The geology suggests that there was a partial ring island between the present islade and the central volcano. The naval Festival fresco suggests that the water was not very wide, and Plato'/Solon's description of Atlantis suggests that there were bridges across the rings. However, even before the great explosion, the Theran cliffs must have been high, and if not actually vertical, then steep. The one place this is not true is in the neighbourhood of Akrotiri. Ancient Akrotiri apprarently extended to, or close to, the present caldera, and is the most natural place for a bridge to the ring island and perhaps thence to the central volcano. If the main town was on the central volcano, it would conform to the Plato/Solon description, and would then have had a natural extension to the Akrotiri suburb, whereas other towns and voillages would have been accessible only by a substantial climb, then as now.
From Charles Pellegrino, Unearthing Atlantis: An archaeological Odyssey, New York: Random House 1991
Date of the Theran Explosion from tree rings 1650BC. From ice cores ca 1634 +- 10 years. From Irish peat bog 1620-1629. Carbon dating of Fira quarry trees 1610-1670. (p236) only three events in the 3000 years BC give the same signatures: 1900BC Mt.St.Helens and 44 BC Etna are the others. The Theran eruption had to give a "false winter" signature, and there is no other candidate date. (p237) Chinese writings talk about a summer with a dim sun and frost in July, and crop failure. the dating is somewhere in the region of 1600-1630 BC.
p 19 Plato's description of the remainder: A land carried round in a circle and disappeared in the depths below. By comparison to what then was, there are remaining in small islets only the bones of the wasted body, as they may be called, all the richer and softer parts of the soil having fallen away, and the mere skeleton of the country being left."
P21. Under Akrotiri there is another buried city 2000 years older, covered by volcanic ash. The ancient Akrotiri extends under modern Akrotiri, and therefore to the caldera wall. Presumably it linked to the inner city?
p23. One of Aristotle's contemporaries, Cantor, went to Egypt to see if the story were true, and had it confirmed that the records of which Solon spoke still existed (300BC)
p44. The Karnak tomb of Rekhmire, visier to Thutmose III has written references to Kheftiu, and pictures of men carrying typically Minoan bowls and rhytons (fragments of which were found in the tomb), but their hairstyles are not Minoan, and their kilts were originally Minoan, but were overpainted in Greek style.
p45-6 Linguistically, Keftiu relates to Caphtor in the Bible (Sargon of Akkad tablets refer to Kap-t-ra as "beyond the Upper Sea"--the Mediterranean). Keft is the root of our word "capital" meaning the head of a pillar. This could refer to Minoan Crete in two ways, one through the pillar worship derived from the tree of life of the Goddess Culture, and the other through the "sky pillar" representing the arms and legs of the goddess who held the sky on her back. The pillar would have been Mt Ida and/or Mt Diktas, which are (at least sometimes, as I have seen) wreathed in cloud, and are at the far Western limits of Egyptian experience. Egyptian visitors did sometimes come to Crete, but not often, and those mountains are much higher than anything in Egypt. If the "sky pillar" rationale is even partially right, it explains Solon's translation into "Atlas" and therefore Atlantis.
p62ff The pyroclastic flow and blast are very erratic. Wood can be vaporized only metres away from a place where paper is unburned. And that can occur many miles from the source, even for a small explosion like Mt St Helens or Pelee.
p77 Egyptian writings talk of a thick, choking dust cloud that swallowed the sun, and of towns being swallowed by waves.
p78 The Ipuwer papyrus. It is inconceiviable what happened to the land...The land--to its whole extent confusion and terrible noise...for nine days theyre was no exit from the palace and no one could see the face of his fellow...Towns were destroyed by mighty tides...Upper Egypt suffereed devastation...blood everywhere...pestilence throughout the country...No one really sails north to Byblos [Lebanon] today... men of Kheftiu come no longer...The sun is covered and does not shine to the sight of men. Life is no longer possible when the sun is concealed behind the clouds. Ra has turned his face from mankind. If only it would shine for one hour! No one knows when iot is midday. One's shadow is not discernible. The Sun in the heavens resembles the moon.
p79. The references to "blood everywhere" and to "pestilence" describe what happened to people who breathed the glassy ash of Pelee, and the disease and decay of the dying, which brough swarms of centipedes and snakes.
P85. After the ashfall, Minoan art took on a hybrid Grecianised style.
P86-7 The Philistines were refugees from Crete, who met Hebrew refugees from Egypt after both fled the effects of the Theran explosion.
P89 Thera used to be called Strongyle (the round one) and Kalliste (the beautiful one).
p151 Quoting Plato Critias 115c-d. The stone which was used for the work they quarried from underneath the centre of the island and from underneath the zones of land on the outer as well as the inner side. One kind of stone was white, another black, and a third red. ...They constructed bridges over the zones of the sea which surrounded the ancient metropolis, and made a passage into and out of the royal palace.
153 Plato mentions elephant herds on Atlantis. Egyptian paintings of Kheftiu men bearing gifts showed elephant tusks. Pygmy elephants had lived on Thera.
170. Ash covered a collapsed wall, but none was under the wall. Therefore a violent earthquake preceded the eruption.
184 Black white and red are the predominant colours of the buildings in the Akrotiri frescos.
197 The lilies in the "Lily" fresco are hybrids of the white madonna lily and the red lily. The rock base on which they grow shows red and black lava flows over a white background, as Plato says.
204 Flush toilets have been found in Akrotiri
p207 Egyptians respected the Minoans, but other foreigners, especially Syrians, Babylonians and Hebrews, ere called generically barbarians. Only the seafarers from Crete and the Cyclades were given a separate respectable name--the Keftiu.
217 There must have been some time between the big earthquake that caused the final abandonment of Akrotiri and the final eruption, because grasses and weeds had begun to grow on top of the ruins, and some squatters had shovelled away some of the loam that had begun to build up, so possibly even ten years might have elapsed. There is a pumice layer that had hardened in a season's rain, and some rain erosion. Five years is a reasonable guess for the time between abandonment and eruption.
p220 In 1970 Marinatos found a piece of polished crystal quartz that looked as if it had been part of a lens.
223 LM1A pottery is found in tombs contemporary with Hatshepsut and Thutmoses III. There is no LM1B on Thera. But the motifs of LM 1B pottery are seen in Theran frescos and on a Theran ceramic table. The suggestion is that the style was introduced on Crete by Theran refugees.
230 Linear B occurs only after the explosion and the destruction of the palaces.
240 In Knossos an administrator was entombed with LM1B pottery, Linear B tablets, and an Egyptian alabaster vessel bearing the name of Thutmoses III
241 In the tomb of Semut, vizier to Hatshepsut, there is a fresco of men carrying late Minoan 1A pottery vases, wearing Minoan style Kilts.. A similar fresco is in the tomb of User Amon, vizier to Thutmoses III, in which one of the men carries a rhyton identical to one found in Thera. The tomb writing talks of "gifts from the islands of the great green" In Knossos there is a broken statue inscribed with User Amon's name in hieroglyphics. Finally, there is the Rekhmire tomb, one of the last visiers to Tuthmose III, in which the kilts have been overpainted to be Greek style, indicating a change of power, and one item of pottery being carried is LM 1B, whereas the rest is LM 1A.