Oh, hello.
This is a huge block.
Our hunt for Atlantis leads us to the Greek islands.
This is clearly an incredibly sophisticated society.
Where a giant volcano...
The volcano is literally alive.
It's the apocalypse. That's what you're looking at.
...destroyed an advanced civilization.
I think someone earlier lived here.
Now we're tracking down an even older city.
We need something older.
Wiped out just like Atlantis was.
Actual earthquake and tsunami.
-Is it gonna blow? -I can see the gases.
The story of Atlantis
...is the greatest historical mystery of all time,
and nobody can find any evidence for it
...because they're all looking in the wrong era.
I'm Stel Pavlou
...and I've been obsessed with Atlantis my entire life.
Greek philosopher Plato wrote that Atlantis was
...the biggest superpower of its age,
but a natural disaster caused it to sink
...beneath the waves in a single day.
Around 9,600 B.C.
But I have a new theory that says that date is completely wrong.
I believe the real date is 5,000 years later
...and it changes everything.
Oh my God. Amazing!
That's it.
I'm teaming up with geologist and explorer Jess Phoenix.
Oh, yeah.
Together we're going to follow the trail of evidence
...to some of the most legendary locations around the world.
This is the most comprehensive search for Atlantis ever.
Wow!
And we're going to find it.
Some pretty unstable slopes here.
-Yeah. -It's a little dicey.
This region is really tectonically active.
I mean, it's constantly evolving and changing,
and it was doing the same thing more or less
...when you're looking with the timeline.
Interesting because we're going to Pavlopetri.
There we have a sunken settlement.
It was destroyed by an earthquake,
then slowly started being submerged.
Only in recent years has the sand shifted
...to reveal, you know, two more football-field-sized areas
-...that haven't even been excavated yet. -Yeah.
We're in Greece, Plato's own stomping grounds,
heading south from Athens to investigate a recent discovery
...of an ancient sunken city called Pavlopetri.
Pavlopetri matches Plato's description
...of Atlantis in two key ways.
It was at the southern end of a large peninsula
...and it ended up beneath the waves.
I just wanna see some geologic evidence of destruction
...for wiping out an Atlantean civilization.
What I'm really interested in as well
...is the evidence here whether Pavlopetri dates
...all the way back to 5,000 B.C.,
my date for the destruction of Atlantis.
-Hey. -Hello.
-Ready? -Yeah. Let's go.
-All right, lead the way. -You know where you are going.
Yeah, yeah.
Expert underwater archeologist, Dr. Despina Koutsuoumba,
is giving us exclusive access
...to the newly discovered areas of the site.
The city is out here, underwater.
-Oh, okay. -Okay.
-It's a drowned town. -Yes.
-Yeah, it's a sunken city. That's amazing. -Yeah. Sunken city.
This area is just earthquake central.
How do you know this is the edge of town? What told you that?
-A whole cemetery. -Cemetery.
Okay.
-Well, yeah. That makes sense. -Ah okay.
-Children buried in the city. -Children buried at the city.
-Yeah. -Some closer to their families.
Let's pose.
Wow.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
-It's really soft so that they could dig in. -Yeah.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
So let's come from here.
Here, this one.
Oh okay.
Yeah.
-So the burials, those are when they -That's uh...
-...they put the ashes into a jar. -Into the jar.
Yeah. Yeah.
Right.
Oh I see.
So come on. Come on.
-Right. -Oh.
-Oh my God. -There's a staircase.
Yeah.
So it was not that stone but some other.
-Okay. -I am like sitting on this.
-Okay. -All right.
-I am gonna sit my bag down so I can actually see. -Let's go.
-Yeah. -Yes.
-You wanna go first? -Sure.
Okay.
This is really exciting.
-Oh. -God, that's massive.
-Hey, Stel, I am gonna join you. -Okay.
-I can go in over on the other side? -Yeah.
Oh, but it connects?
Oh perfect. All right.
-So you can go. -Oh.
-This is the easy way in. -(INDISTINCT DIALOGUE)
-You just walk in. -A little low.
