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

<v Speaker 1>The Cousteau Odyssey is made possible by a grant from the Atlantic Richfield Company. [music plays] <v Speaker 2>Like great stones scattered upon the sea, the Greek islands still bear witness to the changing myths of Western man. Here, Theseus killed the Minotaur. Here, Icarus flew too close to the sun. Here, Ulysses beat his storm-tossed way back to Ithaca against the wrath of the sea god, Poseidon. Today, a gentler God 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 like 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 very old sarcophagus that never reached its intended occupant. Here, the columns for a temple that 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 Calypso anchored at the island of Thera of northern Crete, Cousteau searches for evidence to prove or disprove scholarly theories that Atlantis and Minoan civilization were the same. Beneath the helicopter, Thera is an arid waste. It is hard to imagine that once it was forested and green, that these scattered Minoan ruins may have been part of the Atlantis Plato described. Minoan arts and trade dominated the eastern Mediterranean for 1500 years. Then, in the 15th century before Christ, Minoan power went into abrupt decline. Why? What suddenly had so weakened Crete that she now could be overrun by Greeks from the mainland. [speaking French] Because Thera 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 Coll and Yvonne Carletto prepares to make an underwater reconnaissance. With a camera to record their finds, they make their first dove beside the peninsula that juts like a bony finger into the sea. [water splashing] [music plays]

<v Jacques Cousteau>The helicopter views looked promising, but we are totally unprepared for the astonishing operation that awaits us. Along the slanting shelf of the bottom there stretches perpendicular to the shore and uneven wall and dented by bays of scallops extending some hundred yards long and 30 yards wide. It is, in fact, an immense deposit of pottery, literally hundreds of thousands of vases, pitchers and cups, so if you lie 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 a as beautiful as this simple cup? Only later, remembering the ?inaudible? that broke the wall when it occurred to me that perhaps it was once a row of ancient ships, each laden with the jars by which traders transported oils, wines, spices and other commodities in early times. Then, sunken, the cargoes had retained the rough contours of the hull as a ship's timbers rotted and disappeared. Yet why would a dozen 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, anaspidea or sea hare, a large mollusk without the shell. Willingly, he joins in wordless play with a stranger. But it gives me no answers.

<v Speaker 2>Still bemused by the multiple questions raised by the pottery wall, Cousteau returns to the deck of Calypso [speaking French]. To chief diver Albert Falco, he describes the extraordinary accumulation of artifacts lying beneath the Calypso's hull. [speaking French] Some of the pots can be pried loose quite readily, but most of the jars and cups are deeply embedded in the rigid mass. [speaking French] A large chunk of the conglomerate is hoisted to the deck for a closer look. [speaking French] [machine whirring] Though the vivid colors of the living algae will quickly fade, Cousteau believes the fragment will serve as an interesting exhibit, revealing the condition in which artifacts are often recovered from the sea. [speaking French] With ?Lazaros Colonus?, archeologist and official representative of the Greek government, he demonstrates the position of the pottery and later discusses the mystery of the wall.

<v Jacques Cousteau>Beautiful. ?inaudible? Turn it over. [speaking French] Because like this on the bottom- I think the museum is very interested. [speaking French]

<v Speaker 2>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 Cousteau disagrees, points out that the pottery is too far from shore, <v Jacques Cousteau>?inaudible? It would be there. It is not there, it is here. Eh! <v Speaker 2>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. [music plays] Many of the pots Cousteau discovers have become sanctuaries for small fish. One large bowl now is the residents of a jurel, a fish, which punctually buries itself in the sand to rest each day according to its own inner clock.

<v Jacques Cousteau>[speaking French]

<v Speaker 2>Sadly, the jurel is sent house-hunting as Falco brings her former home on deck. <v Jacques Cousteau>?inaudible? You see here on this side, little fish were living. That was the home of the little fish. [inaudible talking] [machine whirring] <v Speaker 2>Day by day, a growing array of pitchers, small two handled amphoras and bowls are brought up from the great reef of pottery in the bay. [speaking French] Almost without exception, Colonus declares they belong to the Minoan civilization, which suddenly collapsed in the middle of the 15th century before Christ. <v Lazaros Colonus>All this is we know it.

