The History of Santorini
Santorini ToursGreece has a highly regarded number of archaeological sites, and the history of Santorini begins with them: the first human presence on the island dates back to the Neolithic Period. Santorini has had the same historical and cultural evolution as the other islands of the Cyclades.
Santorini or Thira is essentially what remains after an gigantic volcanic eruption that destroyed the earliest settlements on a formerly single island, and created the current geological Caldera. A giant central, rectangular lagoon which is surrounded by high, steep cliffs.
The eruption of the volcano was actually responsible for the sinking of the western part of the island and many claim it’s also responsible for the total destruction of the Minoan civilization due to tidal waves. Some theories support that Thira was the site of the capital of Atlantis the lost civilization.
About Santorini-history, the first human presence on the island is situated back to the Neolithic Period. Santorini hosted an important civilization around 3600 BC. Discoveries made in an important city near Akrotiri and the famous Red Beach show the existence of an ancient Minoan colony.
The city was very similar to those found in the island of Crete, with many wall ornaments and pottery showing naturalistic landscapes of animals and humans of the same ancient Minoan style. In Ancient times, Santorini Island was known as Strongili, which means round in Greek. Strongili was the victim of an enormous volcano eruption in 1,500 BC. The specialists believe that the explosion was so strong that it created gigantic waves that reached the shores of the surrounding islands and Crete.
After the explosion, the centre of Santorini sank, and the many earthquakes that followed destroyed a big part of the rest of the island. Many studies and researches have been presented in our days about the volcano of Santorini, including a series of documentaries in the National Geographic. In some ancient myths, the destruction of the island is closely associated to the legend of Atlantis.
Santorini was formed out of a miracle, based on an ancient Greek myth. The ancient Greeks had invented an imaginary story over the creation of Santorini island, a story that is connected to the Argonaut expedition. They said that Jason and his fellow companions were on their way home, they landed on Anafi, a small island of the Aegean Sea.
There Euphemus saw a dream that he was making love to a nymph, the daughter of the sea god Triton, in particular. After making love, that woman told him that she got pregnant to his child and that her father would become angry if he knew that. That is why she needed a place to hide and give birth to her child. She then told Euphemus to get a clod of earth from Anafi and throw it into the sea. When Euphemus woke up, he decided to take the woman’s advice and when they sailed, he indeed threw a clod of earth onto the open sea. Suddenly, as a miracle, an island emerged to provide a safe place for the pregnant nymph. Euphemus named this island either Calliste, which means the most beautiful, either Strogyli, due to its round shape. The son of Euphemus, who was born there, was named Theras and the island finally got his name, Thera.
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The History of Santorini: From the Eruption to the Sunset
The history of Santorini is unusual among Greek islands because so much of it is written into the ground rather than into books. The cliff you photograph is a cross-section of a catastrophe. The town under the ash at Akrotiri is a Bronze Age settlement stopped mid-sentence. The villages are where they are because of piracy, and the caldera villages look the way they do because of an earthquake in 1956.
This page sets out that history in order, and says where on the island you can still stand in each part of it.
The history of Santorini, the short version
A round volcanic island, inhabited from the Neolithic, hosting a wealthy Bronze Age town. Around 1600 BC the volcano erupted, buried the town and collapsed its own centre into the sea. Dorian settlers arrived and built a city on a ridge. Ptolemies, Romans and Byzantines followed. Venetians fortified it, Ottomans taxed it, and wine made it briefly rich. An earthquake emptied it in 1956, and tourism refilled it from the 1970s.
Why the history of Santorini matters to a visitor
Because almost everything you will look at is a consequence of it. The black sand, the white cliffs, the cave houses, the basket-trained vines, the fortified villages and the ruined ones all have a date attached, and knowing it turns a view into something you can read.
The History of Santorini Before the Eruption
The Neolithic. The history of Santorini begins here: archaeological finds place the first human presence on the island in the Neolithic period, and the history of Santorini follows the same broad course as the rest of the Cyclades from that point: small settlements, obsidian from Milos, and trade across the southern Aegean.