-This is not hard. -Oh yeah.
Hey, Stel. (LAUGHS)
-Yeah, so this is like... -This is incredible.
It's a little creepy for me.
I am pretty respectful of people's burial spots.
But so the age of this thing, that's...
This is what, 3000 years B.C., right?
-Yeah. This is 5000 year old -Approximately?
-...tomb, I believe. -Wow.
-And... -It's very quiet.
-Bit relaxing inside. -It's a nice place during your days.
I guess.
Unless it gets all eroded away like this is.
Yeah. I am wondering if this was one person or family.
All right. I wanna go and see more.
-Yeah. -Or we could just hang out here all day.
-Yeah. -All right.
-But we got things to do. -Okay.
-You are okay? -Yeah.
That is phenomenal.
What I'm interested in
...is the newly discovered section of the site.
What exactly did they find that was so exciting?
Oh, you did?
-Yeah. -Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Out there.
Late Neolithic, that's right in my timeline for Atlantis.
This is exciting because you're still discovering.
-Yes, of course. -Yeah.
That's very...
Well, let's have a look for ourselves.
Pavlopetri was discovered in 1967
...and most of the ruins date between 1,000 and 3,000 B.C.,
not nearly as old as the 5,000 B.C.
I pinpoint for Atlantis.
I'm gonna be looking for any signs of a catastrophic geologic event.
So, earthquake, you know, landslides.
I just think the most likely thing would be earthquake damage.
This should hopefully give us
...whether or not this event happened in your timeline.
I'm gonna be looking for the oldest stuff,
there were Neolithic shards down there.
I want to know if there's any visual evidence
-...of an earlier layer, earlier than 3,000 B.C. -Yeah.
Copy that.
Oh, it gives me chills.
Look, you can see the whole foundation.
What year is it from?
Look at this!
This must be Minoan!
Wow!
The Minoans were one of the most
...advanced civilizations of the ancient world.
What are they doing this far west?
It's like two football fields worth of material
...that's been uncovered that no one has really excavated yet.
The disappointment for me was
...I really couldn't tell earlier layers from later layers.
And I couldn't actually see anything that would indicate,
one way or the other,
if an earthquake was involved in drowning the town.
-But the fact the Minoans were here is really intriguing. -Yeah.
They matched a lot of Plato's descriptions of Atlantis.
We really need to follow that link.
Finding evidence for the Minoans at Pavlopetri
...is a really interesting clue.
For over 1,000 years, the Minoans
...were the supreme power of the eastern Mediterranean.
Their base was in Crete
...and the Cyclades, in the Aegean.
They traded with Egypt, with Canaan, with Cyprus,
but placing the Minoans at Pavlopetri
...pushes their empire further west.
It makes their empire much bigger than I realized.
Now, the Minoans were really technically advanced,
so they had huge cities, they had multistory buildings.
They had sewers.
An advanced navy.
They also had writing.
Everything Plato's said the Atlanteans had.
So, if their empire is bigger than I thought,
then are they older than I thought too?
I mean, can we push the date of the Minoans
...back further than the 3,000 B.C.
...that the history books tell us about?
Can we get it to 5,000 B.C.?
If the Minoans were the Atlanteans,
then any evidence of that is going to be
...at their capital on Crete.
So, we have to go to Knossos, right there.
Jess and I head by ferry across the Aegean
...to the largest Greek island, Crete.
Just south from the modern city of Heraklion
...lie the ruins of the ancient capital, Knossos.
This is huge!
They had 100,000 people lived here at its height.
This is so cool.
-This is a drainage system. -Oh, yeah.
Plato talked about irrigation
...and the ability to move water around.
So, this is a really good clue.
Over there. Look.
Writing.
Plato said that they would write the laws on a pillar
...in the center of the city.
This is really cool.
It's a three-story building that's 4,000 years old.
-(JESS LAUGHS) Yeah. -And look at the beams.
They designed it to try and withstand earthquakes.
Black and red and white.
The colors of Atlantis, according to Plato,
if the restorations are accurate.