<v Jacques Cousteau>This is the most beautiful. Oh! [speaking French] You see, to my opinion pots like this-. <v Lazaros Colonus>Yes. <v Jacques Cousteau>Were not thrown away. They were not thrown away, it must be an accident. Because they are beautiful and they had this tangible value, I'm sure. So they cannot- they cannot have been thrown away. There must have been a big accident. <v Speaker 2>A courageous diver, though lacking the prolonged daily experience of the Calypso team, Colonus now makes the descent to examine the pottery wheel for himself. Awed and delighted by the vast display below, Colonus returns to the Calypso deck laden with treasures. <v Jacques Cousteau>So, how is it? [laughing] [inaudibly muttering].

<v Lazaros Colonus>Oh, it's the same with uh here. <v Jacques Cousteau>[speaking French] How old is that? <v Lazaros Colonus>How old? Uh about 2000 before Christ. <v Jacques Cousteau>Before Christ? <v Lazaros Colonus>Yes. <v Speaker 2>Among the artifacts he has salvaged is a curious cup. Whose handle has been placed on the inside, perhaps to protect the most breakable part. It is, in Falco's opinion, a questionable advantage when to pour the sauce, one has to put his fingers in it. Wishing to make a more extensive investigation of the site, Cousteau now deploys the ?inaudible?, the compressor driven suction pipe. [speaking French] 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. [machine whirring] Working at the depth of 120 feet, the ?inaudible? throws up an underwater shower of debris as ?is? moved from one location to another. At first, only a few minor artifacts are found, then almost everywhere, buried under two feet of sediment, the ?inaudible? reveals a large number of building stones with chiseled contours. Neither a rise in the water level nor the remote possibility that they were lost as part of the ship's cargo satisfactorily explains their presence so far offshore. Scattered widely, the stones appeared to have been hurled from the settlement on the peninsula by some colossal force. With Colonus and a young interpreter, John Mark ?inaudible?, Cousteau goes ashore to explore the site of the old port town once built along the peninsula. More and more, Cousteau is beginning to share some of the views of such scholars as Frost, ?Luz?, Galanopoulos and Marinatos who argued that the collapse of Minoan 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 Minoan houses lie around them. <v Jacques Cousteau>35. Uh and about three meters ?inaudible? to here. How is it that these uh houses, these habitations are so small, so, no-.

<v Lazaros Colonus>[speaking Greek] <v Speaker 2>Colonus explains that both in dwellings and workshops an assembly of small rooms was more stable and was characteristic of the time. <v Jacques Cousteau>You know, this wall it's not very thick, but it's very long uh and it's on the top. [speaking Greek] <v Lazaros Colonus>This is a whole building which is over there and which is on the upper part of the city and all around this palace are uh the houses, the warehouses, the, uh, uh the habitations and the shops which are surrounded the palace.

<v Jacques Cousteau>But it's all flat and ?destroyed?. I think I can imagine what happened in this in this place and all over the Mediterranean. You know, the problem of Crete, the problem of Crete is the sea raised by the north winds, the heavy seas beating the northern coast of Crete where there are very few shelters. So the small ships of antiquities are seeking shelter ?in here? or here in Thera. 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, uh there was a tidal wave and I can imagine this huge tidal wave, 330 feet high coming here, sweeping, cleaning all this peninsula, all the houses washed clean into the sea and sank all the ships at once, and I can't imagine, I can't dream of this catastrophe where all the Minoan ships, all the ships of antiquity were sank all over the Mediterranean the same day by this tidal wave. <v Speaker 2>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, but 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 that remain of a single island that erupted about 1450 B.C. in what is estimated to have been the loudest explosion ever heard on Earth. Around the caldera where once a mountain stood, the inner rim of cliffs reveal the successive layers of tephra, the volcanic pumice and ash deposited when more than 50 cubic miles of material 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 cisterns 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, shiploads 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 rookery where people have built dwellings and storerooms by scooping caves out of the pumice. At the center of the caldera, the Kameni Islands, the twin cones of a new volcano have appeared since the immense earlier eruption. The first, Palaia Kameni in the second century before Christ. The other, Nea Kameni, 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. Pocked with small craters, some filled with sulfur pools or simply gases, it is a landscape indifferent to man. [music plays] From the deck of Calypso, the cindered shoreline of Nea Kameni appears grim and forbidding.

