Thera in the Mythology of the Classical Tradition: An Archaeological Approach

Both excavations failed to bring to light any Phoenician pottery, and thereby the relevant Classical tradition was discredited and has remained so to our days.

In a paper delivered at the 6th International Colloquium on Aegean Prehistory in 1987, the author presented the results of a re-examination of the entire archaeological evidence from the palace workshops, showing the existence of an enclave colony of Near Eastern craftsmen residing in Thebes during the LH III period. This prompted the work presented in this paper.

The earliest mention of Phoenicians on Thera is found in Herodotus, and their residence appears to fall in the LB III period. It follows that a Near Eastern presence on Thera must be archaeologically sought in the post-eruption sequences. A number of indications are presented in this paper. However, Thucydides relates that the Phoenicians and the Carians had settled on many Aegean islands before the time of King Minos of Crete, who subsequently drove them out, which points to an earlier wave of Near Eastern immigration, perhaps before the Theran eruption.

This paper shows that the evidence from Akrotiri supports not only the existence of Near Eastern contacts before the city's destruction, but also the possible presence of an enclave colony of craftsmen from the Near East.

INTRODUCTION

It is a century since Heinrich Schliemann, basing himself almost exclusively on the Homeric texts, found Troy and Mycenae (Schliemann 1875, 1878, 1880). These discoveries provided the incentive for research based on the mythology of the Classical tradition. Since one of the main problems in the Aegean prehistoric studies of last century was the presence or absence of Phoenicians in the area during the second millennium BC, research was focused on resolving the issue.

In the closing years of last century, Hiller von Gaertringen (von Gaertringen 1899-1909) tried to confirm by excavation the tradition recorded by Herodotus that Kadmos the Phoenician made a landfall on the island of Thera and left there a number of Phoenicians, including his kinsman Membliarus (Hdt. IV, 147; Paus. III, XV, 8). The excavations proved unsuccessful, eventhough von Gaertringen uncovered the ruins of Ancient Thera on Mesa Vouno, and another archaeologist in his team, R. Zahn, discovered traces of prehistoric habitation in the valley of Potamos, somewhat to the east of today's excavations at Akrotiri (Luce 1969, 86-91).

Following the same rationale, at the beginning of this century, A. Keramopoullos found and excavated a prehistoric palace in Thebes (Keramopoullos 1909, 57-122), which he called the Old Kadmeion, after the tradition naming Kadmos the Phoenician as founder of Thebes (Hdt. IV, 145ff.). This excavation also failed to bring to light any Phoenician architecture or pottery. This, together with the previous failure in Thera, helped muzzle the modern scholars who found food for thought in the Classical tradition. Much of the material related by the ancient historians who paid heed to these stories was dismissed as myth. By the first years of this century, the principal tradition of a Phoenician immigration to the Aegean area, the story of Kadmos, had been completely discredited and has remained so to our days (Sakellariou 1970-78, 361).

Thus, a major tool for the study of the past was hurriedly abandoned. First, because the number of excavations at that time was too small for significant data to be collected and, second, because of the well-known inflexible doctrine in archaeology demanding that the testimony of the material record justify both new hypotheses and ancient traditions alike. This doctrine, however, becomes counter-productive when applied indiscriminately and the material record is limited to architecture, pottery, and burial customs. The ancient tradition is simply another tool, but, as with all tools, its use has to be understood.

The ancient Greek tradition referring to prehistoric events and as it is known to us, was not recorded on contemporary monuments or documents but at much later times. As a result, there is usually no way of directly relating whatever events our archaeological excavations suggest to the written testimony. But there are exceptions to this, and one of the most instructive concerns the city of Manika on the island of Euboea. This unusually large Early Bronze Age site was deserted, without any visible signs of destruction or violence, at the end of the EH III period. The only explanation for this abandonment is the abrupt change in coastal geomorphology, caused by geologically attested severe crustal movements in the area, according to the excavator, which made an isthmus out of the narrow peninsula joining Euboea to the mainland (Sampson 1985). The geographer Strabo wrote in the 1st century BC: 'The whole of Euboea is much subject to earthquakes, but particularly the part near the strait, which is also subject to blasts through subterranean passages [no doubt referring to the roar of earthquakes with shallow epicentres]. And it is said that the city which bore the same name as the island [Ebois] was swallowed up by reason of a disturbance of this kind. The city was also mentioned by Aeschylus in his play Glaucus Pontius.' (Strabo 10, 1, 9.)

