Long before volcanology explained Santorini's crescent shape, Greek mythology offered its own account of the island's origins — several versions exist, reflecting the different names Santorini has carried across antiquity.
Kalliste and the Argonauts
One myth ties the island's creation to the Argonauts, the crew of Jason's ship in the story of the Golden Fleece — a clod of earth, given to the hero Euphemus by the sea-god Triton, was thrown into the sea and grew into an island, originally called Kalliste ("the most beautiful"). The island's ancient name, Thera, comes instead from a later mythical founder-king said to have led settlers there.
Atlantis
Santorini is one of the most frequently proposed real-world inspirations for Plato's Atlantis myth, largely because of the genuine catastrophic eruption that buried the Bronze-Age settlement at Akrotiri — see our eruption history guide. The connection is popular and evocative, but remains firmly speculative; Plato's account includes details, like Atlantis's size and location, that don't match Santorini directly, and no historical consensus links the two.
Why it still matters to visitors
Whatever the historical accuracy, the Atlantis association is part of why Santorini captures the imagination the way it does — a real volcanic catastrophe, a genuinely lost Bronze-Age city, and one of literature's most famous myths, all pointing at roughly the same patch of the Aegean.
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