<v Jacques Cousteau>[speaking French]

<v Speaker 2>With Falco and old associate Frederic Dumas, Cousteau 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 fissures or indications of volcanic activity, as well as any possible signs of human artifacts. <v Jacques Cousteau>[speaking French] <v Speaker 2>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 archeological remains of Atlantis or any other civilization. Only an austere and formidable environment that makes no concessions to human need. [music plays] Here, a stream of bubbles is a silent omen that deep below the great sea filled cavity, geologic forces are still in motion. [whistling] Throughout the caldera, the depths, even near the shoreline, vary from 600 to 1200 feet, thus great areas of the volcanic basin lie well beyond the range of the divers. To explore this previously impenetrable domain, Cousteau now readies the soucoupe 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. <v Jacques Cousteau>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. [music plays] As we sink into the barren depths, the darkness closes around us. Even our powerful lights find nothing but an impenetrable black emptiness. For a long instant, I feel that, like Dante, I am on a journey to hell. Gradually, we rise again past the naked rocks. Again I think of how often we stare at the heavens in wonder, yet are 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 gull. The crab or the whale. The soucoupe with its inner metronome. It is only man who lives under the illusion that by closing the walls of his environment, as indeed we have in the soucoupe. He has conquered nature. [waves crashing]

<v Speaker 2>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 soucoupe emerges from stillness into storm where a ?running? sea threatens to smash it against the Calypso's hull. [yelling in French] Finally, the cable is patched and held taut by the ?launch? against threatened collision. At last, retrieved from the sea and hoisted to the Calypso deck, the two tossed mariners climb out into the wind.

<v Jacques Cousteau>[speaking French]

<v Speaker 2>To his associates, Cousteau tells of a singular discovery. Nearly 500 feet down at a depth well beyond that reached by the free divers and well beyond the life zone in the caldera, they have found remarkable ?inaudible?, perhaps five feet in width that forms an almost continuous band around the underwater flanks of Nea Kameni. Unlike the larger rock above and below it, Cousteau and Falco report, the seam is composed of scoria: small broken stones which have been seared and blackened by great heat and flame. <v Jacques Cousteau>[speaking French]

<v Speaker 2>Based on his own observation and prevailing opinion among geologists, Cousteau 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. [explosion] 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 cost 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, Haroun Tazieff, describes what must have happened. <v Jacques Cousteau>Dr. Tazieff, we have uh prepared a scale model of Santorini, as we guess it looked like 4000 years ago before the explosion.

<v Haroun Tazieff>A little steeper. <v Jacques Cousteau>A little steeper. ?inaudible? exaggerated. Now, what are your ideas about how it happened? <v Haroun Tazieff>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 uh the volcano was apparently extinct. It was inactive since several centuries, when approximately 3,500 years ago, it resumed its activity. [flames crackling] In uh this first eruption after many centuries of repose, was very violent indeed, and hurt probably people who have not been killed had to evacuate the island. The geological evidence is uh 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. [explosion] After this lull, the eruption started anew and in a few days it grew in intensity up to a formidable ?inaudible?. At Santorini Thera volcano grew and grew in intensity and in the last hours of this ?paroxysmic? activity, tremendously huge quantities of energy and rocky material were hurled into the air. After all, this matter had been rejected, the huge cave was created down below, and when all have been expelled, the upper part of the volcano collapsed suddenly in this cave and this collapse created the huge caldera. See the water ?fallout? was ?13? and then uh tremendous tidal waves were created. <v Speaker 2>In a model basin, a Hollywood studio once attempted to recreate the awesome power of a tsunami or tidal wave. [music playing] [waves crashing] If there remain any vestiges of a possible Atlantis site in the caldera, 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. Ashore, the unstable tephra offers advantages. Believing Thera and Crete jointly formed the basis of the Atlantis legend, archeologists at Thera in 1967 began excavations now supervised by Dr. Christos Doumas.

<v Jacques Cousteau>Does this represent the entire city of our ?inaudible?

<v Dr. Christos Doumas>No. Only one part of it, and we don't know um what percentage of the city this uh uncovered area represents because uh we have no limit in any uh point of the city. <v Jacques Cousteau>You never reach the limit? <v Dr. Christos Doumas>No. <v Jacques Cousteau>What is this house here? <v Dr. Christos Doumas>Here we have the north facade of the uh house Delta and here is the staircase leading up to the first floor. <v Jacques Cousteau>What is this, the square? <v Dr. Christos Doumas>This is the square which uh because of its shape is called the Triangle Square. And here we have a large window in front of the building. Uh here is uh an interesting passage out of the building connecting the two sides of the street. <v Jacques Cousteau>Oh yes. ?They were passing? actually here? ?inaudible?. Do you think that the people had time to evacuate the city? <v Dr. Christos Doumas>Certainly, because uh first of all, we don't find any um skeletons and no victims uh have been uh uh noticed so far. And uh secondly, we have no precious objects: jewelry, um vessels of um uh precious metals, et cetera. So it is rather certain that they had the time to evacuate.

