Ancient Thera

Ancient Thera occupies a limestone ridge on the summit of Mount Mesa Vouno, three hundred sixty-five meters above the Aegean Sea. This archaeological site contains the remnants of a city-state founded in the ninth century Before the Common Era by Dorian colonists from Sparta, led by a king named Theras. The city remained inhabited for over fifteen hundred years, serving as a strategic naval base and a religious center until it was finally abandoned in seven hundred twenty-six of the Common Era, following a volcanic eruption that blanketed the area in pumice.