Well, that's an interesting decor choice.
-Bull horns. -Yup.
And this is clearly a huge religious symbol.
They were sacred animals in Atlantis.
Bulls could wander around religious areas.
-Oh. -Okay, look at the priest.
That's pretty.
Plato mentions that the priesthood in Atlantis wore azure robes.
-Yeah. -And every single piece of clothing they are wearing there,
-Sky blue. -bright blue.
We've got monumental architecture.
We've got these drainage systems.
We've got writing.
We've got bull worship.
We've got them wearing blue robes.
We've got trade.
There's a lot here that makes me see a connection.
This is clearly an incredibly sophisticated society.
Highly advanced for almost any people of the time.
But then, do you think this was Atlantis?
And that's what kills me
...because I don't think this one was.
It's not underwater.
-There's no sign of any natural disaster. -Right.
But it's so close. I think we're on the right track.
Minoan culture lines up so well
...with Plato's description of Atlantis.
There's evidence that here on Crete,
the settlements were showing up around 7,000 B.C.
The thing about Knossos
...that removes it from being Atlantis proper
...is there's no massive catastrophe.
Yeah, that's the thread we're following right now.
It's what could've happened in terms of a natural disaster.
We're heading 93 miles east from Knossos to Palaikastro,
the ruins of the second largest Minoan city.
Recent excavations there
...suggest a massive natural disaster may have hit the island.
Archeologist Sandy McGillivray
...has spent his career excavating the site.
Hey, thanks for meeting us!
-Welcome! -Hey, Sandy.
-Welcome. -This is really interesting.
It's expansive.
Around 1,500 B.C. this was a huge city.
It goes all the way back into the olive trees there,
down trough into the sea.
Wow.
It's way bigger than I thought.
-How many people lived here? -Like 30,000 people.
30,000 people. That's massive.
It's the second most populated city
...probably in Crete after Knossos.
How far into the sea does it go?
We don't know.
And what's the earliest settlement?
The earliest that we found here
...goes back to about 2,800 B.C.,
but if you go up on the hills, you go back into the Neolithic.
So, 5, 6,000 B.C.?
People were here a long time.
One of the things about Crete you have to remember is,
with the sea level rise, a lot of the early population,
if they were living down by rivers, on coastal plains,
that's all underwater.
-Right. -Yes, so there's probably way more stuff
-...that you could excavate, it's...-There's a whole archeology
...waiting for us of the first arrivals in Crete, sitting there.
And what ended the main period here?
Follow me.
So, this was an open courtyard.
What we found here was an open area
-...with a colonnade running along that side. -Okay.
These blocks have been broken up, smashed up.
We had to put them back into place.
-Oh, wow. -And...
-This is scoured. -They are pulverized.
-They were pulverized. -Exactly.
This is the sort of damage you get
...from only a really high energy event.
What we found evidence for is earthquake.
I think this looks like more than just an earthquake.
Are there other spots in this area
...where we might be able to see kind of the devastation?
-Yes, down on the beach. -Really?
The beach is really good for deposits.
Oh, I definitely want to check that out.
-It was this way. -Yeah.
To the ocean.
This was a Minoan settlement that had 30,000 people.
It was a huge city,
some of which is under the water and hasn't even been excavated.
Oh, hello!
-(JESS EXCLAIMS) -Aha!
-Oh my God. -That doesn't belong here.
No, that's clearly been worked.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
-This is a huge block. -It's probably a wall.
-Easy to work. Bottom line. -It's definitely
...a large worked block from a substantial building.
-Well, let's go look for more. -Let's look for more.
Okay.
-You see that? -Is that not natural?
-No. -You know that.
I don't know whether that's a floor or wall or...
I'd say floor, it's all deposited horizontally in nature.
People like their roads to be flat, too,
-or floors. -I can see pottery up there.
Yeah. I mean, this is absolute devastation.
And right now it might not look like that much
-...because everything's still. -Yeah.
But to think of the amount of force you need to move
...all of these chunks of material enough
-...to knock away whatever walls were there. -Yeah.