Strongyli. Before the eruption the island was round, and the name generally given to it is Strongyli, meaning the round one. There was no caldera and no crescent shape.
Akrotiri. The first great chapter in the history of Santorini. By the middle of the second millennium BC a substantial town stood at the southern end. It had multi-storey buildings, paved streets, a drainage system and wall paintings of a quality that stands comparison with anything in the Aegean. It traded widely and it was, by the standards of the time, wealthy and sophisticated.
The warning. The town was evacuated before the eruption. No bodies and very little gold have been found at Akrotiri, which tells us the inhabitants had time and took what mattered. Earthquakes almost certainly preceded the eruption by weeks or months.
What survives. The site is roofed and open to visitors, and it is the single most important thing in the history of Santorini that you can actually walk through. The frescoes are in the museums at Fira and in Athens. Full guide to Akrotiri.
The Minoan Eruption, the Turning Point in the History of Santorini
The defining event, around 1600 BC, and one of the largest volcanic eruptions of the last ten thousand years.
What happened. The single largest event in the history of Santorini: the volcano ejected an enormous volume of pumice and ash over several phases. When seawater reached the vent the eruption turned violently explosive. The magma chamber emptied, and the centre of the island collapsed into the sea, creating the caldera.
What was left. Three fragments of the old rim: the crescent of Santorini itself, the island of Thirasia to the west, and the small islet of Aspronisi at the southwestern gap. More on Thirasia.
The ash. It fell back across what remained, tens of metres deep, and buried Akrotiri. That burial is why the town survives.
The wider effect. The eruption is associated with tsunami across the southern Aegean and with disruption to Minoan Crete, though the precise relationship between the eruption and the decline of Minoan civilisation remains debated among archaeologists.
The date. Also debated. Radiocarbon evidence points earlier than the traditional archaeological dating, and the argument has run for decades without settling.
Where to see it. The caldera cliff itself, in section, from any boat; the white ash cliffs at Vlychada and the White Beach; and the deposit above the excavation at Akrotiri.
Atlantis and the History of Santorini
The connection comes up constantly on the island, and it is worth stating plainly what is and is not known.
The claim. No account of the history of Santorini avoids it. Plato describes Atlantis in two dialogues, the Timaeus and the Critias, written in the fourth century BC: an advanced island civilisation destroyed in a single day and night and swallowed by the sea.
The parallel. A sophisticated Bronze Age island culture, destroyed by a volcanic catastrophe, with its centre literally sinking into the water. The resemblance is obvious and has been argued seriously by archaeologists since the nineteenth century.
The problems. Plato’s dates and dimensions do not match, he places Atlantis beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and he was writing philosophy rather than history around a thousand years after the event.
The honest position on Atlantis and the history of Santorini. Nobody can prove the connection and nobody can disprove it. It is a reasonable hypothesis, not an established fact, and any guide who tells you otherwise in either direction is overselling.
What is certain. That an advanced town on this island was destroyed by a volcano and buried, and that you can walk through it. That part of the history of Santorini needs no legend attached.
The Dorians and Ancient Thera in the History of Santorini
Resettlement. The history of Santorini pauses here: the island was uninhabitable for a long period after the eruption. Resettlement came later, and the decisive arrival was a Dorian colony traditionally led by a figure named Theras, from whom the island took the name Thera – still its official Greek name today.
The city on the ridge. Around the ninth century BC the settlers built on the crest of Mesa Vouno, three hundred and sixty metres above the sea between what are now Kamari and Perissa. They chose height for the same reason every later generation chose inland: it could be defended and you could see who was coming.
The archaic period. The sanctuary of Apollo Karneios and the terrace of the Gymnopaidiai date from this era. The rock around that terrace carries inscriptions cut by spectators – names, dedications and boasts – some from the seventh and sixth centuries BC and among the oldest surviving Greek writing anywhere.
