.

As was typical, the town
had no protective walls.

The Minoans were the strongest
naval power in the ancient world

and relied on their ships for defense.

Not far from the shore, the team finds
a layer of pottery and building debris

similar to the one at Palaikastro.

Buried in the dirt is further evidence

of marine life where it shouldn't be.

Bruins: Wow. Look at that.

Man: Very good.

Very good. Very good.

So this strengthens
our working hypothesis

that this is a tsunami deposit.

The significance of is that
it adds tremendous credibility

to the deposits that we
have found in Palaikastro,

right out in the promontory.

It's much more useful
to have good deposits

that are the distance of 20 miles
apart from each other, 30 miles apart,

than having 2 deposits
that are next to each other,

because then we have a
better geographical constraint

and that helps us identify
how wide the wave is,

what was the width of the wall
of water that came towards Crete?

At this point, they know the wave

was at least 30 miles wide.

But there are still more
excavations to explore.

The next day, they reach Amnissos,

the main port for the Minoan ships.

4,000 years ago, a tranquil villa

nestled among the olive
groves on this idyllic coast.

It was decorated with frescoes

that celebrated the natural
beauty of the island.

But at some point,
the villa was destroyed

and the frescoes were
torn from the wells.

When the site was excavated,
large fragments of pumice

bearing the chemical
fingerprint of Thera

were found in the ruins.

This petrified volcanic froth

is too heavy to have been carried

in the Theran ash cloud,

but it could've arrived by sea.

High in the hills above the villa,

Sandy, Hendrik, and Costas

are looking for more
samples of the Theran pumice.

MacGillivray: Well, if we
can find some pumice up here.

Put your eyes where your mouth is.

Let's try to find. Let's
try to find some pumice.

They are searching
60 feet above sea level.

All the pebbles.

This is it.

That, obviously, is volcanic.

See if it sparkles.

But it's round, this?

Yeah, this is... This
is absolutely pumice.

It's not enough.

Do you realize what this means for

the height of the tsunami?

Ok, is there any other way

that these pieces of...

These little, tiny pieces
of pumice got up here?

How else could the pumice get here?

It's not a souvenir.

Synolakis: You could get
destruction down there

with a wave that's maybe 3 meters high.

Who knows how strong the house was?

But finding pumice up
here is unbelievable.

I mean, this is huge.

MacGillivray: There's
tons of this stuff up here.

This is outrageous.

As a child, there was a big anthill

at one end of the garden,

and we used to go with the garden hose

and wash them off,

and that keeps coming back
somewhere in my memory.

And I keep thinking
that wave had an effect

like just washing ants off an anthill

and sweeping them out to sea.

It's a terrifying thing.

Those ants never had a chance.

With evidence accumulating

for an island-Wide tsunami,

Hendrik is eager to get the results

from the radiocarbon
dating test of the cow bone.

Only then will they know for sure

if the tsunami was caused by
the Theran volcano on Santorini

or by an underwater earthquake.

Oh, my goodness. Ok.

The results finally arrive.

The date is 1,600 B.C.,

an exact match with the Theran eruption.

You know, the

the cattle bones, they
are of the same age

as the Santorini eruption,

and it proves that also,
our chaotic tsunami deposit

has also in radiocarbon terms

the same age as the Santorini eruption,

which is superb.

Now certain that the volcano

did in fact cause the tsunami,

the men can begin to calculate

exactly how massive the wave had been.

A reference point for destructive power

is the 2004 tsunami.

Yes. We've created a monster.

From his survey measurements,

Costas maps the wave's assault
on the surrounding land masses.

Red and green peaks show
the height of the water.

Synolakis: The size of the wave here,

just to give you in a comparison,

is equivalent to what
the wave looked like

off Sri Lanka and off Thailand.

If you know how many people

died in Thailand, how many
people died in Sri Lanka.

I mean, Thailand, it's 20 meters.

It's the same size wave right here.

20 meters.

The initial wave was huge,

but even more disturbing,
the simulation shows

it was followed by others.

It's having... It's
having a party.

When the caldera collapsed,

it pushed several walls
of water into the sea,

like a pebble dropping into a pond.

The water ricocheted
around the Aegean islands

in a deadly game of tsunami pinball.

As volcanic ash darkened the sky.

The Minoans were hit by wave after wave.

Wow. This is... it's coming in.

No. Yes.

What are the intervals between...

Synolakis: Well, let's...
Let's have a look how...

This is about 33
minutes. And now we have...

Bruins: The first wave coming in.

And now you have the second one.

And that's at 46 minutes.

And then you have another wave

in about half an hour later,

which is not as big but
has to be terrifying,

because by that
time, everything...

I mean, the people have run away.

Maybe some people are coming back

to help the wounded,

to try to find family members,

and then this other wave comes
in and sort of finishes the job.

This is horrifying. Synolakis: Yeah.

It's absolutely horrifying.

But it doesn't...

Narrator: Over 25 years,

Sandy has grown to respect
and admire the Minoans.

Now he is forced to truly contemplate

how many of them died.

My reaction to seeing that model

was a bit like
seeing... Watching 9/11.

Because...

I just... I
hate disasters.

It's like when you spend a lot
of time looking for something,

and then when you find
it, you wish you hadn't...

because it becomes too real

and you begin to feel the experience.

This is life, this is people

just being washed out
to sea, bashed around,

knocked against walls.

Ships coming ashore.
There's a whole...

There's a whole instant that
flashes through your head.