But what could've caused such massive destruction?
I don't know. Let's keep looking.
I'm trying to see if there are any clues.
Okay, this is really cool.
So, basically with a tsunami,
often times you get like these big flood deposits,
where it's obvious like, the water was just super energetic
-...and it was smashing into everything. -Yeah.
But here, you've actually got it smashing into a settlement.
I noticed when we came in that the ground here,
the soil gets real fine.
-Yeah. -And if you look at this area.
-See how that kind of just smears away? -Yeah.
And if you look at my fingers,
you can see the cover in this really super fine ash.
This is pulverized rock.
-Yeah. -And now this part.
This probably was ash that sank down through the water
-...and was mixed in with the marine stuff. -Yeah.
But nonetheless, I bet you this is volcanic ash.
Oh, it's a volcano.
It would've been huge, explosive eruptions.
Ashfall, earthquake and tsunami.
It's not just a one-civilization killer.
It would be multiple if you were near the coastline.
This is one of the most incredible examples
...of people coming into direct conflict with a natural disaster.
Wow, this is a great lead.
Let's go see what we can find that will link us to Atlantis.
Yeah.
All right. So, we saw evidence of a tsunami right around here.
So, where would that have come from in this area, do you think?
If we wanna talk volcanoes in the Mediterranean,
we have a ton of different options.
This whole area is really active geologically,
that's because there is a subduction zone here
...where the African plate, which is on this side
...is diving under this smaller plate.
And what that does is it produces
...a whole sequence of volcanoes throughout the area,
and only one volcano is big enough
...to actually destroy an empire like Atlantis,
and that would be Santorini.
Well, it makes sense archeologically,
I mean, because about a hundred years ago,
they dug up Akrotiri under the ash
...which is a settlement with Minoan connections,
I know because of the circular shape
...it's been connected to Atlantis quite a lot.
I've always thought it was a bit of a gimmick, though,
like, you know, something to pull in tourists' dollars,
but you actually think it's a genuine candidate.
It's the only thing in the area that's big enough
...to cause a geologic catastrophe on the scale needed
...to wipe out a civilization.
There's actually evidence of a devastating eruption
...about 1,600 B.C.
My only problem is 1,600
...because that's way too late for me.
So, you think there's a possibility of
...finding any evidence there of earlier eruptions?
Oh, yeah. There definitely were earlier ones,
but in order to see if they're in the right time frame,
we're going to have to dig into the rock record.
I mean, get our hands dirty.
All right. Well. Rest up. We'll head out in the morning.
-Perfect. -Okay.
We have arrived!
I think it's over. I think the chase is over.
This is it? You've found it?
The island of Santorini has long been linked with Atlantis.
It's a tourist hotspot and a volcanic one.
The island is a huge volcano.
A ring around the central caldera.
A colossal eruption in 1,600 B.C.
...spewed 14 cubic miles of rock into the atmosphere,
the biggest eruption in recorded history.
It buried the ancient city of Akrotiri under 30 feet of ash,
and clues to an early eruption may be buried here too.
Wow.
Wow. This place is incredible!
-Oh my God, this is huge. -This is!
Look at this. This is a city. This is like a full city.
But it's massive!
We're at the Minoan city of Akrotiri
...on the volcano island Santorini.
It was wiped out by a huge eruption around 1,600 B.C.
But we're looking for evidence of an earlier eruption,
closer to the 5,000 B.C.
...that fits my timeline for Atlantis.
I mean, this is a dream come true.
-Seriously. -I've always wanted to visit this place.
Yeah. The history geek in me is freaking out right now.
This is an ashfall deposit with broken rock fragments,
and then it's in a matrix of fine pulverized rock.
-Right. -That's what that is.
So, pulverized rock can collapse roofs on buildings
...because it's so heavy.
Look how thick the walls are. They're like two feet thick.
It really opens up here.
So, you've got channels, I guess. Oh, look.
You got channels, like a drainage system going on here.
Oh, that's very intentional.
So, they must've had water intentionally flowing through.