Colonisation. The most consequential export in the early history of Santorini: in the seventh century BC Thera founded Cyrene in North Africa, one of the more significant Greek colonial ventures and the island’s most consequential export before wine.
The Ptolemies. In the third century BC Ptolemaic Egypt took Thera as a naval station controlling the sea route between Alexandria and the Aegean. The city expanded accordingly – a garrison, barracks and a gymnasium – and most of what survives on the ridge dates from that expansion.
Rome and Byzantium. The city continued under Roman rule and into the Byzantine period, with churches built among the older buildings, before being abandoned around the eighth century AD when the ridge became more trouble to hold than it was worth.
Where to see it. The whole city plan is still legible on the ridge. Full guide to Ancient Thira.
Byzantines and Venetians in the History of Santorini
The Byzantine centuries. The island belonged to the Byzantine Empire, and the clearest surviving evidence is the church of Panagia Episkopi at Mesa Gonia, built around 1100 in the reign of Alexios I Komnenos. It is the oldest substantially intact building on the island. More on Mesa Gonia.
1204 and the Venetians. The next chapter in the history of Santorini began after the Fourth Crusade. After the Fourth Crusade the Aegean was carved up, and the island passed into the orbit of the Duchy of Naxos under Venetian rule, which lasted in various forms for over three centuries.
The name. This is the point in the history of Santorini where the modern name appears. Venetian and other western sailors knew the island by the name of a church – Santa Irini, Saint Irene – and Santorini is a contraction of it. The Greeks call the island Thira, and the two names have coexisted ever since. The church most often associated with the name stands at Riva on Thirasia.
The kastelli. The Venetian period is why the villages sit where they do. Piracy in the Aegean was constant, coastal settlements were indefensible, and the response was the fortified village: an outer ring of houses forming the defensive wall, with two gates and a deliberately confusing maze inside. Five were built on Santorini. Emporio has the best preserved, and Pyrgos a partial one with a castle above it.
Catholicism. Venetian rule left a Catholic community that survives to this day, which is unusual in the Cyclades and visible in Fira’s Catholic quarter.
The Ottoman Period and the Wine Trade in the History of Santorini
Ottoman rule. The island came under Ottoman control in the late sixteenth century, retaining substantial local autonomy in exchange for tax. Piracy continued, and the inland villages stayed inland.
Vinsanto. The most consequential economic chapter in the history of Santorini in the economic history of Santorini. The island’s sun-dried sweet wine found a large and reliable market in Russia, shipped as communion wine for the Orthodox Church. It was exported by the barrel for well over a century.
What the money built. The vaulted merchant mansions at Megalochori, the neoclassical houses at Mesaria dated 1888 and 1893, and the oversized churches at Karterados. Walk any of those villages and you are walking through the wine trade.
The fleet. Santorini also produced sea captains in numbers out of all proportion to its size, and the nineteenth-century merchant marine was the island’s second fortune. Karterados was one of the villages they came from.
The vines. The ungrafted, basket-trained vines you see today are a direct survival from this period. Phylloxera destroyed almost every European vineyard in the nineteenth century but could not travel through Santorini’s volcanic sand, so the island’s root systems were never replanted. Some are three or four centuries old.
The collapse. The turning point in the modern history of Santorini: the Russian Revolution ended the export market. Steam shipping and the Corinth Canal had already redrawn the trade routes. Within a generation both fortunes were gone, and that collapse is why the villages survive unmodernised.
Independence, Tomatoes and Pumice in the History of Santorini
Greek independence. The island joined the Greek state in the nineteenth century following the War of Independence, along with the rest of the Cyclades.
The tomato. The industrial chapter in the history of Santorini: from the late nineteenth century the small, dense, intensely sweet Santorini tomato was grown across the plain without irrigation and boiled down into paste for export. Factories were built along the east coast where boats could load, and tomato paste became one of the island’s two export trades alongside wine. The industry collapsed in the 1970s under cheaper competition and the arrival of tourism; the surviving factory buildings on the coast and the industrial museum at Vlychada are what remain of it.
