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Look, not to talk out of school, but I've been driven about 74,000 kilometers more than my odometer is showing. Yeah.

If cars could talk, you wouldn't need cartel for things like mileage discrepancies and full histories.

But they don't. So you do. Buying a used car, cartelit@cartel. Ie. We're starting to see the city now.

Incredible. What allowed them to become so advanced? As it remains. Look at that.

We'll eventually be able to tell you that we're murdered or not. We suddenly get a series of destructions throughout the island.

Collecting samples from an active volcano.

It will be exciting.

Never a dull moment. Hold on, hold on, hold on. What's that? What's that? Ancient Greece. We think of it as the birthplace of Western civilization. They gave us drama, philosophy, democracy. But it turns out there's an even older society, one that was believed to be even more advanced and enlightened, the Minoans. For thousands of years, the Minoans were relegated to the stuff of legend, a civilization cloaked in mystery. They developed one of the world's first written languages, which remains totally undeciphered. Their paintings and murals give us glimpses of bizarre rituals. They They were the inspiration for the Greek myth of the Minator, and perhaps the legend of Atlantis. The Minoans ruled from the island of Crete, off the Coast of the Greek mainland. Their capital was described as a palace worthy of the gods, and their powerful navy dominated the Mediterranean. And then suddenly, they vanished. Now, new evidence and daring excavations of a sunken city and ancient palaces may finally reveal what destroyed this advanced culture and what their fate may mean for our own future. This is more than just another puzzle to me. This is one of the stories that first got me interested in archeology and exploration.

So I'm charting a course to solve a Mediterranean mystery 5,000 years in the making. Who were the Mighty Minoans? And where did they go? My name is Josh Gates. Look at that. With a degree in a passion for exploration. I have a tendency to end up in some very strange situations. This is horrible. This is officially horrible. My travels have taken me to the ends of the Earth. Flooded. Back up. As I investigate the greatest legends in history. We're good to fly. Let's go. This is Expedition Unkown. Touchdown Athens, the heart of Greece. It is old, really old. It is also very much alive. A time-worn capital that's gritty and grand and everything in between. Atop the acropolis of Athens sits the Parthenon, which you may remember from the cover of your 8th-grade history textbook as the iconic symbol of classical civilization. The Greeks began construction of the Parthenon over 2,000 years ago, and they're almost done. Any day now. But what the Greeks lack in efficiency, they more than make up for in presentation. The Parthenon is a soaring edifice, a place of worship, a place of sanctuary, and now a place of selfie sticks.

Can I make a quick appeal to the citizens of planet Earth? Enough with the selfie sticks. I'll take a photo for you. Any of these nice people will take a photo for you. Meet someone, meet a stranger, walk up to someone, have a conversation. I got it. Don't worry. Here you go. Get together. You ready? Here we go. There we go. Throw that up on the Snapchat or whatever you kids are using. Tourists flock here for the weather and the stunning views. And while I studied classical archeology and have visited over 100 countries, this is actually my very first trip to Greece. It's a place that has long been at the top of my bucket list. And one reason for that is my fascination with the civilization that came along before the Greeks who built the acropolis, the Minoans. To this day, no one knows why they disappeared. Top theories include the usual suspects, cataclysmic earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or war. I'm beginning my quest to find out real answers by driving 400 miles south to the seaside town of Neapolis, so I can meet with a leading archeologist who wants to take me to a lost Minoan city.

Driving through the countryside is like a tour of the Iliid and the Odyssey. I pass olive groves and ancient towns, including one that is synonymous with legend. This is Sparta. Seriously, this is Sparta. Note to the Sparta tourism board, how about a King Leonidas statue? Some plastic swords for sale, something. Anyway, Sparta is shockingly Spartan, so I carry on. And in a few hours, I arrive in Neapolis. Today, this is Greek town, but 4,000 years ago, the map looked a little different. In the Bronze Age, Greece isn't Greece yet. The mainland is occupied by nomadic tribes just beginning to settle into city states. But in the middle of the Mediterranean, the island of Crete is home to another power. They are known as the Minoans. And that's why I'm here to meet with maritime archeologist, Despina Kutsumba, who is investigating the ruins of a city that was largely controlled by the mysterious Minoans. Despina.

Hello, Jos. Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you, too. Okay, so where are we going?

We're going to Pavlopetri.

Pavlopetri? Yes. Okay. Well, I can't wait to see it.

Let's sail.

We motor out along the Coast to find an ancient settlement from over 4,000 years ago that will offer me my first look at the vanished Minoan culture. Why is this site significant?

