Atlantis: End of a World, Birth of a Legend Page #4

---

Please help!

Help me, please!

Once inhaled,

it mixes with the moisture in the

lungs to form a liquid cement.

It makes breathing difficult.

Then impossible.

Rusa! Pinaruti!

Where's Yishharu?

- The priests came after us.

They wanted me as a sacrifice.

He said he'd be back.

Rusa, we've got to go!

Take her to her father in Crete.

- No. No!

No, I don't want to go without him.

- Tie her up if you have to. - No! No!

Rusa! Rusa! Let me go!

Let me go!

Where is Yishharu?

Where is my son,

you contemptible little coward?

Sanctuary.

Stop!

- Out of my way!

As the crater widened,

sea water poured into it.

On contact with the magma,

the water exploded as steam,

triggering the next volcanic phase.

The violent reaction

between water and magma

created a phreatomagmatic eruption.

It's estimated the sound

pressure from this explosion

would have reached 300 decibels.

The sheer force ripped

rocks from inside the crater,

catapulting them

into the air like deadly missiles.

Lava bombs.

These burning chunks of magma

can be the size of a small truck

and weigh up to eight tons.

Turn back! Turn back!

Turn back.

There's nothing to go back to.

Please, turn back. Please.

With the crater widening,

the pressure forcing the column

upwards started to drop.

Gas and rock spilled from the sides

of the collapsing column.

Known as pyroclastic flows,

these superheated waves of gas

and rock reached speeds

of up to 180 miles an hour,

and temperatures of

You've taken all that's precious

to me. Is this all you have left?!

Look!

Look what your gods have done Bansabira...

No matter what I can offer you,

it'll never be enough.

As the pyroclastic

flows hit the sea,

hot ash caused the water surface

to boil,

propelling them along

at an even faster

speed on superheated beds of steam.

Come on, come on, row!

Row, row, row, come on!

Come on, row!

The deadly impact of the eruption

extended far beyond

the island of Thera.

Hour after hour,

Pyroclastic flows continiued pushing

volcanic debris, out into the sea,

generating huge waves.

Tsunamis.

People on the nearby island of Crete

might have seen the warning signs.

But had little time to react.

Travelling at 200 miles an hour,

it would have taken

only 20 minutes for the first

tsunami to reach Crete.

Experts estimate that by the time

the waves hit the coastline,

they would have been

over 60 feet high.

New research has revealed that

a series of tsunamis ravaged towns

all along Crete's northern

coastline for hours,

if not days after the eruption.

Killing an estimated 30,000 people.

As for the people of Thera,

only very few would have survived.

Experts of the only now were able to

determine thrue scale of the disaster.

Recent investigations of

the seabed around the island,

have revieled the deposits from a Piroclastic flows.

Extend as far out as 20 miles,

reaching fitneses of 260 feet.

Excavation of the island itself revieled

the force of Piroclastic flows.

Sheared of the upper stores

of the buildings of Therra.

They all were entombed under 60 feet

of ash and pumice.

It was one of the most violent

vulcanic erruptions in human history.

Three times larger than Krakatoa.

100 times larger than

Mount St Helens.

And 40,000 times more powerful

than the Hiroshima bomb.

The ash from the eruption

plunged the Mediterranean

into weeks of darkness.

Global temperatures dipped, stunting

plant growth as far away as Britain.

The impact of the erruption extended

beyond the death toe.

Minoan society was

shaken to the core.

Archaeological evidence reveals

that there was deep social unrest.

Towns and temple palaces

were sacked and burnt.

Humans sacrificed.

Finally, a civilisation that

had lasted for over 1,300 years

was invaded and absorbed

by a warring Greek tribe

called the Mycenaeans.

Stories of the disaster, however,

were passed on, retold, embellished.

In the 4th century BC they reached

the Greek philosopher Plato.

And inspired him to write

a morality tale, about the rise

and fall, of a great civilisation

he called Atlantis.

For centuries his tale

has been discounted as a legend.

Until archaeologists on Therra

uncovered a lost world.

From the evidence being unearthed here,

Platos tale has found traction in thruth.

He wrote, "The island consists of

circular belts of sea and land,

"enclosing one another.

"A seaway

and harbour filled with vessels

"and merchants from all quarters.

"And the wealth they possessed

"was so immense, that the like

had never been seen before.

"In the sacred precincts of Poseidon

there were bulls at large,

"and the ten princess hunted after

the bulls with staves and nooses.

"Then there occurred portentous

earthquakes and floods,

"and one grievous day and night

"the island of Atlantis

was swallowed up by the sea...

"..and vanished."

And so a great and wonderful world,

cut off in its prime by a disaster

of cataclysmic proportions,

became the birthplace of one of

the greatest legends of all time...

..Atlantis.

Fixed timings and

added dialogs and narration

--zoksihot--

March 2012

--zoksihot--

T H E E N D:

Rate this script:3.0 / 1 vote