The Cousteau Odyssey; Calypso's Search for Atlantis; Part 2

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a little bit more of that, I'm going to do a little bit more of it, I'm going to do a little bit more of it , I'm going to do a little bit more of it, I'm going to monter Like great explained , scattered upon the Sea, the Greek islands still bear witness to the changing myths of western men. here athecy has killed a Minotaur here athecy has killed a Minotaur here athecy has killed the Minotaur here athecy had flew too close to the sun here ecy's beat his storm tossed away back to Ithaca against the wrath of the sea guard, Poseidon.

Today, a gentler guard rules these waters. Upon the crags and promontories of even the most desolate islands, men have set the symbols of a new protective deity. Around church and shrine, by the vestiges of earlier times, across the landscape, walls of rubble trace the broken history of our beginnings. The ruined stages of dramas we often can only guess. Beneath the sea, lie

mysterious shapes and littered cargo from the sunken ships of antiquity. Fathoms below the surface, rests a burial sarcophagus that never reached its intended occupant. Here, the columns for a temple was never built. And what of Atlantis does it too lie drowned in the Aegean? Object of search since Plato first described it, is it fiction? Or is it the shadowed memory of a remote, actual event reshaped by human imaginings? With the colipso anchored at the island of Syrah, off northern Crete, Cousteau searches for evidence to prove or disprove scholarly theories that Atlantis and Manoan civilization were the same. Beneath the

helicopter, Syrah is merit waste. It is hard to imagine that once it was forested and green, that these scattered Manoan ruins may have been part of the Atlantis Plato described. Manoan art some trade dominated the Eastern Mediterranean for 1500 years. Then, in the 15th century before Christ, Manoan power went into abrupt decline. Why? What suddenly have so weakened Crete that she now could be overrun by Greeks from the mainland? Because Syrah is one of the few shelters for ships on Crete's exposed northern coast, Cousteau is hopeful that its surrounding waters may reveal useful clues. Helped into his suit by diver Patrick Delamont, whom he jokingly calls his favorite dresser, Cousteau with companions Raymond Call and Iván Jacoletto,

repairs to make an underwater reconnaissance. What they camera to record their finds, they make their first dive beside the peninsula that juts like a bony finger into the sea. The helicopter views look promising, but we are totally unprepared for the astonishing apparition that awaits us. Along the slanting shelf

of the bottom, their stretches perpendicular to the shore and uneven wall, indented by bays or scallops, extending some hundred yards long and thirty yards wide. It is in fact an immense deposit of pottery, literally hundreds of thousands of vases, pictures and cups. So if you like detached, most have been cemented together in one huge bristling mass by the chemical action of the sea. What on earth could have caused such an assemblage of pottery vessels, many still undamaged, and

as serenely beautiful as this simple cup. Only later, remembering the bays that broke the wall, would it occur to me that perhaps it was once a row of ancient ships, each laden with the jars, by which trade -offs transported ores, wines, spices and other commodities in early times. Then, sunken, the cargoes had retained the rough contours of the hull as the ship's timbers rotted and disappeared. Yet why would it dosen ships, fully laden, sink almost side by side as if tied to a pier or jetty? And what is the significance of the random building stones we find? As we drift in growing puzzlement, I meet another living creature,

an aplisia or sea hare, a large mollusk without a shell. Willingly, he joins in a worldless play with his plunger, but he gives me no answers. Still been used by the multiple questions raised by the pottery wall,

Gusteau returns to the deck of Calypso. To chief diver Albert Falco, he describes the extraordinary accumulation of artifacts lying beneath the Calypso's hull. Some of the pots can be pried loose quite readily, but most of the jars and cups are deeply embedded in the rigid mass. A large chunk of the conglomerate is hoisted to the deck for a closer look. Though the vivid colors of the living algae will quickly fade, Gusteau

believes the fragment will serve as an interesting exhibit, revealing the condition in which artifacts are often recovered from the sea. With Lazarus Colonus, archaeologist and official representative of the Greek government, he demonstrates the position of the pottery and later discusses the mystery of the wall. It was like this on the bottom,

I think in museum it's very interesting. Equally baffled by the immense deposit, Colonus hazards a guess that the pottery has been discarded over long periods by the people living on the peninsula. But Gusteau disagrees, points out that the pottery is too far from shore. So if it was falling from the here, it would be there, it is not there, it is here. Ah, bizarre, huh? Under the watchful eye of Colonus, the Calypso team is permitted to gather examples of the pottery and bring them to the surface, a cautious and laborious process. Many of the pots, Gusteau discovers, have become sanctuaries for small fish.