It's one of the most important sites of the Bronze Age. It's a huge coastal settlement. It's like a snapshot of what life would be at the time of the Minoans. Here we are.

This is it. I don't so much see a city.

Yes, that's because it's under us.

Absolutely beautiful down here. Most of my dives are not like this.

Very clear water.

Okay, let's see what's down here. Despina and I swim through the crystal-clear waters, and soon, the sandy bottom becomes littered with stones. Thousands of them.

Josh, we're starting to see the city now.

Incredible. Oh, my God. Look at this. It's huge. It looks like it might have been a cooking pot. How old is this, do you think?

Five thousand years old.

The city of Pablo Petri is one of the oldest underwater excavations on Earth. The ruins spread out before us like a water logged map. You just need to know how to read it.

You have to learn how to recognize the architecture. This is the corner of a building.

I can see Can you see it? Wow. You can see clearly another wall here. I mean, it's clear as day. You can see the construction. Archeologists have revealed that the city is four times larger than previously thought, with a well-organized grid of roads. Along the edges, hundreds of structures stretch out for over a mile. But though the layout has some familiar features, the drowned remains of this Minoan city still offer up some startling finds.

Look at this. Look at this.

Off the Coast of Greece, archeologist Despina Kautsumba and are diving in the ruins of Pavlopetri, a sunken city once controlled by a cryptic empire known as the Minoans.

Look at this. Look at this. These are tombs. It comes out on the limestone.

This would have been a burial for someone living here?

Yes, it must be a burial for a child.

Looking at the plan of the city, what does it tell you?

It's organized.

So this is not a primitive place?

We have a society here.

At a time when mainland Greece is still living in tribes, Minoan influence towns like Pablo Petri are thriving. They're using advanced construction. Why is it all down here?

There is a lot of seismic activity in the area.

So was it hit by a massive crate?

There are at least three seismic events. If you want to understand the decline of the Minoans, you have to understand the dangerous tectonics in Greece.

So did the seismic events that drowned cities like Pablo Petri take out all of the Minoans? To find out, I need to head to the heart of their mysterious empire, Crete. From the Coast of mainland, Greece, I fly over the Mediterranean to the island of Crete, the largest of the more than 6,000 Greek islands. Crete sits at the crossroads of three continents, Europe, Africa, and Asia. I'm here to find out what happened to the Minoans in the The most hardcore adventure vehicle I can find. Go around.

Go around.

Crete. The sun is shining. There's history all around us. Can somebody please cue up the hokey Greek music? It's a paradise by any measure. An island of gentle hills draped in olive groves, surrounded by sparkling blue seas. A few thousand years ago, Minoan settlements were popping up all over the island, but there is one that was more significant than all the rest, one palace that was more influential. In fact, it was so famous that later the ancient Greeks turned it into a place of legend. Canassus, center of the Minoan world, a massive and mysterious palace complex that is considered the oldest city in all of Europe. I approach the site by walking up the first paved road in the Western world. In the heart of the ruins, I meet Colin McDonald, foremost expert in the palace of Canassus and the secrets that it may be hiding. Wow, really impressive site.

Absolutely. It was always acknowledged as the cosmic center, the religious center an administrative center, and probably a center of power as well.

At its height, what would this place have looked like?

For the time, they were very advanced in terms of engineering, town planning. So all of this shows that they were a very advanced culture indeed for the time.

The palace was built over the course of 500 years, beginning in 1900 BC. Today, archeologists are using 3D modeling to reconstruct its wonders. Brightly colored columns once supported a four-story structure culture, an architectural feat for the time. But the ruins here raise as many questions as they answer. What's a question that you would love to see answered? What's a mystery that nags at you?

One big question that we would all like to know is who ran Knoster source, really what the power set up was and who ruled.

Colin leads me to the very heart of the palace, where some unknown leader ruled this empire.

So this is the throne room.

This is incredible.

It's possible that a priestess sat there.

Frescoes and artwork show women at the highest positions of religious rituals, including a powerful snake goddess who the Minoans may have worshiped. Also central to Minoan culture were bulls, images of which have been found all over the ruins. Obviously, the bull, a really important symbol.

Terrible important. That's why we see it on the walls of the palace. Bull leaping took place there.

The tradition of bull leaping was a bizarre act of worship. Minoans would run straight for a charging bull. At the moment before they collide, the person leaps into the air, does a summer salt, and rolls off the back of the bull onto the ground, which I'm sure didn't always end well.

