ABSTRACT
The fresco schemes in Buildings 1 and 4 at Akrotiri are crammed with evidence of the nature of Theran society and ritual, though the emphasis is different, and we see two different sides of the culture. In Building 1 individual Therans are involved in religious ceremonies in what may be an imagined or supernatural landscape where meetings with gods and goddesses were possible. In Building 4 there is a more literal approach to what seem to be the physical, everyday landscapes of the Aegean islands; we also see the whole community turning out for major social events, a prehistoric equivalent of Frith’s ‘Derby Day’. After exploring these images, it should be possible to pull the threads together and make a reasoned assessment of the true relationship between Plato’s description of Atlantis and the prehistoric realities of the Aegean.