One large bowl now is the residence of his yearl. A fish which punctually buries itself in the sand to rest each day according to its own in a clock. Sadly, the Jurel is sent house hunting, as Falco brings her former home on deck. You see here, on this side, little fish were living, that was the home of a little fish. Day by day, a growing array of pitchers small to handle

them for us and bowls are brought up from the great reef of pottery in the bay. Almost without exception, Colonus declares they belong to the Minoan civilization, which suddenly collapsed in the middle of the 15th century before Christ. This is the most beautiful. You see, to my opinion, thoughts like this, were not thrown away. They were not thrown away. It must be an accident. Because

they are beautiful and at this time they were valuable. I'm sure. So they cannot have been thrown away. They must have been a big accident. They must have been sent to examine the pottery wall for himself. Odd and delighted by the vast display below, Colonus returns to the clip so deck, laden with treasures. We know him. We know him, we know him.

We thought this is very small. This is the same with the river. If I would do it without... Among the artifacts he has salvaged is a curious cup. Whose handle has been placed on the inside, perhaps to protect the most breakable pot. It is, in Falco's opinion, a questionable advantage when to pour the sauce. One has to put his fingers in it. We know him. Wishing to make a more extensive investigation of the

site, Christo now deploys the sussus, the compressor driven suction pipe. Although a larger pipe is used in the excavation of wider areas, a narrower probe or so -called ballpoint, such as the one here employed, is more efficient in making test penetrations in a random pattern. Working at the depth of 120 feet, the sussus throws up an underwater shower of debris as dismoved from one location to another. At first,

only a few minor artifacts are found. Then, almost everywhere, buried under two feet of sediment, the sussus reveals a large number of building stones with chiseled contours. Neither arise in the water level nor the remote possibility that they were lost as part of a ship's cargo. Satisfactually explains their presence so far off shore. Scattered widely, the stones appear to have been hurled from the settlement on the peninsula by some colossal force. With colonists and the young interpreter, John Mark Eulerus, Christo goes ashore to explore the site of the old port town once built along the peninsula. More and more,

Christo is beginning to share some of the views of such scholars as Frost, Luce, Galenopolis and Marinatos, who argued that the collapse of manoewned power and the evidence of widespread destruction throughout the eastern Mediterranean were all related to the same vast geologic upheavals. Everywhere, atop the peninsula, overlooking the bay, the shattered remains of tiny manoewn houses lie around them. One meter twenty -five, only. And about three meters comes up to here, two meters, two kilometers long. How is it that these houses, these habitations are so small, so no? The colonists explain that both in dwellings and workshops, an assembly

of small rooms, was more stable and was characteristic of the time. You know this wall, it's not very thick, but it's very long. And it's on the top. What is it? It's not easy, it's there for both. This is a whole building, which is over there, and which is at the upper part of the city. And all around this palace are the houses, the warehouses, the habitations and the shops, which are surrounded the palace. But it's all flat on this floor. I think I can imagine what happened in this place and all over the Mediterranean. You know the problem of cleats, the problem

of cleats is the sea, raised by the north winds, the heavy seas, beating the north on coast of cleats, where there are very few shelters. So the small ships of antiquity were seeking shelter in Dia or here in Psyra, like Calypso, for example. And I can imagine dozens of ships, of antique ships, here in this bay, one near the other. And then suddenly when the explosion of Santorini began, there was a tidal wave. And I can imagine this huge tidal wave, 30 feet high, coming here, sweeping clean, all this peninsular, all the houses washed clean into the sea, and sank all the ships at once. And I can imagine, I can dream of this catastrophe, where all the minor in ships, all the ships of antiquity were sank, all over the Mediterranean in the same bay by this tidal wave. If indeed, Minoan civilization was the original

of Plato's Atlantis, then the answers to its sudden destruction may well lie 75 miles north of Crete, at the island sometimes known as Santorini, with more commonly called Thera. Here, once again, the helicopter lifts off to make the first reconnaissance. From the air, Thera today resembles the shards of a broken cup 10 miles across. The fragments are all at remain of a single island that

erupted about 1450 BC, in what is estimated to have been the loudest explosion ever heard on Earth. Around the Caldara, where once a mountain stood, the inner rim of cliffs revealed the successive layers of Thera, the volcanic pumice and ash deposited were more than 50 cubic miles of material. They were lifted into the air and carried across the entire east Mediterranean basin. From the shore, a path of long cement steps zigzags up the cliff for over a mile to the little town of Thera, perched at the top. Waterless, dependent on rainfall trapped in systems or brought by ship, the Thera inhabitants raise little produce, are largely dependent upon the deposits left by the eruptions and