<v Speaker 2>Already, more than 40,000 square feet lie under a protective shelter. <v Jacques Cousteau>Enormous. What a sight, it's incredible. <v Speaker 2>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 tephra still awaiting release, out of the centuries, a community where people worked and laughed and dreamed is slowly emerging. <v Jacques Cousteau>What was this little room? <v Dr. Christos Doumas>This is the room of the ?lillies?. It was covered with frescoes ?all 3? walls.

<v Jacques Cousteau>In this cramped tiny little room? <v Dr. Christos Doumas>Yes. And in front of us there was a a large um painting of the uh fresco with some swallows. <v Jacques Cousteau>Swallows were here? <v Dr. Christos Doumas>Yes. <v Jacques Cousteau>Oh, they are beautiful. <v Dr. Christos Doumas>And uh the other one, much narrower, had also another swallow, which goes to land on a flower. And uh on the other wall there are also the swallows which were kissing. <v Jacques Cousteau>Ah yeah. And what was this room used for? <v Dr. Christos Doumas>We don't know, but it was found literally packed with pottery, about 250 vases were found here. And also the bed, which is in the museum, was also here. So- <v Jacques Cousteau>Must have been a smaller sleeping room, probably. <v Dr. Christos Doumas>Probably. <v Jacques Cousteau>Here, the past is very close. The sound of my own foot fall might have been 4000 years ago. It is easy to believe that in this spellbound square, time has stood still. That in a moment children will come out to play. <v Dr. Christos Doumas>It was in this building that we found the frescoes of the fleet of the fishermen, of the-.

<v Jacques Cousteau>In this building? <v Dr. Christos Doumas>?inaudible? Yes, in this building. [music plays] <v Jacques Cousteau>The long panel found in the so-called admiral's house shows deer pursued by lions, not found in ?your?. Painted in the miniature style of the frescoes at Knosis in Crete, the long, elegant ships of the flotilla show the clear influence of Egyptian design. Also sometimes believed to depict a naval battle, there's no portrayal of actual combat. It seems more likely that the fresco may recall a formal ceremonial visit from a 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. [music plays] Where are we here? <v Dr. Christos Doumas>Here we are in the ?pottery? storeroom and uh these jars were uh found containing different uh kinds of uh grains.

<v Jacques Cousteau>Some of these are enormous. <v Dr. Christos Doumas>Yes, they were found containing remains of various kinds of uh crops and seeds, and as you can see, some of them could contain several hundreds of kilos uh inside. <v Jacques Cousteau>And why so many? <v Dr. Christos Doumas>Uh well, this is uh the reason why we try to interpret this room as an storeroom for the community rather for a- than for for a family. As you see here, we have a large window at street level. <v Jacques Cousteau>At street level you generally don't have windows, is that right? <v Dr. Christos Doumas>We have windows, but not so large. <v Jacques Cousteau>Ah yes. <v Dr. Christos Doumas>Small windows. But we have this evidence that they were paid workers and uh slaves in uh olives, in figs, in flour, et cetera. And probably somebody was sitting inside keeping the accounting. <v Jacques Cousteau>There was a queue outside?

<v Dr. Christos Doumas>There was a queue and- <v Jacques Cousteau>They were giving their ?names? or their- <v Dr. Christos Doumas>Yes. <v Jacques Cousteau>Or their checks- <v Dr. Christos Doumas>And uh if this happened, then we could easily consider this room as a bank. <v Jacques Cousteau>Uh sort of a bank. That's interesting. And these are just- <v Dr. Christos Doumas>And these are in position now, you see how nicely decorated they are and are still full of um ash. We did not uh empty them yet. <v Jacques Cousteau>Oh, it's beautiful. <v Dr. Christos Doumas>Yeah. <v Jacques Cousteau>And uh they had practically no animals here. <v Dr. Christos Doumas>In the city, there is no evidence that animals lived in these houses. <v Jacques Cousteau>But it was a thickly populated area? <v Dr. Christos Doumas>Yes. <v Jacques Cousteau>Now, do you think there were frescoes in every house in this town? <v Dr. Christos Doumas>So far, there is no house which has been excavated without frescoes. <v Jacques Cousteau>Really? <v Dr. Christos Doumas>Yes. <v Jacques Cousteau>Is it not unusual? I mean- <v Dr. Christos Doumas>It is unusual. And this is the reason why we believe that this was a wealthy community living here. And uh we suggest that um the people were uh conducting activities uh supplied with this wealth. And this cannot be anything else than uh trade and uh shipping. And probably we can say here that we have a sort of uh wealth- wealthy bourgeois society. <v Jacques Cousteau>Of ship owners?