The first thing we have to understand is that the bull was clearly thought of as a symbol of power in Minoan Crete, and particularly at Knossos.

After the Minoans' vanish, the Greeks create a legend about Knossos, that it was ruled by King Minus, who had a massive labyrinth constructed here to contain his son, the Minator. The story may be based on the palace itself, an architectural maze of more than 1,300 connected rooms and hallways, with enough bull images to inspire one of the most famous Greek myths. So much power, skill, and accomplishment on display here. The big question is, how did it all come crashing down?

Just as Crete was really at its peak, we suddenly get a series of destructions throughout the island. The precise cause is certainly a mystery.

The palace is stunning and reveals that the Minoans on Crete weren't just more advanced than the mainland, but that they'd built a complex society full of ritual and religion. To learn more, Colin sends me back across the island to see some cryptic Minoan relics. I arrive in the seaside town of Héraclion, where the Minotaur still cast a long shadow, especially in the gift shops. Back it up. Back it up. I'm wearing this for the rest of the season. A lot of amazing deals in here. This is actually half off. So many incredible works of art here. This is, of course, the Minoan taco. Incredibly rare to find this in such good condition. It's the world's first crispy shell taco. Delicious. After After managing to touch everything in the shop, I walk next door to the world-renowned Haraqlion Museum. Inside, the galleries contain the ultimate collection of Minoan treasures. Together, they paint a portrait of a society far ahead of its time, including a crucial skill the Minoan seem to have mastered, writing. The Minoan script, known as Linear A, appears on thousands of tablets found all over Crete, and it contains more than 7,000 symbols.

It has never been deciphered, making it one of the last great untranslated writing systems on Earth. The crown jewel of the collection here is this. This is known as the Festos Disk. It is the Holy Grail of Minoan artifacts, a mysterious circular tablet stamped with nearly 50 unique glyphs. And here's the most maddening part. Nobody has any clue what it says or what it's for. This could be the key to deciphering all of Minoan culture. This could be some critical message from the past. It could also be the world's first board game, a frisbee, or a drink coaster. We don't know. The relics here at the museum represent the highest achievements of Minoan civilization. And now I'm going to visit one of the most important discoveries on the island, the site of the Minoan Empire's last stand, and more clues as to what lessons our own culture should learn from their destruction.

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I'm Rachael O'Neill.

I'm Annie O'Cano. We're two bookworms, but more importantly, we're the hosts of a new podcast called I Think You Should Read. In each episode, we chat with an interesting person who loves books and ask them two very simple questions. What is a book you think everyone should read and why? So if you want to hear Patrick Frayne talk about the cultural impact of The Hitchhacker's Guide to the Galaxy or find out why Sophie White thinks Stephen King is the master of the horror novel, join us on I think you should read wherever you get your podcasts. Acast is home to the world's best podcasts, including In the News from the Irish Times, Irish History Podcast, and the one you're listening to right now.

I'm on the island of Crete on a hunt to uncover one of the most elusive treasures in the world, the true history of a vanished civilization. To discover who the powerful Minoans were and why their culture disappeared in an historical blink of an eye, I motor 25 miles east along the northern Coast of Crete to the town of Sisi, where a new dig site may be the key to unlocking the entire mystery. High on the cliffs, I meet with Chief Archeologist, Jan Driesen.Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. This place is buzzing with activity. How many folks do you have here?

I think about 60, and it will be 80 by the end of the week.

Wow. Jan is running a huge operation here for a reason. The ruins stretch for more than 30 acres and may contain real clues about the Minoan downfall. Why do you think this site was built here?

It's one of the few hills close to the sea on the north Coast of the island, so that gives it already a strategic advantage. A place like this probably would have had 15 boats.

The Minoan fleet was one of the largest in the world at the time. It dominated the Mediterranean, and the Minoans were masters of trade and construction. Jan leads me across the site, which is filled with hundreds of rooms.

Large rooms. That big hall can hold easily about 40 people.

But there are layers of occupation here, and the rooms closest to the surface aren't Minoan at all. At some point, the mainland Greeks, known as the Mycenaians, took complete control here.

I mean, you may have noticed that this is a room which is totally different of the normal Minoan rooms. The Mycenaians put their building on top of it.

I'm intrigued by how these comparatively less advanced Mainland Greek tribes managed to overtake the Minoans. As we walk further down into the site, we pass into the older layers below and set foot in the Minoan time period. As we go down the slope here, we're really going back in time a bit.

Back in time.

As it remains? Yeah. Look at that. We're actually standing in a barrier.