earthquakes that still shake the island. From the layers of ash and pumice, ship loads of material were carried away in the 1860s for the building of the Suez Canal. Since classical times, the cliffs have even served as a kind of human recovery, where people have built dwellings and storerooms by scooping caves out of the pumice. At the center of the Caldara, the Cameni Islands, the twin cones of a new volcano, have appeared since the immense earlier eruption. The first, a

layer Cameni, in the second century before Christ, the other, a layer Cameni, less than 400 years ago. Once again, the geologic cycle is in motion, building a new volcano which will explode in some new cataclysm, perhaps 10 ,000 years from now. Parked with small craters, some filled with sulfur pools or simply gases, it is a landscape indifferent to man. From the deck of Calypso, the centered shoreline of Nea Cameni appears grim and forbidding. With Falco and old associate Frederick Dumas, who stole outlines plans for an underwater survey at a depth of 60 to 120 feet along the north side of the island, the objective

to search for caves or fishers or indications of volcanic activity, as well as any possible signs of human artifacts. But the diving team finds no bottom, only the sheer face of a precipice that falls away and vanishes in the murky depths. Upon this steep wall, the divers find no evidence of archaeological

remains of Atlantis, or any other civilization, only an austere and formidable environment that makes no concessions to human need. Here, a stream of bubbles is a silent omen that deep below the great sea -filled cavity, geologic forces are still in motion. The sea -filled cavity is a silent omen that deep below the great sea -filled cavity is a silent omen that deep below the great sea -filled cavity, or any other civilization that deep below the great sea -filled cavity. Thus, great areas of

the volcanic basin lie well beyond the range of the divers. To explore this previously impenetrable domain, Cousteau now reties the Sukoup for the journey, equipped with lights and camera and its own self -contained environment. It is a small, two -man world in which Cousteau and Falco will go down nearly a thousand feet. The hook from the hoist is removed. We are free.

We begin our descent into the void once occupied by the fiery magma chamber, which would pulverize a mountain, scatter it over 200 ,000 square miles, obliterate cultures, and change forever the course of human history. Yet, life returns. We begin our descent into the void once occupied by the fiery magma chamber, which would pulverize a mountain, scatter it over 200 ,000 square miles. As we sink into the barren depths, the darkness closes round us.

Even our powerful lights find nothing but an impenetrable black emptiness. For a long instant, I feel that, like Dante, I am an ejournate to hell. We begin our descent into the void once occupied by the fiery magma chamber, which would pulverize a mountain, scatter it over 200 ,000 square miles. Again, I think of all often, we stare the heavens in wonder. Yet, our blind to the constellations near us, the interlocked worlds of unnumbered forms

of life, each forever testing the limits within which it exists. The snail or the girl, the crab or the whale, the little girer with its inner metronome. It is only man who lives under the illusion that by crossing the walls of his environment, as indeed we have in the Sukup, he has conquered nature. In the Caldera, all was calm. The violence of what may have been Earth's greatest explosion seemed remote, impossible, a trick of human memory. Now, the Sukup emerges from stileness unto storm, where a running sea threatens to smash it against the Calypso's hull. We're going to see the Calypso's

hull. We're going to see the Calypso's hull. We're going to see the Calypso's hull. We're going to see the Calypso's hull. We're going to see the Calypso's hull. We're going to see the Calypso's hull. We're going to see the Calypso's hull. Finally, the cable is patched and held taught by the launch against threatened collision. to see the Calypso's hull.

We're going to see the Calypso's hull. We're going to see the Calypso's hull. This is the Calypso's hull. This is the Calypso's hull. This is the Calypso's hull. This is the Calypso's hull. Yes, it's good. Two his associates, Gusto, tells of a singular discovery, nearly 500 feet down, and a depth well beyond that reached by the free divers, and a well

beyond the life zone in the Caldera. They have found a remarkable scene, perhaps five feet in width, that forms an almost continuous band around the underwater flanks of Naya Kameni. Unlike the larger rock above and below it, Gusto and Falco report, the scene is composed of Scoria, small broken stones which have been seared and blackened by great heat and flame. Based on his own observation and prevailing opinion among geologists, Gusto believes the scorching of the rock has occurred not long ago and that it represents clear evidence of continuing volcanic activity in the new magma chamber beneath the Earth's crust. Deceptively peaceful now, the great giant still mutters in its sleep.

