Santorini in the context of "Historical record"

Recorded history or written history describes the historical events that have been recorded in a written form or other documented communication which are subsequently evaluated by historians using the historical method. For broader world history, recorded history begins with the accounts of the ancient world around the 4th millennium BCE, and it coincides with the invention of writing.

For some geographic regions or cultures, written history is limited to a relatively recent period in human history because of the limited use of written records. Moreover, human cultures do not always record all of the information which is considered relevant by later historians, such as the full impact of natural disasters or the names of individuals. Recorded history for particular types of information is therefore limited based on the types of records kept. Because of this, recorded history in different contexts may refer to different periods of time depending on the topic.

Santorini caldera is a large, mostly submerged caldera, located in the southern Aegean Sea, 120 kilometers north of Crete in Greece. Visible above water is the circular Santorini island group, consisting of Santorini (known as Thera in antiquity), the main island, Therasia and Aspronisi at the periphery, and the Kameni islands at the center. It has been designated a Decade Volcano.

Therasia, also known as Thirasía (Greek: Θηρασία), is an island in the volcanic island group of Santorini in the Greek Cyclades. It lies north-west of Nea Kameni, a small island formed in recent centuries by volcanic activity and thus marking the centre of the island group. Therasia is the second largest island of the group, the largest by far being Thera.

Therasia has a land area of 9.299 square kilometres (3.590 sq mi) and its population was 249 inhabitants at the 2021 census. It is part of the municipal unit of Oia (Δημοτική Ενότητα Οίας).

Anydros (Greek: Άνυδρος) is an uninhabited Greek islet in the municipality of Santorini, which is a group of islands in the Cyclades. It is north of the island Anafi, and southwest of Amorgos. It is sometimes called Greek: Αμοργοπούλα, romanized: Amorgopoúla. The island hosts a seismometer, part of the Greek national network, installed in 2025. An earthquake fault located near Anydros was the source of the 1956 Amorgos earthquake that registered 7.6 on the Richter scale and caused widespread damage on Amorgos and the island of Santorini, where dozens died.A second 7.5 quake and a 30-meter tsunami followed.

There were hundreds of minor earthquakes of up to magnitude 5 in an area around Anydros at the beginning of February 2025, causing concern in Santorini and causing more than half the population to leave the island. The seismic activity was attributed to tectonic plate movements rather than volcanism, and it was thought that it could last weeks.

Christiana (Greek: Χριστιανά) is a group of three volcanic Greek islands in the Cyclades.

The group is located about 16 km (10 miles) southwest of Santorini and is made up of the islands Christiani (Χριστιανή, the largest one), Eschati (Εσχάτη) and Askania (Ασκανιά), belonging to the same submarine volcanic edifice, which is assumed to have been dormant since the Early Pleistocene. The islands' area is about 2.35 km.

Thira (Greek: Περιφερειακή ενότητα Θήρας) is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of South Aegean. The regional unit covers the islands of Thira (Santorini), Anafi, Folegandros, Ios, Sikinos and several smaller islands in the Aegean Sea.

Akrotiri (Greek: Ακρωτήρι, pronounced Greek: [akroˈtiri]) is a Cycladic Bronze Age settlement site on the volcanic Greek island of Santorini. The name comes from the nearby village of Akrotiri.

The settlement was destroyed during the Theran eruption sometime in the 16th century BC, and was buried in volcanic ash, which helped preserve its fine frescoes. Akrotiri has been excavated since 1967, after earlier excavations on the island.

The Minoan eruption was a catastrophic volcanic eruption that devastated the Aegean island of Thera (also called Santorini) circa 1600 BC. It destroyed the Minoan settlement at Akrotiri, as well as communities and agricultural areas on nearby islands and the coast of Crete with subsequent earthquakes and tsunamis. With a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of 7, it resulted in the ejection of approximately 28–41 km (6.7–9.8 cu mi) of dense-rock equivalent (DRE), the eruption was one of the largest volcanic events in human history. Because tephra from the Minoan eruption serves as a marker horizon in nearly all archaeological sites in the Eastern Mediterranean, its precise date is of high importance and has been fiercely debated among archaeologists and volcanologists for decades, without coming to a definite conclusion.

Although there are no clear ancient records of the eruption, its plume and volcanic lightning may have been described in the Egyptian Tempest Stele. The Chinese Bamboo Annals reported unusual yellow skies and summer frost at the beginning of the Shang dynasty, which may have been a consequence of volcanic winter (similar to 1816, the Year Without a Summer, after the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora).

Doric or Dorian (Ancient Greek: Δωρισμός, romanized: Dōrismós), also known as West Greek, was a group of Ancient Greek dialects; its varieties are divided into the Doric proper and Northwest Doric subgroups. Doric was spoken in a vast area, including northern Greece (Acarnania, Aetolia, Epirus, western and eastern Locris, Phocis, Doris, and possibly Lower Macedonia and Upper Macedonia), most of the Peloponnese (Achaea, Elis, Messenia, Laconia, Argolid, Aegina, Corinthia, and Megara), the Southern Aegean (Kythira, Milos, Thera, Crete, Karpathos, and Rhodes), as well as the colonies of some of those regions in Cyrene, Magna Graecia, the Black Sea, the Ionian Sea and the Adriatic Sea. It was also spoken in the Greek sanctuaries of Dodona, Delphi, and Olympia, as well as at the four Panhellenic festivals; the Isthmian, Nemean, Pythian, and Olympic Games.

By Hellenistic times, under the Achaean League, an Achaean Doric koine appeared, exhibiting many peculiarities common to all Doric dialects, which delayed the spread of the Attic-based Koine Greek to the Peloponnese until the 2nd century BC. The only living descendant of Doric is the Tsakonian language which is still spoken in Greece today; though critically endangered, with only a few hundred – mostly elderly – fluent speakers left.