4 OCTOBER 1969, Page 24

Atlantis: fantasy and fact

Sir: Sir Mortimer Wheeler (20 September has dealt admirably with 'Atlantis' and ha expressed some strong reservations abou the theory of the destruction of Minoa Crete by an eruption of Thera. But th whole picture of a single, universal collaps of Crete is open to question.

The destruction of the last palace Knossos can be dated no earlier than th early fourteenth century BC, and is th firmly separated from the mid-fifteent century destruction-horizon, which is m clearly marked in east Crete. The fall Knossos marks the virtual disappearance o Crete as a 'power' in the Aegean a Levant: even then evidence from man parts of Crete suggests that substanti centres continued to exist.

The decline of Crete may be dated fro the mid-fifteenth century, masked at fi by the brilliance of Knossos: but there w never a complete catastrophe, until Cre was involved in the economic collapse the whole eastern Mediterranean in t twelfth century.

0. Dickin Pembroke College, Oxford