Oh, look! More drainage there.
This looks like it's an underground drain.
You found their plumbing.
(LAUGHING)
Okay. The thing that sticks out to me
...is that a lot of it here is irregular rocks.
Why are there such big boulders right here?
-It's weird to me. -Yeah.
-Sort of what I wouldn't expect in the city. -Well, but my...
Built around it.
-But still, that area, it goes really far down. -Yeah.
And there are rocks in there, stacked up.
That's not accidental.
-No. -So.
This maybe a system.
-I was thinking... -I am wondering
...if they are collecting rain water here.
Yes. Because they didn't have that much natural water
-...on the island. -That's just
-...warm. One fresh. -Geothermal and one fresh.
So they couldn't support many people.
So yeah, they had to collect the water.
That probably what that was.
Whoa.
Look, look, look, look, right there.
Oh, wow.
-All of those broken stairs. -Yeah.
The way the break is in a similar location
-...for each stair. -Right.
It's like a straight line right down the middle of the staircase.
Yeah, that's evidence that an earthquake affected this area.
Volcanoes have their own type of earthquakes
...that actually occur when magma is moving underground
...because the rock itself is molten, breaking cold rock.
So, it's like boom, boom, boom.
So you got the double whammy of quake activity
...and the volcanic hazard.
Now, this, this I've read about.
Okay, hang on, let me absorb.
-All right. -Right.
-What do you see? -A really high wall,
-which is impressive on its own. -Yeah.
And then concrete,
but clearly that wasn't what was there before.
Right, so the concrete used to be wood.
And this was built, I don't know, in 1,700, 1,800 B.C.
So, what you're talking about is
...the origins of structural engineering
...because putting wood in the vertical supports,
and having rigid stone floors,
that allows the buildings to sway a little.
-It's got give. -Exactly.
And so, this is like, really advanced.
-Yeah. -I mean, they're building things
...to withstand earthquakes.
This is proof that they're adjusting
...and adapting to the environment.
They knew what was here.
Tell me why this particular site
...is always connected to the Atlantean myth.
Okay. It's a large functioning city like Plato talks about.
-Which it is. Very much. -Yeah.
He gives a description of them using irrigation,
they were really good with water.
They were wealthy, they were rich
...in all kinds of agricultural products
...with a really good harbor for ships.
And the concentric circles,
which you get from a caldera possibly.
So, that is really seductive
...because so much of it fits with the theory.
Okay.
-I have other problems. -I was waiting for you to go "but.''
-But first of all, it doesn't fit my timeline. -Right.
-About 5,000 B.C. -That's the big problem.
Well, it's a problem.
The bigger problem is
...when this place was destroyed around 1,600 B.C.,
the Egyptians actually mention it
...saying there was a huge explosion somewhere
-...in the Mediterranean. -You would expect that.
The sky went dark for two years.
Dead people were being washed up in the Nile.
-Oh, God. -And they don't mention Atlantis.
So, I think someone earlier lived here, left, and came back.
So, there could've been something earlier
-...with your timeline. -Right.
-There could've been. -There could've been
...and that's what we need to find.
-All right. Cool. -Yeah.
But see, this is interesting.
They've got a bunch of rocks that are rectangular
...and then you got some that are just blocky.
So, they reused an older building here.
-To shore up a wall? -That's reused stone.
-Right.
Look how deep this is.
-I mean, you see that wall. -Mm-hmm.
Those face blocks go all the way down
...to the bottom of this 30-foot.
Yeah, and it's not just that,
but there could be earlier eruptions underneath.
-I mean, there will be. -Right.
-It's just a given. -Right.
So, if there are earlier eruptions
...and we know they were reusing stone,
then there could be other cultures buried beneath this one.
-Yeah, it's highly possible. -Right.
So, I think we need to go out
...and really look at what's out in the current volcano,
to see if it gives us any clues
...to the history that's earlier than this.
Come on then.
The late Bronze age eruption of the Santorini volcano
...was obviously extremely large.
I mean we are talking global climate altering.
Wasn't just won and done.
