European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 16, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Atlantis archaeologists May have found the fabled lost City digging Down into the cellars of time at Aero tire at left a member of the excavation earn measures and sketches a building. One of a Sotiri s frescoes above is now on display at the National archaeological museum in Athens. By j. King Cruger Northern Italy Bureau i am not a traveler in time and i Don t believe i have been reincarnated from a previous existence but i have walked the streets of fabled Atlantis. Actually i strolled through Atlantis for about an hour earlier this Spring and for an admission fee of about $4, you can do it too. Research is slowly unearthing a part of the world s most completely preserved prehistoric site an incredibly advanced City 4,000 years old and buried in places under 200 feet of Ash. The haunting site is a Sotiri. It is near the Southern coast of Santorini a Creek Island also known As Tafra. Tafra which Means Quot fear Quot is aptly named because truly awful events have struck it through the centuries. Santorini one of the most dramatic places on Earth is a shattered Skeleton of its former self. Thirty six Hundred years ago the Island some 130 Miles Southeast of Athens was a much different sort of place. It was called Kalliste then a Quot the most Beautiful Quot a and it was a round Green Island with a nearly mile High Peak in its Center. Fast flowing streams tumbled Down its sides into the Aegean sea Kalliste had dose connections with nearby Crete the Center of the minoan civilization a highly advanced Empire controlling a with the world s first Navy a the whole of the seaborne Trade Between Europe Asia and Africa. The minoan civilization was strikingly modern with must storied palaces and chicle attired women who As depicted on cretan frescoes would not look out of place in a present Day Mediterranean resort. Suddenly the minoan civilization faltered and the lands of the Eastern Mediterranean were thrown into turmoil. Something had happened an event so enormous and awful that the mind can barely grasp it. That event a nanosecond in geological time took place on Kalliste a the Atlantis of myths and legends a and the lost civilization of minoan Crete. On an autumn Day in 1628 b.c., Kalliste s towering Mountain a Volcano exploded with a Force estimated to have exceeded 150 Hydrogen bombs going off at once. It blew a 30-cubic-mile Hole in the Earth. In contrast the Well documented mount St. Helens eruption in 1980 burped a relatively insignificant half cubic mile Hole in the Earth. The blast on Santorini set off tsunami or tidal Waves. Quot within hours of the thyran upheaval death rolled into Southern Turkey on the Tongue of a tsunami. Two Peninsulas jutting into the Aegean sea confined the wave As if Between the prongs of a mighty tuning Fork building it higher and higher and ultimately fuelling in 30 Miles Inland. To penetrate so far it had to be 800 feet tall when it hit the Shore. By today s standards the wave would reach almost to the top of Manhattan s Chrysler building Quot writes Charles Pellegrino in his wonderfully researched Book unearthing Atlantis an archaeological Odyssey. When a Volcano explodes according to Pellegrino the Rock it pulverizes surges out at More than 100 Miles an hour As a death Cloud sometimes known As the Quot Pete an phase Quot after the eruption of mount Pelee on Martinique in 1902, in which a ground surge swept through the City of St. Pierre killing almost All of its 30,000 inhabitants. Tafra Pellegrino estimates was 15 million times worse than Pelee. The thyran death Cloud surged Over the Eastern half of Crete More than 70 Miles away leveling palaces and communities so quickly that people had no time to flee. Santorini s Black shroud spread Over much of the Aegean and appears to have had lethal effects even