Those who will see in Strabo's statement confirmation of a geologic event which occurred two millennia before Strabo's time should remember that this sort of thing works equally the other way around, showing a long public memory where events survived unrecorded for many centuries, and only recently confirmed independently. Usually, however, enough time has elapsed between the events remembered by tradition and their recording for later accretions to be inextricably embedded in the record, at least for the ancient historians who had no independent means of verification. The events remembered were transmitted by oral tradition, elaborated, embellished, and glamorized in the process. Often they were transformed into poetry. Then the logographers came, both the earlier and the later, and through the usual artifices attempted to smooth the narratives and clarify the apparent paradoxes. In doing so, they compounded the chronologies and so hopelessly mixed up the legends that it seems pointless to try and disentangle them, when, for example, Minos is made the grandson of Dorus and therefore a Dorian by descent (Grote 1869, vol. 1, 190). Absurd as this contention appears now, it is nevertheless based on fact, since Crete was for sometime a Dorian backwater. It is in the explanation - that is, in the rationalization of the facts - where often the absurdity begins. Greek tradition concerning the Pelasgians was so confused by later accretions that Edward Meyer thought it should be rejected almost outright (Meyer 1884-1902, vol. II.I.2, 237, no. 1).

If Greek tradition cannot be used directly for archaeological purposes, this does not mean it should be rejected outright simply because our excavations failed to find the architecture, pottery and burial customs, which archaeological methodology decrees should be there. There are all sorts of indications that this methodology does not always work, and also not a few that it can be misleading. One of the aims of this paper is to show that ancient tradition can be a valuable tool in the study of the past, provided it is subjected to similar tests and controls as the oral tradition, and it is used in conjunction with the entire material record, not just a convenient and conventional part of it.

THE EVIDENCE FROM THEBES

Recent re-examination of the entire archaeological evidence from the Theban palace workshops has disclosed what is considered a possible enclave colony of Near Eastern craftsmen residing in Thebes during the LH III period. It should be emphasized that the word 'colony' as used in this paper has nothing to do with 'colonialism', something frequently confused in archaeological proceedings. An enclave colony or paroikia is defined here as the peaceful residence of a small number of foreigners within an already established community.  

The evidence from Thebes was presented by the author in a paper entitled 'A model for the identification of enclave colonies', at the 6th International Colloquium of Aegean Prehistory in September 1987. Since the proceedings of this colloquium are not yet published, a brief recapitulation of the testimony presented there seems necessary.

The Theban palace workshops show certain unique occurrences in exotic raw materials, specialized industries, advanced technology, and jewellery and goldwork techniques. Specifically:

1. Raw materials: the lapis lazuli found in Thebes consists of more than 200 engraved, unengraved, and abraded pieces, more than that found in all the other Greek sites together. Also, the agate and onyx found on the site are the largest quantities of these materials found in Greece (Keramopoullos 1930, 29-58). Ivory was also found in abundance, with hundreds of carved pieces (Symeonoglou 1973, 12, 44f.).
2. Specialized industry: the manufacture of ivory-carved furniture parts, a craft traditionally practised in the Levant (Winter 1976, 1-22). No such major centre specializing in this craft has been found elsewhere in Greece.
3. Advanced technology: an iron drill for use in goldwork (Symeonoglou 1973, 70) at a time when such tools were unknown in Greece but were in use in the Near East (Forbes 1964, 216-217).
4. Jewellery and goldwork techniques:

a.    inlaying jewellery with lapis lazuli stones (Symeonoglou 1973, 71),

b.    wiremaking, a basic process for filigree work (Symeonoglou 1973, 63f.),

c.    inlaying metal articles with gold (Symeonoglou 1973, 64-66).

A few individual pieces with these distinct techniques are found in a number of LH sites, but certainly no workshops using these techniques have been found. This evidence, together with the facts, one, that the lapis lazuli found at Thebes is of a deep blue colour preferred in the Near East and not the royal blue preferred in the Mycenaean world (Porada 1981-82, 6, 77) and, two, that the skill to use these techniques effectively can be acquired only through years of training and practice, make it unlikely that these techniques were mastered by visiting Mycenaeans, sailors, merchants, warriors, or official envoys. These factors would seem to suggest the presence of an enclave colony of Near Eastern craftsmen in Thebes during the LH III period.