I mean the volvano, it echoes through cycles.
But the one thing we can rely on is that it has erupted.
Like frequently.
-Okay. -Yeah.
Would it still have been an ash mechanism
...or do you something else, you know,
volcanic would have occured?
Wouldn't be surprised if we found evidence of
...additional ash on neighbouring islands.
And you also get volcanoes quick.
So those would have been localised to Santorini a bit more.
But the bigger regional ones could have affected
...islands all throughout the area.
I love Akrotiri.
I mean, I could spend months there.
Two-story buildings?
I mean, the architecture,
this engineering that could withstand earthquakes.
Yeah, and talking about earthquakes,
look at those stairs.
Broken. That's amazing.
I mean, it's fascinating, but it's not Atlantis.
What about this middle island?
The central thing here because, I mean, that, you know,
the gospel according to Plato,
that is a pretty good match for the central island of Atlantis
...which was a mound, and it was a religious center.
It's not nearly old enough.
So that's Nea Kameni
...and it's the center of a modern volcano,
but it's only formed within the last few hundred years.
I think we actually do need to see
...if there is any kind of geological catastrophe
-...that happened before 1,600 B.C. -Right.
Because there would've been people there.
So, what do we do here to find evidence of earlier?
So, we have two options on that.
First one, we'd have to repel on every cliff in Santorini.
Nah.
But the second option is more doable,
and I think that if I go around the island by sea,
I might see some preserved evidence of earlier eruptions.
Okay. All right. Well, let me know what you find.
-All right. See you soon. -All right.
I'm trying to find
...older eruptions than what took out Akrotiri,
but over here,
the Late Bronze eruption is right down to the water.
But obviously for Stel's timeline, we need something older.
It's a bit of a bummer because if I can't find anything older,
then we're kind of in trouble.
Hang on.
Okay.
I've got an area exposed here
...that actually shows rock that looks like it could be older.
That's good news. That's really good news.
Maybe this is an eruption that killed people
...who lived here before Akrotiri.
If I can get Stel over here,
we may be able to do some investigating.
Jess found an ancient ash layer on the southern coast,
so we're heading there now to investigate.
-You weren't joking. -No, I was not.
This is really cool, this spot right here.
See that really whitish layer
...that you can follow along the cliff face?
That's what I think is our marker line.
It looks to me like everything above it
...is all included from the 1,600.
The whole thing?
-Yeah. -That's massive.
It's the apocalypse, basically.
-That's what you're looking at. -Bloody hell.
We can actually try to get a sample of the older stuff
...and see if I'm right about this because I don't know.
That's 100% another eruption, I just don't know the age of it,
that's what we're trying to figure out.
Okay, so now I'm just going to collect
...some with the rock hammer.
Okay, so this is really poorly cemented, poorly lithified.
Put that in the notes.
And I just need a couple of ounces.
Okay, so now do the measurement.
-Okay, it's got, it's about 10 feet 4 inches. -Okay.
So, what we're just going for now is
...a general thickness of this deposit,
so that is substantial for an ashfall deposit
...because this is such a thick bed of this ash deposit.
That's an indicator that this eruption
...that I think is older, would've been huge.
-That was a substantial eruption. -Yes.
Enough to wipe out a civilization?
Yeah, we're talking, I mean, this is going to be something
...that the whole region would've noticed.
This type of eruption.
This, above here,
is something the whole world would've noticed.
Right. We've got a killer volcano.
Could it be in my timeline? Could it be 4,000, 5,000 B.C.?
You know what, I don't know.
That's something we gotta try to find out.
-Right. -Yeah, that's why we came and got the samples.
We'll send them to the lab and see what they come back with.
So we need to go to the central island, Nea Kameni,
because if that's where Atlantis was, we need to see it.
You know I'm in.
Nea Kameni formed after an eruption only 450 years ago,
but before the massive 1,600 B.C. eruption,
an older island stood in its place.
When I think about a volcano, I'm thinking of Vesuvius
...and Pompeii, and you know, all these dead people,
but Akrotiri doesn't have any dead people.