Pumice. For more than a century the caldera islands were quarried for volcanic ash and pumice, used as cement material and exported in quantity – including, famously, for the construction of the Suez Canal. The quarrying scars are still visible on Thirasia and around the caldera, and it was during that quarrying that Bronze Age material was first noticed under the ash.
Occupation. Santorini was occupied during the Second World War and the islands paid heavily. Village memorials, including the two at Vourvoulos, record the dead and, at the entrance to that village, the place where villagers were executed.
1956: The Earthquake That Emptied the Island
The most recent turning point in the history of Santorini, and the one still visible everywhere.
What happened. The most recent rupture in the history of Santorini: on 9 July 1956 an earthquake of magnitude 7.7, centred near Amorgos, struck the southern Aegean. It was one of the largest European earthquakes of the twentieth century, and it was followed by a tsunami.
The damage. Santorini was hit hard. The caldera villages suffered worst, because they were built down a cliff face of loose volcanic ash and pumice. A large part of Oia’s town on the rim was destroyed. Inland, Mesa Gonia was wrecked so badly that most of its population walked down to Kamari and rebuilt on the coast rather than returning.
The emigration. This is the quietest chapter in the history of Santorini. The decades that followed emptied the island. Families left for Athens, for the mainland and for abroad, and the population fell sharply. Villages that had held hundreds held dozens.
Why the history of Santorini shaped the island as you see it. Two consequences you can see today. First, Kamari and Perissa are modern villages laid out on flat ground after 1956 by people starting again, which is why they have wide streets, parking and a promenade that no medieval village could have. Second, the inland villages were too poor to modernise and therefore survive intact.
Where to stand in it. Mesa Gonia, where roofless houses with vines growing through them stand beside restored courtyards, is the clearest surviving record of the earthquake anywhere on the island.
Tourism and the Modern History of Santorini
The 1970s and 1980s. The last turn in the history of Santorini so far. Tourism arrived on the caldera rim and transformed the economy within a generation. The cave houses that had been the cheapest housing on the island – rooms dug into pumice because building was expensive – became the most desirable, and the same excavation techniques now produce suites with plunge pools.
What it reached. The rim, essentially: Fira, Firostefani, Imerovigli and Oia, plus the black sand beaches at Kamari and Perissa. It did not cross the water to Thirasia and it barely touched the inland villages.
What that preserved of the history of Santorini. Everything this website’s villages of Santorini pages are about. Emporio’s kastelli, Megalochori’s mansions, the ravine houses at Vothonas and Karterados, and the working farming villages of the plain all survive because the money went elsewhere.
The scale today. Around fifteen thousand residents and roughly two million visitors a year, concentrated into six months and into a few square kilometres of clifftop.
The volcano now. Dormant, not extinct. The islets of Nea Kameni and Palia Kameni have been growing on the caldera floor since antiquity, the most recent eruptive activity was in the mid twentieth century, and the system is monitored continuously. Nea Kameni · Palia Kameni.
A Timeline of the History of Santorini
Neolithic – first human presence on the island.
c. 3000–1600 BC – Bronze Age settlement at Akrotiri grows into a substantial trading town.
c. 1600 BC – the Minoan eruption. The caldera forms, Akrotiri is buried, the island becomes a crescent.
c. 9th century BC – Dorian settlement; Ancient Thera founded on Mesa Vouno; the island takes the name Thera.
7th century BC – Thera founds the colony of Cyrene in North Africa.
3rd century BC – Ptolemaic Egypt garrisons the island; Ancient Thera expands.
Roman and Byzantine period – the city continues; Panagia Episkopi built around 1100.
1204 onwards – Venetian rule; the kastelli villages are fortified against piracy; the name Santorini appears.
Late 16th century – Ottoman control, with local autonomy.