We are standing in a tomb.

Wow. This is, for me, one of the most exciting parts of digs like this because we talk about these cultures in these big, broad terms, the Minoan culture. But this is an individual. This is a real person.

This is a person.

By peeling back the layers of time here in Sisi, Jan is attempting to find something more than just a glittering treasure. He wants to decode history itself. What happened to them in the end?

A lot of questions. When we dig, we do find this huge fire destruction layer. It's all over the site, so we know something bad happened. Most of these destructions are caused by fire.

So what burned the city to the ground? For that matter, why was the palace of Knossus abandoned? And what sank the ruins of Pablo Petri that I explored? The answer may be just off the Coast. Sant'irini, the crescent-shaped wonder of the Aegean Sea. An ivory fantasy balancing on the edge of oblivion. In ancient times, this is known as Thera. It's populated by thousands of people and is rich in Minoan culture. But what they don't know is that this island isn't really a paradise on Earth. It's a monster. Sometime around 1450 BC, Thera begins shaking violently and soon reveals her true nature. It is a deadly volcano. With little warning, she explodes with the force of 40 atomic bombs. The eruption lasts four days, sending billions of tons of rock and ash 20 miles into the sky, turning day to night and obliterating the islanders. When it's over, the entire center of Thera is simply gone. Today, the Crescent-shaped island is just an outline of its former self. The towns that once existed here vanished, but one of them, known as Akra'Tiri, has been found. Beneath these skylights is something extraordinary, an entire town smothered by more than 20 feet of ash.

This is the city of Akra'Tiri. In its heyday, about 4,000 years ago, this was one of the most advanced and prosperous settlements in the entire Mediterranean. Archeologists here have found evidence of paved roads, complex architecture, sophisticated drainage and plumbing systems. One of the world's oldest toilets was actually found here. And everywhere you looked, there would have been stunning frescoes and master pieces of art. But the devastation wasn't just on the slopes of the volcano. It went much, much further. When the Thera Volcano exploded, it not only sent a hellfire of toxic ash out across the Mediterranean, but it sparked massive tsunami economies. The waves would have easily traveled the 90 miles away to the center of the Minoan world on Crete. So there we have it. Since the eruption is believed to have happened around the same time the Minoan Empire vanished, the volcano has been the literal smoking gun in the murder of the Minoans. Case closed. Or it would be if a team of geologists hadn't recently shocked the world by suggesting the volcano might not be to blame. Meet Dr. Evi Numiku, a geologist at the University of Athens, focusing on the sea floor in Santorini's caldera, a deep depression in the Earth, leftover when the volcano collapsed.

Evy's study may change the way we see the eruption and how it relates to the Minoans. The good news? Her team just might be close to solving the mystery. Absolutely beautiful.

It is unique. You are in the middle of Santorini Caldera. You can feel the power of the volcano.

You really can. I mean, looking out here today, everything I see is water, but it was not always like this.

No, it was not like this. All of this area was land.

And what about this? Was this part of the old island?

No, this is a new island.

So the volcano is pushing up again. It's regrowing.

Exactly.

This is the obvious for what took them out.

Everybody believes that the eruption of Sadorini volcano destroyed the Minoan civilization, but this is not quite true, and we need to prove that.

Evy believes the volcanic eruption might not align to the disappearance of the Minoans, quite as exactly as everyone believes. But testing that theory won't be easy. So how do you prove it?

So we are going to collect some samples on the sea floor in order to do some dating to find the exact age of the Minoan eruption.

Collecting samples from an active volcano.

It will be exciting.

Never a dull moment. This is Dimitri Skombanos. He's an expert diver on Evy's team who is leading the charge on collecting samples of volcanic rock from the Thera explosion. If the Minoans were blown to bits by one of history's biggest banks, the samples need to line up chronologically with their disappearance. Here we go. To understand if the Minoan civilization was destroyed by a cataclysmic volcanic event, I'm attempting to obtain a geological sample at the site of one of history's biggest eruptions, the ancient Thera volcano. Once we splash in, we hug the edge of the crater, a volcanic wonderland that looks like something out of Jules Verne. Wow. Just wow. It is another world down here. You realize how enormous the explosion must have been to move rock like this. A few dozen feet toward the center of the caldera, I take the opportunity to do something that would kill me on land. I jump off a cliff. Freefall. This The top goes down a thousand feet or more into the active abyss of the volcano. There's absolutely no bottom. Before I fall too far, I adjust my voyancy and circle back to Demetrius to get down to work.

Is everything okay down there?

