Ship Procession Fresco, Akrotiri, Thera, c. 3600 B.P. Detail. A boat, buildings and garments can be appreciated. At about 39ft long and 17″ wide, this is one of the most spectacular frescoes recovered from the Minoan city, preserved under 100ft of volcanic ash in some places… [1920×1273] [OC]

…Akrotiri was a Bronze Age city of the Greek island of Thera (now Santorini), destroyed by the volcano that had formed the island in the first place around 1600 BC. The volcanic ash helped to preserve the buildings, streets, drainage systems and numerous frescoes on the walls of the houses there, just like it would do in Pompeii 16 centuries later. The difference is that Akrotiri, caught in the middle of the restoration of damages caused by a previous earthquake, was evacuated in an orderly fashion before it happened. Experts, however do not believe the citizens survived the evacuation and were caught at the harbor, which vanished, or at sea by tsunamis.

These people had three-story stone and mud brick buildings, paved streets, flowing water and drainage, toilettes, and rich decoration, both personal and on the walls of their buildings. Many of these frescoes have reached our times.

One of the most spectacular frescoes was the Ship Procession fresco, approximately 12 m long and 43 cm wide.

The fresco shows a town and the landscape that surrounds it, the main part being the procession of ships that are travelling from one town to another. These frescoes have been causing discussion between archaeologists since they were uncovered in the early 70s, about what sort of picture they paint of life in the Aegean Bronze Age and what can be learned from them.

The people of Akrotiri are considered Cycladic but it is thought by some they had been influenced by the Minoans. There are some ways this could have happened, and the Ship Procession fresco helps provide evidence for one of them, thalassocracy, sea-power.

We know of the Minoan thalassocracy from an unlikely source, Thucydides; “Minos is the earliest known to tradition who acquired a navy … became lord of the Cyclades Islands and first colonizer of most of them.”. As this goes back into myth, a lot of scholars were initially skeptical. Some dismissed the concept of a Minoan thalassocracy due to lack of evidence, particularly on the size of their ships. Previous representations of Minoan ships were too small to maintain their power at sea, and their trading abilities had been exaggerated, since their main trading opportunities were with Egypt, not the Aegean. The fresco from Akrotiri helps disapprove this theory about the ships being too small.

As usual, my apologies for inaccuracies and mistakes.