Could they have been vaporized? I mean, what's going on?
Well, because of the ash that we see that's deposited here,
I'd say no, they wouldn't have vaporized.
It's much more likely that this volcano
...gave a lot of warning to anybody in the area.
-Ah. -And I think we can confirm that
...if we get up close and personal with Nea Kameni,
which is the new resurgent dome
...that's growing up from under the sea again.
And the warning would've been, what?
Earthquakes, that kind of thing?
Yeah. I mean, you're looking at a number of things.
Earthquakes, small-steam driven eruptions.
One of the things that I'm looking for that
...would have been kind of like an early warning system
...would've been gases.
This is one of those things where we can confirm
...that what happened in the past
...is what we're seeing now if we go take a look.
So, it's a cyclical nature
-...that could just happen over and over again. Yeah.
-Good day for a hike. -Is it gonna blow?
I would let you know.
This is where lava would have come out of the ground,
but a long time ago.
This one's from 1,500s,
so I don't think I'm going to find anything,
but I am going to just check with a thermal camera here.
So, we're here looking for any signs
...that this is still an active volcano
...that would kind of match
...what people back then would've seen.
Is there any evidence for it at this part?
This one, the only we're seeing is
...from the rocks absorbing the sun's heat.
-Okay. -So, this isn't anything to write home about here.
So, you described it like an early warning system.
What would that look like to them?
Well, one of the things that I'm looking for that
...would have been kind of like an early warning system
-...would've been gases. Right? -Okay.
So, if you're standing somewhere
...and there is a lot of gases coming out, you go,
"Hey, that's not right.''
You could actually see the gases?
-It's not like... -You maybe could have.
-Okay. -But you also may have felt them
...because the temperature does change
...when you're in a fumarole as we call them.
All right, let's see if we can find something more active.
Sounds good to me.
Do you smell that?
-No. -It smells like rotten eggs.
-Oh, Really? -It smells like rotten eggs.
-You don't smell that? -No, I just got it, I just got it.
Hey, that's good.
-Come on. Come on. -All right. What is it good for?
-Oh, ho, ho, ho! -Whoa!
That's a fumarole.
I can see the gases!
They often smell like rotten eggs because there is a lot of sulfur.
Okay, we're getting 138 degrees Fahrenheit,
140 degrees Fahrenheit,
and you can actually see the movement of the gas
...on the camera screen.
It's not a lot because the wind is pretty strong,
but it's there.
The volcano is literally alive.
What kind of gas do you think it is?
Hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen sulfide,
-sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide. -Will it melt my hand?
No, it won't, but you don't wanna inhale it straight.
-It's acidic gas. Acid gas. -Okay.
So, it's not healthy to breathe,
-it can damage your lungs. -The yellow down there is sulfur.
-Yup, the yellow is sulfur. -And the white is what?
-Alkaline minerals. -Okay.
This is lava.
It can actually produce very huge, explosive eruptions
...that would be absolutely devastating to anybody nearby.
It's time to get this reading that we came so far for,
but we need to look at it closer.
I mean, you're literally feeling the heat
...from the bowels of the planet.
It's the power of the earth itself.
(JESS EXHALES)
All right, this is as far as we go.
175 degrees Fahrenheit.
Almost boiling
...and this is after it's already come all the way up
...from the magma chamber underneath.
You cannot miss this.
Atlantis had all the religious centers
...within that central island.
-Okay. -Because...
-And then if you think about the Oracle of Delphi. -Yeah?
That was built around a cave that gave off gases like this,
so it would make them hallucinate and stuff.
-Oh, right. -This is a very mystical kind of thing,
so they would've alerted everybody.
-They would've know. -Wow.
They could have had a warning
-...and that's why they left. -But how big a warning?
-I mean, are we talking seconds, minutes? -No.
-Hours? -Like weeks or months, maybe even more than a year.
So they had enough time to get everybody out.
Yeah, exactly, which is probably why there's no dead guys here.
We have a circular island that is one giant volcano.
