Thera and its Prehistoric Ruins. 143 settlement of some two hundred and fifty years' standing/ On the other hand, a hundred years at least must be allowed before the island returned to its normal state, and was again fit for human habitation ; perhaps even a longer time was necessary to assuage the fears of men against the recurrence of another such disaster. Our answer to the objection as to the unlikelihood that so momentous a catastrophe should have been clean wiped out of men's memory, is that the Archipelago was then very sparsely populated, that communications between the different islands had scarcely commenced, and that Thera lies far away to the south, the farthest from the group of the Cyclades. Geologists and scholars alike arrive independently at the same conclusion, and place the disaster which gave birth to the Bay of Santorin about 2000 b.c.^ This eruption, as we said above, occurred a hundred, perhaps hundreds of years before Sidonian mariners began to ply their boats in the Archipelago, distributing among its islands the products of Egypto-Chaldaean industry. Evidences, whether historical, archaeological, or literary, establish the fact that the Phoenicians obtained seats at Thera which they long retained. Hence one is almost tempted to assume that towards the end of the eruption they were the first to get a foothold in the long-deserted island. Rumour of the disaster was not likely to have reached their fathers, then still dwelling in the far-off islands of the Persian Gulf, or at any rate hardly venturing away from the Syrian coasts. No disagreeable recollection kept them off from waters so admirably fenced in, and which they visited for the first time. Was the land empty ? — all the better for them, since they would not have to fight for seats or fear competition. That the spot was a desirable one for implanting an important factory, and stores to supply markets presently to be opened all over the Cyclades, was palpably evident. The theory that the Phoenicians were sole occupiers of the island until the arrival of the colony from Sparta has this in its favour, that it will explain why all remembrance of the old ^ Herodotus. - Observations made in the regions of the strait of the Sound, which the eruption of the Krakatau in 1883 covered with ashes and pumice, allow us to form a notion of the time required for the modification of surfaces lying deep under volcanic substances and their fitness for human abode. In this estimate allowance should be made for different localities. In the equatorial zone, rains are much more abundant and heat is far more intense than at Thera.
