Akrotiri or Ancient Thera: Santorini's two archaeological sites compared

The short answer

Akrotiri and Ancient Thera are two different archaeological sites on Santorini, and they belong to different eras. Akrotiri is the prehistoric town on the island's southwestern coast that the Ephorate of Antiquities of the Cyclades says was buried by the volcanic eruption of the Late Bronze Age, probably at the end of the 17th century BC.[1] Ancient Thera is the city on the top of the Mesa Vouno hill at the island's southeastern cape, which the same Ephorate says was founded in the 8th century BC and inhabited at least until the 9th century AD.[2]

Much of what the two sites yielded is not at the sites themselves. Hellenic Heritage, the official platform of the Ministry of Culture and the Hellenic Organization of Cultural Resources Development (ODAP),[14] says Akrotiri's household equipment and wall paintings are displayed in the Museum of Prehistoric Thera in Fira,[7] and the National Archaeological Museum in Athens lists the wall paintings of Thera among its own prehistoric collection.[12] Finds from Ancient Thera and its cemeteries are in a third museum, the Archaeological Museum of Thera, also in Fira.[8]

The two sites also differ in status. On 26 June 2026 Hellenic Heritage announced that Ancient Thera would be closed from 27 June 2026 until further notice.[13] When XTOUR read the official ticket store on 9 October 2026, its Ancient Thera page offered no ticket to select, while the Akrotiri page offered timed-entry tickets.[15][16]

Two sites, two periods

Akrotiri: the town under the ash

The Ephorate places Akrotiri on the southwestern coast of Thera, near the present-day settlement of the same name, and dates its history from about 4500 BC to about the late 17th century BC. Systematic excavation began in 1967 under Spyridon Marinatos and continues under Christos Doumas, under the auspices of the Athens Archaeological Society.[1] What is visited today is the excavated part of a Late Cycladic city, with more than 30 multi-storey public and private buildings, seen along set routes under a modern bioclimatic shelter designed by the architect N. Fintikakis.[1] Hellenic Heritage adds that the Late Cycladic city as it appears today was shaped after an earthquake around 1650 BC.[7]

The site's status has changed before. The Ephorate announced on 10 April 2025 that Akrotiri would reopen the next day, the last of the sites to do so after a seismic sequence in the Cyclades had closed 20 Cycladic museums, because the operation of its shelter is demanding under the safety protocols.[6]

When it was buried: the official pages disagree

Official pages give different dates for the eruption that buried the town.

• The Ephorate and Hellenic Heritage's Akrotiri page say probably at the end of the 17th century BC.[7][1]
• The Ministry of Culture's portal All of Greece One Culture says in the 17th century BC.[17]
• Hellenic Heritage's page on the National Archaeological Museum says the great eruption of the 16th century BC.[11]
• The Municipality of Thira's tourism site gives two figures on one history page, an eruption around 1600 BC and an abandonment around 1630 BC, and its volcano page dates the eruption to around 1630 BC.[19][18]

The pages also differ on the start. The Ephorate dates the first settlement to the Late Neolithic, about 4500 BC,[1] while the Ministry's portal places the earliest structures in the Late Neolithic of the 4th millennium BC.[17] XTOUR does not choose between them. The explainer on the Minoans and Mycenaeans places Akrotiri beside the Bronze Age palaces of Crete and the mainland.

Did the inhabitants escape?

Here the official pages disagree on substance, not only on dates. The Ephorate says the city was struck by an earthquake, that its people set up a makeshift camp on the outskirts to prepare to rebuild, and that the eruption followed a few score days later; it says the speed of events and the early release of poisonous gases and smoke "do not seem to have given its inhabitants the opportunity to get off the island".[1] The Municipality of Thira's tourism site says the opposite: that the absence of uninterred skeletal remains proves an orderly evacuation, and that earthquakes and smaller eruptions prompted the people of Akrotiri to abandon the island.[19][18] XTOUR reports both and does not settle the question.

Ancient Thera: the city on Mesa Vouno

The Ephorate describes Mesa Vouno as part of the island's pre-volcanic core and the city as the urban, administrative and religious centre of the city-state of Thera. It tells, after Herodotus, how Dorian colonists led by Theras settled the island and gave it his name, replacing the earlier name Kallisti; Hellenic Heritage tells the same story.[8] Access to the city, the Ephorate says, was by Sellada, the saddle between Mesa Vouno and Prophet Elias, and its ports were Oia to the north, at Kamari, and Eleusis to the south, at Perissa.[2]

Its long life is what the site shows. The Ephorate records the founding of Thera's only colony, Cyrene in North Africa, in 631 BC. It places a wave of building in the Hellenistic city, when Thera came under the influence of the Ptolemies of Egypt and then became their possession from 288 to 145 BC: among the public buildings it names the Royal Stoa, the theatre and the Gymnasium of the Ephebes, and among the new sanctuaries one of the Egyptian gods. Building continued, on a smaller scale, into Roman times. Two early Christian basilicas followed, probably in the 6th century, and makeshift shelters among the ruins mark a last phase of habitation after the eruption of 726 AD.[2] The city was excavated by Hiller von Gaertringen from 1896 to 1902, its cemetery by N. Zapheiropoulos from 1961 to 1982, and by the Ephorate since the 1990s.[2]

The dates disagree here too. The Ephorate and Hellenic Heritage say the city was founded in the 8th century BC,[8][2] while the Municipality of Thira's tourism site says it dates back to 900 BC.[18]

Hellenic Heritage warns that walking up to Ancient Thera "is no joke", especially in the northern winds of the Cyclades.[8] XTOUR has no information of its own on the path or the road.

