Minoan in the context of "Spyridon Marinatos"

Spyridon Marinatos (Greek: Σπυρίδων Μαρινάτος; 17 November [O.S. 4 November] 1901 – 1 October 1974) was a Greek archaeologist who specialised in the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations of the Aegean Bronze Age. He is best known for the excavation of the Minoan site of Akrotiri on Thera, which he conducted between 1967 and 1974. He received many honours in Greece and abroad, and was considered one of the most important Greek archaeologists of his day.

A native of Kephallonia, Marinatos was educated at the University of Athens, the Friedrich Wilhelms University of Berlin, and the University of Halle. His early teachers included noted archaeologists such as Panagiotis Kavvadias, Christos Tsountas and Georg Karo. He joined the Greek Archaeological Service in 1919, and spent much of his early career on the island of Crete, where he excavated several Minoan sites, served as director of the Heraklion Museum, and formulated his theory that the collapse of Neopalatial Minoan society had been the result of the eruption of the volcanic island of Thera around 1600 BCE.