The Minoan Eruption: Bronze Age Cataclysm

The Ancients

History Hit

History

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 7 September 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

More than 3,500 years ago, a massive volcanic eruption devastated Thera - modern day Santorini - engulfing the Bronze Age world in ash and fire. Entire landscapes were buried, ash darkened the skies, and the shockwaves rippled across the eastern Mediterranean.

In this episode of The Ancients, the first in our new special series on Great Disasters, Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr Steve Kershaw to uncover what really happened. Did this disaster spark the decline of the Minoans? Could it even lie behind Plato’s legend of Atlantis? Join us this month to step into the chaos and witness how catastrophe reshaped some of the most famous ancient civilisations.

Bronze Age Collapse:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4dEddIFS5yfamKqVZd6xAE?si=7f45c994dd5f4e82

Hephaestus: God of Fire:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2DLYVCLmrHxXZxQ7rMBREv?si=5b950d9c22ee4448

Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan and the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.

All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds

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Transcript

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1:21.2	They say basically that the sun disappeared.
1:23.8	Witness a world where nature reigns supreme and catastrophe rewrote the story of civilization.
1:30.7	Huge volcanic bombs are coming out of the sky, these great rocks about three feet across, crashing through the material.
1:37.5	In the ancient world, disaster was always lurking.
1:41.3	Earthquakes and volcanoes flattened and buried mighty cities in an instant.
1:46.0	Drought and plague wiped out civilizations without mercy.
1:50.0	So if you've got an empire, that too becomes immensely vulnerable and prone to collapse.
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