17th–19th centuries – the Vinsanto trade with Russia and the rise of the merchant fleet.
19th century – union with Greece; the tomato industry and pumice quarrying begin.
1917 onwards – the Russian Revolution ends the wine export market.
1939–1945 – occupation.
9 July 1956 – the Amorgos earthquake; widespread destruction and emigration.
1970s onwards – tourism arrives on the caldera rim.
Today – around fifteen thousand residents, two million visitors, and a dormant volcano under continuous watch.
Where to See the History of Santorini
Every chapter in the history of Santorini above is standing somewhere on the island. This is where.
Akrotiri – the Bronze Age town under its shelter. Roofed, shaded and the most important site on the island. Guide.
Ancient Thira – the Greek and Roman city on the ridge, with the theatre hanging over a six-hundred-foot drop. Guide.
Panagia Episkopi, Mesa Gonia – the Byzantine church of around 1100, and the earthquake ruins around it. Guide.
Emporio – the medieval kastelli, complete, and a third-century BC marble temple that became a church. Guide.
Pyrgos – the Venetian castle and the old capital. Guide.
Megalochori and Mesaria – the wine money, in mansions and canavas. Megalochori · Mesaria.
Vothonas and Karterados – the ravine villages, built out of sight of pirates. Vothonas · Karterados.
Nea Kameni – the volcano itself, still venting. Guide.
The museums in Fira – the Museum of Prehistoric Thera holds the Akrotiri frescoes and finds; the Archaeological Museum holds the material from Ancient Thera. Fira.
The caldera wall – from any boat. Three hundred metres of the eruption in section.
Frequently Asked Questions About the History of Santorini
When did the Santorini volcano erupt? The Minoan eruption is dated to around 1600 BC. The precise date is debated, with radiocarbon evidence pointing earlier than traditional archaeological dating.
Was Santorini once round? Yes. Before the eruption it was a round island, generally called Strongyli, meaning the round one. The caldera formed when the centre collapsed.
Is Santorini Atlantis? Nobody knows. The parallel is real and has been argued seriously since the nineteenth century, but Plato’s dates, dimensions and location do not match. It is a hypothesis, not a fact.
Why is it called Santorini? From Santa Irini, Saint Irene – a name given by western sailors after a church. The Greek name is Thira, after Theras, the Dorian founder.
What is the oldest building on Santorini? Leaving aside the buried Bronze Age town, the church of Panagia Episkopi at Mesa Gonia, from around 1100.
What happened at Akrotiri? A Bronze Age town was buried under volcanic ash and preserved. It had been evacuated first, which is why almost no bodies or valuables were found.
Why are the villages inland? Piracy. From the medieval period into the eighteenth century the Aegean was raided constantly, so settlements were built out of sight of the sea, in hollows, on ridges or behind walls.
What is a kastelli? A fortified village where the outer ring of houses forms the defensive wall. Five were built on the island; Emporio has the best preserved.
What was the 1956 earthquake? A magnitude 7.7 earthquake centred near Amorgos on 9 July 1956, which destroyed much of the caldera villages and emptied Mesa Gonia.
Why are the vines grown in baskets? To shelter the fruit from the meltemi and catch night humidity, on an island with almost no rain. The vines are also ungrafted, because phylloxera could not spread through volcanic sand.
Is the volcano still active? Dormant rather than extinct. Nea Kameni still vents steam and gas, and the system is monitored continuously.
How old is the wine trade in the history of Santorini? The Vinsanto export to Russia ran from roughly the seventeenth century until the Russian Revolution.
When does tourism enter the history of Santorini? Meaningfully in the 1970s and 1980s, on the caldera rim.
Where can I learn more about the history of Santorini on the island? The Museum of Prehistoric Thera and the Archaeological Museum, both in Fira, and the two excavation sites.
Tours That Cover the History of Santorini
We are a licensed local operator with guides who live on the island year round. Prices are per vehicle rather than per person, pickup is included from anywhere including both ports, and an 80€ deposit confirms the date.