THE ANCIENT TRADITION REGARDING THERA

The possible presence of Near Easterners in Thebes, echoing the Classical tradition despite the absence of traditional archaeological evidence such as architecture, pottery, and burial customs, has prompted the writer to investigate the possibility of a similar presence in Thera.

The story of the Phoenicians on Thera is related primarily by Herodotus in connection with the return to Lacedaemon of the descendants of the Argonauts, the Minyans, when they were driven out of Lemnos by the Pelasgi, in the third generation from the expedition which brought back the Golden Fleece (Hdt. IV, 145ff; Paus. III, I, 6ff.). The historian says that Kadmos the son of Agenor, a king of Tyre (or Sidon) in Phoenicia, having been instructed by his father to look for Europa, the daughter of Agenor and his own sister, abducted probably by Cretans, made a landing on Thera, and either because the country pleased him, or because he had a purpose in so doing, left there a number of Phoenicians and with them his kinsman Membliarus.

Kalliste, as Thera was called at the time, had already been inhabited for eight generations by the descendants of Membliarus and his men, when Theras arrived on the island. This Theras was the son of Autesion, whose father, Tisamenus, was the son of Thersander and the grandson of Polynikes of Seven Against Thebes fame. In other words, Theras was a descendant of Polynikes, four generations removed from the siege and destruction of Thebes, and eight generations from the arrival of Kadmos in Thebes. Herodotus says that Theras, a Kadmeian by birth, was a regent in Sparta during the infancy of the twin sons of Aristodemus, Procles and Eurysthenes, from whom, traditionally, the dual kingship of Sparta is derived (Hdt. IV, 147). When the twins came of age, Theras, unwilling to live under the authority of others, resolved to leave Sparta, to cross the sea and join his kindred. He took with him a number of men from each of the tribes as well as some Minyans, crossed the sea with three 30-oared ships, and settled among his kinsmen, who renamed the island after him.

This is the core of the relevant Classical tradition, which Herodotus says was delivered without variation by both the Therans and the Lacedaemonians alike. Of course, whenever the historian mentions 'Phoenicians', we must understand 'peoples from the Near East', not necessarily the Phoenicians of historical times.

THE TESTING OF THE ANCIENT TRADITION

Up to this point, the ancient tradition has been related here as recorded by Herodotus. But what possible tests could be applied to this 'mythical record' which could help its verification, or at least indicate why it should be believed at all? The Greek tradition is full of such or similar myths. How and where does one draw the line between those parts of ancient tradition which can be used in archaeological research and those parts which must be discarded as useless accretions?

One of the most important and applicable tests, which should be acceptable to archaeologists, is based on precisely the same grounds as modern archaeology, that is, the material record and its implications. By this is meant here the material record not as observed in modern excavations, but as reported by ancient writers, in particular where the ancient authors wrote from their own personal experience. This is, obviously, no substitute for modern excavations and it is at least one step removed from the source of the information. But the material record reported by the ancient writers has at least two distinct advantages over other sources of information:

1. It is usually straight-forward,
2. It can be sought by modern excavations and perhaps verified.

Several such instances relating to the 'legend' of Kadmos, have been recorded by Pausanias, not all of them related in the same section of his narrative in the manner of an author trying to put across some significant point, but rather haphazardly at various points, as additional information offered in the off-hand manner of a writer rounding off his narrative by an account of his own personal experience. As will be shown immediately below, this happens to be worth a great deal, both in what the traveller had to say and also in the disorganized, off-hand manner he chose to say it.

The first relevant instance is where Pausanias relates that in Sparta, near the Painted Hall (Poikile Lesche), there are hero shrines of Kadmos the son of Agenor, and of his descendants, Oecolycus the son of Theras, and Aegeus the son of Oecolycus (Paus. III, XV, 8). They say, he adds, that these were made by the grandsons of Aegeus, whom he then names, partly to provide the names of the erectors, and partly, no doubt, to point out the age of the monuments.

The second instance is where Pausanias relates the expulsion of the Achaeans from Sparta and Lacedaemon by the Dorians. The King of the Achaeans, Tisamenos, the father of Theras, was killed in a battle with the Ionians, 'and in my own day his grave still existed in the place where the Lacedaemonians take the dinner called the pheiditia' (Paus. VII, I, 8.) -that is the Spartan equivalent of the syssitia, the public common tables.

A third instance relates to a sanctuary of Athena in Lacedaemon, not the one called Axiopoinos, but another one which, relates Pausanias, 'was dedicated by Theras, the son of ... when he was leading a colony to the island now called Thera after him, which was called Kalliste in ancient times.' (Paus. III, XV, 6.)