Even in relatively recent times, in 1925, in 1938, and even as late as 1956, eruptions and tremors have caused lives and damage on Thera that is still visible. None have even remotely approached the disastrous effects of the original paroxysm. The earthquakes that accompanied it, the fallout that destroyed crops and trees, finally the tidal wave that sank ships and swept away communities throughout the Aegean. One of the world's foremost volcanologists, Harun Taziev, describes what must have happened. Dr Taziev, we have prepared the scale model of Santorini. As we guess, it looked like 4 ,000 years ago before the explosion, a little

steeper, a little steeper, four times exaggerated. Now, what are your ideas about how it happened? Well, my ideas are based upon what all the specialists have studied very carefully for many, many years. Well, according to geological evidence, it is almost sure that the volcano was apparently extinct. It was inactive since several centuries when, approximately 3 ,500 years ago, it resumed its activity. And this first eruption after many centuries of repose was very violent indeed and most probably people who have not been killed had to evacuate the island. The geological evidence is clear about this phase.

And after this first eruption, which lasted maybe a few days, a few weeks, maybe a few months, the volcano again was asleep for a while, 10 or 20 years. After this lull, the eruption started a new and in a few days it grew in intensity up to a formidable paroxys. At Santorini, at Sara Volcano, the eruption grew and grew in intensity and in the last hours of this paroxysmic activity, tremendous huge quantities of energy and rocky material were hurled into the air. After all this matter had been ejected, the huge cave was created down below

and when all had been expelled, the upper part of the volcano collapsed suddenly in this cave. And this collapse created the huge cauldera. See, the water followed, was sucked in and then tremendous tidal waves were created. In a model basin, a Hollywood studio once attempted to recreate the awesome power of its tsunami or tidal wave. If there remain any vestiges of a possible Atlantis site in the cauldera, there is now no visible evidence. Any artifacts would lie forever buried

under a huge mantle of volcanic ash. Even today, slight disturbance of the tephra along the steep underwater slope causes a ghostly avalanche. As sure, the unstable tephra offers advantages. Believing Thera and Cree jointly formed the basis of the Atlantis legend, archaeologists at Thera in 1967 began excavations and now supervised by Dr. Christos Dumas. Does this represent the entire city of Arcotiri? No, only one part of it, and we don't know what percentage of the city this uncovered area represents because we have no limit in any point of the city. You never reached the limit? No.

What is this house here? Here, we have the north facade of the house delta and here is the staircase leading up to the first floor. What is this square? This is a square which is because of its shape it's called the Triangle Square. And here we have a large window in front of the building. Here is an interesting passage under the building connecting the two sides of the street. Oh yes, for this piece. Do you think that the people had time to evacuate the city? Certainly, because first of all, we don't find any skeletons. And no victims have been noticed so far. And secondly, we have no precious objects, jewelry vessels of

precious metals, etc. So it is rather certain that they had the time to evacuate. Already, more than 40 ,000 square feet lie under a protective shelter. Oh, it's enormous. What is it? It's incredible. Under the roof, a growing network of streets still terminates in the encircling volcanic ash. Yet, like the amphoras and household artifacts embedded in the Tefra still awaiting release, out of the centuries a community where people worked and laughed and dreamed is slowly emerging. What was the seat of the room? This is the room of the lilies. It was covered with frescoes, all three walls. This tiny, well, little room. Yes.

And in front of us there was a large painting of the frescoes with some solos. And the solos were here? Yes. Oh, they are beautiful. And the other wall, much narrower, had also another swallow which goes to land on a flower. And on the other wall there also the solos which were kissing. Oh, yes. And what was this room used for? We don't know, but it was found literally packed with pottery. About 250 houses were found here. And also the bed, which is in the museum, was also here. So it must have been a small sleeping room. Probably. Here the past is very close. The sound of my own footfall might have been 4 ,000 years ago. It is easy to believe that in the spellbound square, time has

stood still. That in a moment children will come out to play. It was in this building that we found the frescoes of the fleet, of the fishermen, of the... In this building? Yes. In this building. The long panel found in the so -called Admiral's house shows deer pursued by alliance not found in Europe. Painted in the miniature style of the frescoes at Gnosis in Crete, the long elegant ships of the Flotilla show the clear influence of Egyptian design. Although sometimes believed to depict a naval battle, there is no portrayal of actual combat. It seems more likely that the fresco may record a formal ceremonial visit from an North African country to Crete or Thera. It is also possible that it is intended as a naive representation of the old legend that the first settlers in Crete

were guided there by dolphins. . We are with you. Here we are in the Pitha Historum. This just were found containing different kinds of grains. Some of these are enormous. Yes, they were hard -containing remains of various kinds of crops and seeds. And as you can see, some of them could contain several hundreds of kilos inside. And why so many? Well, there isn't why. We tried to interpret this room as a store room for the community, rather than for a family. As you see