Everything is great. It's absolutely incredible down here, Abby.

You are diving in Santorini Caldera.

It's beautiful. I may never come back. We begin hunting along the walls for pristine samples of volcanic rock that were blasted out by the eruption. Aha. This is pumas, a volcanic rock created when gas-filled lava solidifies. It's the exact sample that could date the Thera eruption, and it's great for getting rough skin off the soles of your feet. Okay, great. We'll bag it. We collect several more samples. Demetrius hones in on a terrific find, a much denser piece of hardened lava. Heavy. We've achieved part of the mission. But to find additional samples that would give us the clearest picture, we need to get to the bottom of the ocean floor. Heavy, we're headed back to the surface now.

Copy that.

That is absolutely awesome down there. We've got samples from here. Now what?

We need to take some samples from the deeper part of the area.

How do we get down there?

We are going to use ROV.

Rov stands for Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicle. It's capable of going to depths that no human can survive with a scuba tank, 1,500 feet below the surface. Evy is going to send it to the very bottom of the active region of the caldera.

On this vehicle, we have two cameras, and we have also two sonas.

To pilot the ROV down to James Cameron territory, is Evy's ROV engineer, Federico Morello. With this one, we can also measure the dimension of rocks and things like that, you see. So in layman's terms, it's badass? Yes. Yes? Yes. Okay, I got it. How can I help?

Be helpful. Detach the hook.

I got it.

Be careful, Jos. Okay, lower it down.Clear.Yes, it's clear.

Evy's team performs critical checks and tests on the submersible. Lights are on. Thrusters look good. The camera system is active.

Okay, now we are going to send the ROV to the sea floor. Just come on board.

Copy that. Next stop, the Abyss. I've joined the team of Marine geologist Evi Numiku, who's working in the active caldera of the Thera volcano. Many believe the eruption of the volcano 3500 years ago was so large, it erased the Minoan civilization. But Evi isn't so sure. We've just lowered a remote underwater vehicle into the volcano to find evidence to solve the mystery once and for all. Okay, how are we looking?

We are 135 meters.

Can I jump in? Of course. Yeah, here. We're going down about how many meters total?

340, approximately 1,200 feet.

Okay, so we're not quite halfway there yet. Yeah. The ROV has its own camera as well as onboard sonar. We're closely monitoring both from the surface. It also has a claw for collecting samples, assuming we find a viable one. We're about 337 meters.

We're on the bottom. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wow, we're on the bottom. Look at that. Touchdown ocean floor, 1,200 feet, and it's not as peaceful as it looks.

Okay, it starts. See? Small ones, small vents, yes.

Those are vents? Small cracks in the active volcano down here still vent dangerous levels of heat. There are also fragile hydrothermal mounds of volcanic sediment, which, if disturbed, collapse immediately. In terms of samples, where are we trying to collect them from?

We are trying to collect samples very close to the cliffs, but we are starting from the deepest part, and then we will drive to the cliffs.

Got it. Now it's time to find a rock sample, but the bottom keeps churning up every time we move. Plus, the cross currents make grabbing a rock like lassoing a bull in a hurricane.

Can we go around to the pros to search for a sample?

And are these part of landslides? Are these things that fell in from the volcano?

Yeah, these are parts of landslides. This is the most active part of Santorini volcano, so we need to see a lot of landslides and a lot of materials that they are falling down.

It takes over an hour of scouring seabed with no results until finally, we find it. Hold on, hold on, hold on. What's that? A piece of volcanic rock undisturbed since the Thera eruption itself.

It was there? Yeah, over there. Over there. Okay, okay.

Can you grab that? Yes.

Can you see these small pieces?

Is that volcanic?

It's volcanic material, that's for sure. You can see on your right that there's a huge sample of there. So just be close to that sample and try to collect a small piece from the bigger one.

Okay. Caws open. Did you get it or not? You got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice. Success. The ROV has a sample from the base of the volcano. Now, it's only a matter of bringing it topside.

I'm at the surface. Okay, let's go. Yeah, yeah, okay.

Be careful.

Look at the rock. Wow. This is lava.

This is likely from the eruption.

Yeah, of course.

Minoan sites begin to vanish around 1450 BC. So the question is, how old are the rocks that she's been collecting? Based on samples you've collected up to this point, What are the samples showing you?

Based on the carbon dating, the Minion eruption took place at 1650, so 200 years earlier than everybody believed.

That would change everything.

Yeah, it changed completely the whole story. So findings like these are helping us to rewrite the history.