Finally, a fourth instance is found in Pausanias's narrative of the expedition of Theras to Kalliste. Says he, '... and even at the present day, the people of Thera every year offer to him, as their founder, the sacrifices given to a hero'. (Paus. III, I, 8.)

Thus, in the 2nd century AD, a traveller recorded the existence of hero shrines, royal tombs, dedications of temples, and sacrifices offered to a founder-hero, relating to events that took place more than a thousand years earlier. It requires no philosophical disposition to realize that this is not the stuff of myth, but the stuff of history preserved and presented as legend, because it had survived as oral tradition until it was written down at a much later time. The fact that these instances stem from Pausanias's own personal experience, and are not presented in one connected narrative with a certain purpose or end in mind, but haphazardly, in order to complete the information he has on the subject, adds considerable weight to this testimony. The translation of the previous tradition into an archaeologically acceptable framework could be as follows.

A RECONSTRUCTION

Aristodemus, the father of the twins, was one of the three leaders of the Dorians when they infiltrated and settled in the Peloponnese (Apollodorus II, 8, 2ff.). This 'Descent of the Dorians' as it was known, has been traditionally assigned a date of 80 years after the Trojan War by Thucydides (I,12). Now, irrespective of whether one takes an early date (1280) or a late one (1200) for this war, the regency of Theras in Sparta should be placed about 100 years after the Trojan War, or sometime either at the beginning or the end of the 12th century BC. [Taking a generation as either 33 or 25 years (both these figures are found in Herodotus, II, 142 and I, 7), the time of Kadmos's arrival in Thebes must be placed either in the second half of the 15th century BC at the earliest, or at the end of the 14th or beginning of the 13th century at the latest, both these dates falling within the LH III period. The latter accords well with the dates assigned by excavations to the Kadmeion in Thebes, and one has to presume that this must be the case also with Thera.] In that case, any Near Eastern presence on Thera (as opposed to influence), should be looked for in post-eruption sequences, since the pre-eruption archaeological contexts are too early for the dates obtained from the Classical tradition quoted by Herodotus.

There is, however, another strand of this Classical tradition, this time related by Thucydides.

The historian reports that most of the Aegean islands had been colonized by Carians and Phoenicians (Thuc. I, 8) but, later, Minos organized a navy and drove out the Eastern settlers, among whom piracy appears to have been prevalent, if not endemic (Thuc. I, 4). Thucydides does not wish to be taken simply at his word about events long before his life-time, and offers hard archaeological evidence to make his point: 'This was proven during the present war', he says, 'when Delos was officially purified by the Athenians and all the graves in the island were opened up. More than half of these graves were Carian, as could be seen by the type of weapons buried with the bodies and from the method of burial, which was the same as that still in use in Caria.' (Thuc. I, 8.)

Thus, once more, a historian, this time of the 5th century BC, offers testimony from the material record which refers to events perhaps more than a thousand years before his time. Here, however, R.M. Cook has put forward the suggestion that Thucydides or his source incorrectly identified early Geometric pottery for Carian (Cook 1955, 266-270). The problem with this suggestion is that Thucydides never mentioned pottery, but 'the weapons buried with the bodies and the method of burial, which was the same as that still used in Caria.' The historian is quite clear about the kind of evidence he used, and did not include pottery of whatever kind.

Considering that the Carians and 'Phoenicians' preceded Minos on the Aegean islands, the tradition related by Thucydides appears to refer to an earlier migration of Easterners in the Aegean than that reported by Herodotus. The question is, how early? King Minos seems to all intents and purposes a mythical figure, which is extremely difficult to place in a historical framework, much less in an archaeological context.

In this particular case, however, the effort seems worth making. But before examining the details, a point of clarification is necessary. The fact that in the Odyssey (XI, 324ff.) the story of Theseus appears as a simple and tragic love story between the hero and Ariadne, without reference to human sacrifices, the labyrinth, the Minotaur, etc., undoubtedly shows the earliest form of the legend, the rest having been added by post-Homeric poets, logographers, and other commentators.

It seems reasonable to assume that here the time element between the events described or alluded to in the legend and their inclusion in the Odyssey is relatively short. By contrast, the legend of Minos is hopelessly mixed up when it appears in both the Iliad (XIII, 249, 450, XIV, 321) and the Odyssey (XI, 322-568, XIX, 179, IV, 564-VII, 321), and here the time element appears to have been considerably longer. Even so, the Minos of Homer and the later poets and logographers has little in common with the Minos of Thucydides (I, 4) and Aristotle (Politics II, 7, 2).