And an advanced civilization, the Minoans,
who had learned to live with the monster beneath their feet,
and to survive its eruptions.
We also have a central island
...that's an uncanny match for Plato's description.
If we can find proof this volcano erupted around 5,000 B.C.,
we could be standing right on top of Atlantis.
-So, we just summited that. -Yes, we did.
Doesn't look so high from here, does it?
No, but it hurt.
(BOTH LAUGH)
This entire thing that we see is the volcano.
-Right. -I mean, this is the body of it.
-It's just that's the heart at the moment. -Yeah.
And you know, over the millennia, this thing's built itself up
...and destroyed itself again and again and again.
It's fairly obvious to me now there were cataclysms earlier.
I mean, before the eruption in 1,600 B.C.
...because you look at Akrotiri, we looked at Crete,
in both places, here and there, we've got those buildings
...with wooden elements
...so that could absorb the earthquakes.
Right. It's engineering.
-But they were all designed and built before the big one. -Yes.
So they already knew what was going on.
So I'm thinking to myself, "Okay, it happened before.
They evacuated because there's warnings.
And then they came back, they resettled,
and they brought that technology and that knowledge with them.''
-Right. -"And eventually, they became the Minoans.''
But before that, they were the Atlanteans here in Santorini.
Okay, so you're following that line
...just down the years of history.
-Down the years. -Logical.
-I mean, it's knowledge transferred. -Right.
We find it in cultures all over the world,
-so it stands to reason that that would be likely -Yeah.
...for any type of Atlantean civilization
...that we'd see remnants of it somewhere.
Yeah. Right, all we need now is the ash sample
-...back from the lab. -Yeah.
To place the older eruption on my timeline.
I cannot ignore the geology.
Ignore the geology at your peril.
All right, Stel.
I got some volcanic ash and it does tell a story.
There were eruptions before 1,600 B.C.
Okay, that's good.
But there was a huge one as well 15,000 B.C.
Now, nothing in between right in your time frame,
-nothing big enough to cause the devastation -No.
...we would need to wipe out an Atlantis.
That leaves me high and dry there.
-It kills me, but rocks don't lie. -Yeah.
So, that's the Minoans out of the picture for me.
See, this is my problem, right?
Minoans on Santorini have these incredible
...two or three-story high buildings
...that have engineering
...that allows them to withstand earthquakes.
-Which takes a while to develop. -A very long time.
It doesn't just drop out of the sky.
So we're not looking for the people at Akrotiri,
we're looking for their ancestors.
So, where were they?
All of these islands here
...are just ripe for that sort of disaster.
There's the Cycladic culture from there.
How old are they?
The Cycladic people were earlier than the Minoans.
They're from this area, north of Santorini.
If we could find where they came from,
they are our clue to Atlantis.
Athens has a museum and it's dedicated to Cycladic art.
So, if we go there, we might be able to find a few clues
...and just see what their skill level
...was in the earlier periods.
Wow, there's so many!
These are the statues the Cycladic people are famous for.
It's really abstract. It's really kind of stylized.
I mean, they clearly know what a human body looks like
...and how to do it, they just choose to
...go with this abstracted form.
That's interesting. They got some obsidian.
It's one of humanity's first and best tools.
Obsidian is incredibly fine,
especially if it's been napped into a really sharp edge.
It's a very advanced skill.
-Look at this. -That's azurite.
Azure blue. And that's a connection directly to Plato.
-Oh, the Atlantean priests! -Yeah.
And they wore azure robes.
Whoa. Oh my God. That's like, that's life-sized.
I wanna know more about these people.
They have the ability for abstract thought for rituals,
for religion, for monumental architectures,
for a large civilization
...that could operate over multiple islands.
So these people, whoever they are,
I can see connections to Atlantis.
-Oh, yeah. -I mean, what we're looking for
...is their granddads and grandmothers.
And figuring out where this journey of theirs started from.
-That could be the right track to get to Atlantis. -Yeah.
This is really exciting.
The Cycladic people got all the characteristics
...Plato writes about.
I think these are the people we need to follow.