It will take more lab work for Evy to confirm the date on the eruption, but she's confident that these samples will continue to back up her results, that the eruption took place a full 200 years before the Minoans collapsed. So what really happened? A new archeological discovery might fill in the last blank. But unlike the Minoan sites I've been exploring, this one is Mycenaean, the ancient Greeks who came after Minoans. I hop a flight to the Greek mainland to the town of Pelos. Archeologists and husband and wife, Jack Davis and Sherry Stocker, are co-directors at the excavation taking place at the Palace of Nestor. Nester. Nester was a famous Greek king, featured in both the Iliad and the Odyssey. So this is a hugely impressive site.

It's the best preserved Mycenaean palace that exists, primarily because nothing was built on top of it.

It appears that this was a lavish Mycenaan palace inspired by Minoan culture and construction. But it's something that was found just outside the palace walls that could be the last piece of the puzzle. And finally tell us what happened to the Minoans and reveal a dire warning for the 21st century. We now know that the nearby Thera volcano erupted 200 years before their collapse. But Sherry Stocker and her husband, Jack Davis discovered something a few months ago that may explain the entire mystery.

So this is the grave of the Griffin Warrior.

So this is a tomb?

This is the tomb.

The Griffin warrior, it turns out, was a Mycenaan soldier who is buried with a treasure trove of absolutely priceless artifacts. In terms of material culture, what did you come across first?

I don't think that we ever expected to find what we found. We discovered a necklace that's three quarters of a meter long, which is incredible. Four gold rings, two gold cups, many, many silver vessels, and lots and lots of bronze.

The amount of items that you have here. I mean, it's an absolute treasure trove. It's the wealthiest Mycenaean grave found in the last 50 years, sure.

Yeah, absolutely. That's incredible.

It means it's rare to find one gold rank. It's very rare to find two, but four in the same grave? It also turns out that the symbols used to decorate this Mycenaean warrior were largely Minoan in origin. All four concerned with Minoan themes, bull leaping, scenes of Minoan cult. Why does a warrior or a general or a leader festoon himself with all of this imagery from this other culture? Why do you think that happens?

Well, the Mycenaans were clearly entranced by the Minoan culture and the riches that they had at Kenosos and the iconography, and they didn't really have those things of their own. They didn't have the technology to produce gold rings.

If the Mycenaians weren't capable of the industry or architecture on display here, how did they conquer the Minoans? Sherry has a thought.

The eruption of Santorini had a huge impact on Cree. If their Navy was devastated, it would be a temporary setback until they could build more ships.

While the volcanic eruption and tsun came too early to wipe out Minoan cities, it appears the event may have crippled the Minoan Navy, which was the nerve center to their Mediterranean might. In addition, there is new evidence that the blackened skies and heavy ash from the eruption may have killed a huge amount of crops on Minoan Crete, which could have created a deadly ripple effect.

If there was a massive crop failure, people are hungry. You can be hungry maybe for a year or two years, but if it lasts for five and you have a large starving population, then that's devastating.

So the Pharaoerruption didn't kill off the Minoans, but it did hurt them badly. Between a crippled fleet, damaged coastal cities, and a volcanic winter that blighted their crop, drops, the Minoans became something they had never been before, vulnerable. What does this grave reveal, if anything, about that transfer, about that collapse? I mean, this dude could have been one of the dudes who raided Crete for all we know. And imagine they were raiding all the time during this period. It was an awfully tempting target for the people on the mainland. Sure. They were familiar with the Minoan palaces. They would have traveled there, doubtless. They would have seen the riches that lay ahead. Why not move?

They wanted the resources that the Cretans had.

The Griffin warrior was an ancient Greek, people who would in time usher in the classical world with democracy diversity, philosophy, art, and drama. But they were not the beginning. Like all cultures, they were inspired and connected to those that came before. The Minoans, pioneers of trade, writing, and engineering. But for all their might, they were fatally weakened by a single natural event. Their story is a chilling reminder that all empires can be temporary. In the US alone, millions of people live within striking distance of no less than 65 active volcanoes. But where the Minoans were caught unaware by natural disaster and fell victim to invaders, we would do well to remain vigilant and to sow cooperation so that the great cultures of the 21st century can thrive together into the future.

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No, no.

I've seen it.

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Look, not to talk out of school, but I've been driven about 74,000 kilometers more than my odometer is showing. Yeah.

If cars could talk, you wouldn't need cartel for things like mileage discrepancies and full histories, but they don't.

So you do. Buying a used car, cartelit@cartel. Ie.