This indicates another, separate strand of this tradition. Thucydides says that after Minos organized a navy and drove out the pirates, communications improved and he sent out colonies to most of the islands. The extent of Minoan colonization in the Aegean is now becoming apparent (Branigan 1981, 24ff.), both in systematic excavations such as at Ayia Irini in Kea, Phylakopi on Milos, Kastri on Kythera, and in a large number of sites in the form of indications not yet adequately explored. Now it so happens that Strabo, in the 1st century BC, relates just such a colonization, not of an island, but of Miletus on the coast of Asia Minor. The geographer writes: 'Miletus was colonized first by the Cretans, who erected defensive walls at the place overlooking the sea where ancient Miletus stands now. Sarpedon brought colonists from Miletus of Crete and gave the same name to the colony, which was previously populated by the Leleges. But later Neileus and his companions fortified the present city.' (Strabo 14, 1, 6.) Sarpedon, of course, was one of the sons of Minos, while the Neileus mentioned here was one of the sons of Kodrus, an early king of Athens, not the father of Nestor, the king of Pylos (Grote 1869, vol. III, 380ff.). It is obvious, then, that here Strabo refers first to a Minoan and subsequently to a Mycenaean colonization of Miletus. How well is this substantiated by archaeological excavations?

The presence of Minoans in Miletus is obvious from imported Minoan pottery (Weickert 1940, 325), more so from locally-made Minoan ceramics (Gödecken 1988, 307ff.), and also from the houses of the first period, which are distinctly Minoan with wall frescoes (Weickert 1957, 24). The earliest wares from the excavations are a number of 'light-on-dark' sherds which do not appear to belong to periods before MM III or c. 1700 to 1550 BC. LM IA pottery continues to appear at the site until its destruction by fire before the LM II / LH IIB phase (Mee 1978, 133-136).

On the other hand, a Mycenaean colony in the area of Miletus is attested not only by the Mycenaean sherds found at the settlement (Mee 1978, 134), but also by the cemetery on the hill of Degirmentepe, 1.5 km south-west of Miletus (Weigand 1908, 9; Fimmen 1924, 15-16) and the Mycenaean tholos tombs and pottery found there. The pottery is of the LH IIIB or C phase (Furumark 1950, 202), although the settlement nearby has MM III beginnings and a pre-LM II / LH IIB destruction level, as was mentioned above (Weickert 1940, Table 24; Mee 1978, 134, 149).

This seems to be striking confirmation of Strabo's words, referring first to a Minoan and then to a Mycenaean colonization of Miletus.

Now, returning to Strabo's quotation, his reference to Neileus, the son of Kodrus, who was contemporary with the 'Descent of the Dorians' since he lost his life in this struggle, would help place the Mycenaean colonization of Miletus at precisely the same period as the Mycenaean pottery found at Miletus and the Degirmentepe cemetery, which is mainly LH IIIB or C, particularly when one remembers that colonists were usually men in their prime, who would not have required an organized cemetery before a generation or so.

Given the previous striking agreement between the ancient tradition reported by Strabo regarding the Mycenaean colonization of Miletus and the archaeological evidence obtained from excavations, would it be presumptuous to extend our credibility to the earlier Minoan colonization of Miletus related by the geographer?

If not, and 'Sarpedon's colonization' corresponds to the MM III settlement of Miletus, then 'Minos', but even more so the Carian and 'Phoenician' settlers of the Aegean islands mentioned by Thucydides, must precede the Minoan settlement of Miletus by at the very least two generations, if not considerably more. Surely in that case, this Near Eastern presence on the Aegean islands must predate the eruption of Thera, and could conceivably be sought at the Akrotiri settlement.

Thus, one sees that the Classical tradition includes two distinct migrations of Near Easterners in the Aegean area, one of relatively early date, associated with King Minos of Crete and his colonial expansion in the Aegean reported by Thucydides, and a later one associated with Kadmos and the foundation of Thebes related by Herodotus. In the presentation of the archaeological evidence from Thera which follows, the early Classical tradition of Thucydides is associated with pre-eruption Akrotiri. The later Classical tradition of Herodotus is associated with the period after the eruption.