<v Dr. Christos Doumas>[chuckles] Of ship owners. <v Jacques Cousteau>How long do you think it will be until uh all this site is excavated? <v Dr. Christos Doumas>I cannot estimate about all the site, but I can estimate uh what is under the roof. <v Jacques Cousteau>Yeah. <v Dr. Christos Doumas>And this at least requires 50 years of work. <v Jacques Cousteau>50 years! <v Dr. Christos Doumas>50. Well, it's not much when you count in centuries. [laughter] <v Jacques Cousteau>I thought it could go a little faster than that. <v Dr. Christos Doumas>It is difficult to go faster becauseum, as you know, the excavation is uh something like a book of which the pages after being read are destroyed. So we have to go very carefully and uh read very carefully, uh record everything before we proceed- <v Jacques Cousteau>Before you destroy the page. <v Dr. Christos Doumas>Before we destroy the page. Well here it is a typical example of the procedure, how we do uh with the restoration of the frescoes. <v Jacques Cousteau>Mhmm. <v Dr. Christos Doumas>Here we have a corridor, the sides of which, as you see, they were covered with frescoes. Uh we immediately blocked the whole thing and packed it with ash, volcanic ash, waiting for the specialists to come. Meanwhile, the parts which are uncovered have been covered with gauze, which is stuck on them waiting. And uh from this place come these fragments, which show that we have lily flowers again. <v Jacques Cousteau>So under the gates here are ?pictures?.

<v Dr. Christos Doumas>Yes, they are. <v Jacques Cousteau>So there is a buried treasure right here. <v Dr. Christos Doumas>Yes exactly. ?inaudible? is a treasure. Here in the laboratory, we have uh several thousands of fragments like this covered with gauze, and uh they are kept in uh drawers. Uh each drawer contains uh fragments from a different place. They're all cataloged and classified. <v Jacques Cousteau>There's several layers in each. <v Dr. Christos Doumas>Yes, several layers in each drawer. You see, we have worked for several years here in the laboratory. [laughs] <v Jacques Cousteau>So that's the uh table on which you put the fragments together. <v Dr. Christos Doumas>And this is the ultimate jigsaw puzzle. [laughs] Uh we have so many fragments after the gauze is removed. And in this, we have uh a unique piece from this site with the ?inaudible? decoration. And in these frames we have this uh kind of sunflower or rosette. <v Jacques Cousteau>And when do you think uh this enormous work will be finished?

<v Dr. Christos Doumas>Well, it requires several months of work, if not a year, uh to be- <v Jacques Cousteau>Before it is returned to Athens for the National Museum? <v Dr. Christos Doumas>Yes. <v Speaker 2>The salvaged bits of the paintings are transported to the museum laboratories in Athens. There, like elaborate jigsaw puzzles in which many of the pieces are missing, the frescoes are painstakingly 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 creep in its rich satellite, Thera could have served as Plato's model for a high civilization destroyed by cataclysm. The jigsaw puzzle of the Atlantis myth remains incomplete. [music plays] But perhaps Thera has left us something more. The eruption that ended the supremacy of Minoan culture, preserved in volcanic dust these evidences of it, the shimmering landscape of Western civilization's Virgin Spring. In their frescoes, the Minoan artists told us of a fragrant world of animals and flowering plants, of playing children and mating birds. But they also revealed the 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 the caldera, sponge fishermen find an arduous and uncertain living. [speaking Greek] In good years and bad, they come to harvest the sponges for the market at Aegina near Athens. They have put aside the old helmeted diving suits, now depend on multiple air hoses attached to a common source at the surface. Out of experience, each team has improvised its own decompression system. But the danger remains. [splash] Almost all by the age of 40 have been crippled by the bends. It is, they feel, part of the cost of gathering sponges. [speaking Greek] [music playing] <v Jacques Cousteau>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 one's 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.

<v Speaker 1>The Cousteau Society and KCET are jointly responsible for the content of this program. The Cousteau Odyssey is made possible by a grant from the Atlantic Richfield Company. [PBS theme]