here, we have a large window at street level. At street level, you generally don't have windows, is that right? We have windows, but not so large, small windows. But we have this evidence that they were paid workers and slaves in olives, in figs, in flower, etc. And probably somebody was sitting inside keeping the accounting. There was a queue outside. There was a queue, and they were giving our names. Yes. And if this happened, then we could easily consider this room as a bank. It's all for a bank. That's interesting. And these are in position now, you see, how nicely decorated they are. And they are still full of ash. We did not empty them yet. Oh, it's beautiful. And they had practically no animals here. In the city, there is no evidence that animals lived in these houses. Because it was a thickly

populated area. Yes. Now, do you think there were frescoes in every house in this town? So far, there is no house which has been excavated without frescoes. Really? Yes. Is it not unusual? It is unusual. And this is the reason why we believe that this was a wealthy community living here. And this suggests that the people were conducting activities supplying with this wealth. And this cannot be anything else than trade and shipping. And probably we can say here that we have a sort of wealthy bourgeois society. Of sheep owners. Of sheep owners. How long do you think it will be until all this site is excavated? I cannot estimate about all this site, but I can estimate what is under the roof. And this at least requires 50 years of... 50 years? Well, it's not much. When you count in centuries. I thought it could go a little faster than that. It is difficult to go faster because,

as you know, the excavation is something like a book of which the pages after being read are destroyed. So we have to go very carefully and read very carefully, record everything before we destroy the page. Well, here it is a typical example of the procedure, how we do with the restoration of the frescoes. Here we have a corridor, the sides of which, as you see, they were covered with frescoes. We immediately blocked the whole thing and packed it with ash, volcanic ash, waiting for the specialist to come. Meanwhile, the parts which are uncovered have been covered with goes, which is stuck on them, waiting. And from this place come these fragments, which show that we have really flowers again. So, under the gaze here are pictures. Yes, there is a very treasure right here. Yes, exactly. Here

in the laboratory we have several thousands of fragments like this covered with goes. And they are kept in drawers. Each drawer contains fragments from a different place. They are all catalogued and classified. For several layers in each? Yes, several layers in each drawer, you see. We have worked for several years here in the laboratory. So, that's the table on which you put the fragments together? Yes, this is the ultimate chick's opazelo. I should tell you so. We have so many fragments after the goes is removed. And in this we have a unique piece from this site with the left decoration. And in these frames we have this kind of sunflower or rosettes. And when do you think this enormous work will be finished? Well, it requires several months of

work, if not a year, to be... Before it is time to attend to the National Museum. The salvaged bits of the paintings are transported to the museum laboratories in Athens. There, like a laboratory, chicks are puzzles in which many of the pieces are missing. The frescoes are paints takingly reassembled by artisans and technicians. But the history of man and his illusions is less precise, flawed by uncertainties. Though there are powerful arguments that creating its rich satellite theatre could have served as Plato's model for a high civilization destroyed by cataclysm, the jigsaw puzzle of the Atlantis myth remains incomplete. But perhaps there has left us something more. The

eruption that ended the supremacy of manoe and culture preserved and volcanic dust, these evidences of it. The shimmering landscape of western civilizations, Virgin Spring. In their frescoes, the

manoe and artists told us of a great joy, a fragrant world of animals and flowering plants of playing children and mating birds. But they also revealed a less visible interior landscape, the poised serenity of a golden age in art, an open joy in the senses, the innocence of a civilization that believed it might last forever. Today, in the depths of a caldera, Sponge fishermen find an arduous and uncertain living. In good years and bad, they come to harvest the sponges for the market, ethygiene on their Athens. They have put aside the old helmet to the surface of the sea, and diving suits now depend on multiple air

hoses attached to a common source of the surface. Out of experience, each team is improvised its own decompression system, but the danger remains. Almost all by the age of 40 have been crippled by the bends. It is, they feel, part of the cost of gathering sponges. On the rim in Thera, the artists no longer paint frescoes. Yet, life goes on. Each day is a reminder that man has always lived on the edge, of extinction by earthquake or plague, by famine or his own folly.

Here, each man knows it is best to tend once field, and be thrifty with water, keep peace with neighbors, pray to whatever gods are handy, and if your wings are made of wax, do not fly too close to the sun. The Cousteau Society

and KCET are jointly responsible for the content of this program. The Cousteau Odyssey is made possible by a grand from the Atlantic Ridgefield Company. Thank you.