THE EVIDENCE FROM PRE-ERUPTION THERA

The presence of new technological applications is one of the ways in which enclave colonies or paroikies may be detected in the archaeological record. This is because enclave colonies are usually formed either to promote trade and commerce with the home country, or in order to set up small-scale specialized industries already in existence in the homeland. Because these activities relate to foreign materials, products or techniques, which may be generally unknown in the new settlement, they could easily be recognized.

There are two distinct Near Eastern techniques used in Akrotiri which, as far as it is known, are not attested in any other Aegean sites.

First, the use of ashlar corner-stones on building walls (Palyvou 1988, 77, 91-92, Pl. 82-3). This is a construction detail which appears on Early Bronze Age shrines in Byblos, on a MC III wall in Nitovikla, Cyprus (Hult 1983, 65-66), and on many LB I buildings in Ugarit (Schaeffer 1939-69, vol. IV, 105-107). The presence of this feature at Akrotiri is an exception.  

Second, the use of the manganese black technique in order to produce black paint. This specialized technique of ceramic painting is characterized by the use of manganese-rich ochres which are added to the clay dispersions before painting. During firing, manganese iron-oxides of various types are formed as black pigments. The technique appears on Cyprus at the end of the 17th century (Noll 1978, 504), and on Egypt at the beginning of the 16th century (Lucas 1962, 262, 384). Once again, Akrotiri is an exception.

There are two additional techniques employed in Akrotiri, which are also visible in the Near East, but it is not clear if they originated there. These are:

1. The technique of mixing glaucophane and Egyptian blue pigments for use in wall-paintings. Glaucophane is a bluish-black mineral belonging to the amphibole family, whereas Egyptian blue is a synthetic pigment prepared by mixing copper oxide, quartz, and calcium oxide. Both pigments were employed separately in Aegean frescoes but they were never mixed (Filippakis 1978, 601). However, glaucophane and Egyptian blue were combined for the painting of some ivories from Palestine and some classes of pottery from Cyprus in the Late Bronze Age (Buchholz 1980, 240 n. 65). The mixing of the pigments at Akrotiri is an exception.
2. The matt-painted technique in the decoration of pottery. This technique, better known as the polychrome vase-painting style, which gives contours and borders of motifs in dark colours, cannot be explained as having developed from local prototypes. It is possible, however, that the technique depends on the polychrome wares manufactured in Syria, Palestine, and Cyprus from the end of the Middle Bronze Age (Buchholz 1980, 228, 234 n. 16; Epstein 1966).

It should be stressed that the above techniques required apprenticeship and perhaps years of practice to be used effectively; they would not have been learned in the normal course of trade relations. Furthermore, all the finds using these foreign techniques are clearly of local Theran workmanship.

The occurrence of foreign weights and measures is another indication of the existence of foreigners in an established community. Metrological analysis of the gram values of balance weights from Akrotiri has shown that a great number of the weights are scaled on the Minoan system of weight measurement, but some of the weights found seem not to fit this system (Petruso 1978, 547-552). It is not known, at present, if these weights can be attributed to Near Eastern systems.

Nevertheless, they show that a second system of weights may have been in use concurrently with the Minoan one. This could signify the presence of foreign artisans and merchants who used their own system of weights for commercial transactions.

Considering all the previous testimony together, it is plausible that craftsmen and merchants from the Near East, perhaps in the form of an enclave colony or paroikia, may have lived in Akrotiri before its destruction. This would seem to support the Classical tradition of a Near Eastern migration in the Aegean islands before the eruption of Thera, recorded by Thucydides.

THE EVIDENCE FROM POST-ERUPTION THERA

Present archaeological knowledge does not allow any conclusions to be reached regarding the colonization of Thera by Kadmos's followers after the-eruption, as Herodotus suggests.

However, it is interesting to note that the island may have acquired the name 'Thera' as early as the 15th century BC. The word 'qe-ra-si-ja' appearing on a number of religious texts on Linear B tablets from Knossos dating to approximately 1400 - 1375 BC (KN Fp 1.6; 5.1; 6.2; 13.2; 14.2; 48.2), is considered by many scholars to be of pre-Greek origin and connected with the name Thera/Therasia and the ethnic Therasios (Heubeck 1967). It is suggested that 'qe-ra-si-ja' was a local Theran goddess who was worshipped on Crete and that the deity was venerated by offerings of lumps of pumice. Her true name was apparently unknown to Minoans, who simply called her the 'Theran one' after the name of her island (Hiller 1978, 678).

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