Historical tour – the tour built for this page. Akrotiri and Ancient Thira with a guide, which is the difference between a set of low walls and a city.
Full day tour – eight hours from 460€, the whole island with a traditional village stop.
Wine tour – four and a half hours from 650€, three estates and the ungrafted vines that survived phylloxera.
South part tour – five hours from 280€, Akrotiri, the coloured beaches and the inland villages.
Personalised tour – from 220€, built around whichever parts of the history of Santorini interest you.
Every itinerary and all prices are on the santorini tours page, and our private transfers cover the airport and both ports from 40€.
A Final Word on the History of Santorini
Most islands keep their history in a museum. The history of Santorini is not kept in one. This one keeps it in the ground, in the walls and in the shape of the coastline.
The cliff is the eruption in section. The town under the ash is the day it happened. The city on the ridge is what came a thousand years after. The fortified villages are six centuries of piracy. The mansions are wine sold to Russia. The roofless houses at Mesa Gonia are a July morning in 1956. The cave suite you are sleeping in was the cheapest housing on the island within living memory.
Almost none of it costs anything to look at, and all of it is within forty minutes of wherever you are staying.
Send us your dates and party size and we will build a day around the history of Santorini – the two great sites, the Byzantine church, the kastelli and the villages the wine money built.
Reading the History of Santorini on the Ground
A short field guide, because the history of Santorini is easier to see than to read about.
Look at the cliff. The pale band near the top is the Minoan eruption; the darker rock beneath it is older lava from earlier cycles. That single line is the moment the history of Santorini divides in two.
Look at the vines. Coiled into baskets on the ground rather than trained upright. Ungrafted, some of them centuries old, and a direct survival from the wine trade.
Look at the doors. A blank high wall with one ornate arched gateway means merchant money and a defensive habit. Megalochori is full of them.
Look at the lanes. If they are narrow, vaulted and confusing, you are inside a kastelli and the history of Santorini put you there to make an attacker’s life difficult.
Look at the roofs. Barrel vaults, because a vault survives an earthquake better than a flat span. Every one of them is a comment on 1956 and on the centuries before it.
Look under the houses. Cisterns, in a place with no rivers and almost no rain. That constraint shaped the entire vernacular.
Look at what is roofless. At Mesa Gonia, the 1956 earthquake. At Agrilia on Thirasia, the emigration that followed it.
Look at the cave houses. Dug rather than built, because building cost money the islanders did not have. The most expensive rooms on the island today are the ones the poorest people lived in a century ago, which is as neat a summary of the history of Santorini as you will get.
Every Village and Site on the Island
Any of these can be built into a private itinerary. Each has its own page with what to see and how long to allow.
Caldera villages: Fira · Firostefani · Imerovigli · Oia · Finikia · Baxedes
Inland villages: Pyrgos · Megalochori · Emporio · Mesaria · Karterados · Vothonas · Vourvoulos · Exo Gonia · Mesa Gonia · Pigadia
Beaches: Perissa · Perivolos · Kamari · Vlychada · Monolithos · Red Beach · White Beach · Agios Georgios · Agia Paraskevi
Sites and landmarks: Akrotiri · Ancient Thira · Akrotiri Lighthouse · Nea Kameni · Palia Kameni · Thirasia · Athinios Port
All our tours: All Santorini tours · Full day tour · Sightseeing tour · Personalised tour · North part tour · Horse riding · South part tour · Sunset tour · Shore excursion · Caldera tour · Food experience · Wine tour · Historical tour · Small group tour
Planning and services: Famous sights tour · Private transfers · Transfers to Oia and Finikia · Transfers to other villages · Villages of Santorini · Tours near you · Languages we guide in · Food and fun tours · Gay friendly tours · Our tour buses · Daily tours · Day tours · FAQ · Gallery · Tour photo gallery · About us · Contact · Blog
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