Where the finds are shown

Three museums hold what the two sites yielded, and only two of them are on Santorini.

Museum of Prehistoric Thera, Fira. The Ephorate says it has two exhibitions: the first, inaugurated in 2000, follows prehistoric Thera from the Late Neolithic to the heyday of Akrotiri, and the second, opened in 2021, presents 28 wall paintings from two Akrotiri buildings, which it calls the Western House and Xesti 3.[3] Hellenic Heritage calls them the West House and Xeste 3 and names among the paintings the Fishermen, the Flotilla Miniature and the Saffron Gatherers.[9] The exhibits come mainly from the Archaeological Society of Athens excavations at Akrotiri.[3]

National Archaeological Museum, Athens. The museum's collections page lists a Collection of Antiquities of Thera and describes the Prehistoric Collection as including the wall paintings of Thera.[12] A Greek-language photo caption on the Ephorate's Akrotiri page says the "Spring" fresco from a house on the site's Square of the Double Horns is today in the National Archaeological Museum.[1] The National Archaeological Museum guide covers the museum's other collections.

Archaeological Museum of Thera, Fira. This is the museum for Ancient Thera. Hellenic Heritage says finds from the city and its cemeteries are shown there, and that the renovated museum's opening was marked by the return of the Kore of Thera, a larger-than-life Archaic statue of the 7th century BC, unearthed in November 2000 during a rescue excavation at the cemetery of ancient Thera by the archaeologist Charalambos Sigalas.[8] The two official pages disagree on when the renovated museum opened: Hellenic Heritage says it opened its doors in June 2026,[10] while the Ephorate's page says that from 21 June 2025 the museum will be known as the home of the Kore.[4]

Who runs the sites and how tickets work

Both sites are under the Ephorate of Antiquities of the Cyclades, which Hellenic Heritage names as the contact on its pages for Akrotiri and Ancient Thera.[8][7] Tickets are sold through Hellenic Heritage's official ticket store. Its Akrotiri page says entry is timed, that a ticket is valid for a single entry on the date and time chosen, that changes are allowed up to two hours before the visit and at most twice, and that tickets are non-refundable; it also says the ticket includes access to its Digital Guide app and that large luggage, food, professional photography and filming are not permitted.[15]

Ancient Thera's status is where the official pages part company. On 26 June 2026 Hellenic Heritage announced that Ancient Thera would be closed from 27 June 2026 until further notice; the announcement gives no reason.[13] Its ticket store's Ancient Thera page carried the store's general terms on 9 October 2026 but listed no ticket to buy.[16] The Ephorate's own Opening Hours and Admission 2026 page, read the same day, still lists Ancient Thera with a schedule and prices and no closure note.[5] XTOUR's reading is that the newer, specific announcement and the empty ticket page point the same way, but XTOUR has not read a reopening notice and cannot say which page is current.

Both Hellenic Heritage and the Ephorate publish hours and prices for each site and museum. XTOUR does not restate them.

Choosing one or both

XTOUR's reading is that the two sites answer different questions. Akrotiri is the place to see how a Bronze Age town was built, street by street, under its shelter; its painted rooms read more fully alongside the Museum of Prehistoric Thera, where many of the paintings now hang. Ancient Thera is the later city of the Dorian settlers, the Ptolemies and the Romans, and the Kore of Thera, found in its cemetery, is in the Archaeological Museum of Thera rather than on the hill. For a trip planned while Ancient Thera's closure notice stands, the Archaeological Museum of Thera in Fira is the place XTOUR's sources name for that city's finds. XTOUR does not suggest an order, a route or a number of days.

For how Santorini, Thira, Fira and Oia relate as names and places, see Santorini, Oia, Fira and Thira: the names explained. For how Santorini compares with other Greek islands on XTOUR, see Choosing a Greek island.

What XTOUR does not know

XTOUR does not publish opening hours, prices, last-entry times or free-admission days for either site or the museums. It does not know when Ancient Thera will reopen, why it was closed, or whether the Ephorate's schedule or Hellenic Heritage's announcement reflects the site's state on a given day. It has no information on accessibility, the path or road up Mesa Vouno, parking, or travel times between the sites and Fira, and it gives none.