Striking observation that I've made

just talking to people
all over the world

tsunamis.

Whether it is Nicaragua
or whether it is Sri Lanka

or whether it is in the Philippines,

they tell you about the noise.

Tsunami comes in and they
tell you that it sounds like...

Some people say like falling rain.

Others tell you that it's
like an airplane landing.

This impression... I mean,
this... What you hear

time and time again

irrespective of where you are.

The feeling is that this
is the end of the world.

Once a tsunami starts
climbing up on dry land,

it's moving at a speed
of maybe anywhere between

10 to 20 miles per hour.

It's almost like being in
a 20,000 mile per hour wind.

Nothing can stop it.

It's not even a
question of being scared.

The moment that you see the
tsunami, most people freeze.

I'm trying to think,
how would the Minoan

have reacted to this
phenomenon, which is...

These people love the sea.

I mean, they worship the sea.

And here is the sea that's
turning against them.

Once they come up on the hill

and they look back and they
look at the destruction,

how can they ever go back
and live in the same place?

It's probably cursed.

There are no written records

of the Theran tsunami,

no figures for the death
and destruction it caused.

But the 2004 tsunami can give us

some idea of its devastating impact.

The Minoans, they're so
confident in their navy

that they're living
in unprotected cities

all along the coastline.

These were the major population centers.

That's where people are living.

Now, you go to Banda Aceh

and you find that the
mortality rate is 80%.

If we're looking at a similar
mortality rate in Crete,

that's the end of the Minoans.

The tsunami destroyed
all the major Minoan towns.

Their great civilization
was brought to its knees.

Never again would these enigmatic people

dominate the Mediterranean.

Archaeologists are only
now beginning to understand

what happened in the
decades that followed.

One of the most remarkable clues

is a small statue that
was found in Palaikastro.

It was discovered in
an archaeological layer

deposited 100 years after the disaster.

MacGillivray: He's made
of ivory tusks, gold,

he has a serpentinite head,

and he is one of the great
masterpieces of Minoan art.

His cuticles are even carved.

He's given pulsating veins.

The sculptor wanted him to be alive.

The attention
to detail was astounding,

and the statue was
magnificent by any standards,

but it was in terrible
condition when it was found.

It had been badly charred, shattered,

and scattered around the
building that housed it,

both inside and out.

This was a valuable piece.

Anybody who had this in his
possession would've been rich,

but they did not care.

They wanted to destroy the statue.

Somebody picked up the
statue from its base

and brought it outside.

He took the statue and smashed the face

into, probably, this side of the wall

and made the stone head fall

and have the torso and the arms drop
in front of the steps of the shrine

and threw in the legs
in the burning house.

This was more than
a random act of vandalism.

It was ritualized violence

against a powerful
symbol of Minoan culture.

Driessen: They really went for the face,

and so we see that in all
different kinds of civilizations...

Egyptian or Roman.

When they go for the face, there
is something symbolic involved.

They want to destroy everything
this statue stood for.

Additional signs
of such deliberate destruction

have been found in other
places on the island.

At Chania in Western Crete,

an excavation at the
heart of the modern town

has revealed evidence of ancient arson.

These are the stones that
are in such a condition

because of the strong fire.

The hallmarks
of fire are clear,

but the cause of the blazes
is still being debated.

Are these signs of internal strife

or external enemy invasion?

Archaeologist Maria Vlasaki

believes the answer lies in
an unusual cemetery in Chania.

The bodies have been dated to the period

of widespread unrest
in the Minoan world.

Vlasaki: These are warrior graves.

They are single burials,
something that is in opposition

with the traditional
Cretan Minoan customs.

Vlasaki: They have the
age of between 24 to 30.

They are tall, robust.

They look to be invaders.

Similar bodies have been found

near Knossos as well.

Their weapons were not Minoan.

They resembled those used by
the ancient Peloponnese Greeks.

They have a lot of weapons.

Long swords like the ones that are

in Knossos and in Peloponnese.

The invaders
from the Greek mainland

slashed and burned
their way across Crete,

overwhelming the weakened Minoans.

Sandy MacGillivray believes the tsunami

not only left he Minoans
ripe for an attack,

it gave the Greeks an
important military advantage.

MacGillivray: Their traditional homeland

is on the southern shores
of the gulf of Corinth.

Tsunami cannot get into
the gulf of Corinth.

To get into there, you have to go

all the way around to the west
to a little, narrow opening.

So the Mycenaean Greeks up there

are probably the only people left,

maybe even in the eastern
Mediterranean, with a navy.

This is power.

Within a generation of their arrival,

the Greeks had completely
conquered Crete.

The last members of Minoan
culture flickered out.

At long last, the story
of the Minoan disappearance

has been unearthed.

5,000 years after it hit,
an epic natural disaster

can be blamed for their collapse.

This is a major discovery now
because what it's doing is it's

helping us to rewrite a
chapter in Minoan archaeology,

in the history of the Minoans.

This is absolutely exciting.

I mean, it's just...
even in my wildest dream,

when I started thinking
of becoming a scientist,

did I ever think that I would
be working on understanding

the demise of the Minoans

and what happened back then,
the second millennium B.C.

A wave that
washed away an empire

is strikingly reminiscent
of a mystical city

that sank beneath the waves,

and though we may never know
for sure if Crete was Atlantis,

we at least have an explanation

for the downfall of Europe's
first great civilization.

This "Secrets of the Dead" episode

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