Penteli ( el, Πεντέλη) is a village and a municipality in the North Athens regional unit,

Attica Attica ( el, Αττική, Ancient Greek ''Attikḗ'' or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the city of Athens, the capital of Greece and its countryside. It is a peninsula projecting into the Aegean ...

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...

. It belongs to the

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...

rural area. It takes its name from

Mount Pentelicus Mount Pentelicus or Pentelikon (, or ) is a mountain in Attica, Greece, situated northeast of Athens and southwest of Marathon. Its highest point is the peak ''Pyrgari'', with an elevation of 1,109 m. The mountain is covered in large part wi ...

Municipality

The municipality Penteli was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 3 former municipalities, that became municipal units: * Melissia *

Nea Penteli Nea Penteli ( el, Νέα Πεντέλη) is a small municipal unit - village in the northeastern part of the Athens agglomeration, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Penteli, of which it is a municipal ...

*Penteli

Geography

Penteli is situated on the southern slopes of the limestone

Penteli Penteli ( el, Πεντέλη) is a village and a municipality in the North Athens regional unit, Attica, Greece. It belongs to the Athens rural area. It takes its name from Mount Pentelicus. Municipality The municipality Penteli was formed at t ...

mountains. The municipality has an area of 36.064 km², the municipal unit Penteli 28.878 km². It is 14 km northeast of central Athens. Some of the neighbourhoods of Penteli are Agia Triada, Agios Dimitrios, Daou and Kallithea.

History

The bones of prehistoric animals - mastodons,

rhinoceros A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct specie ...

antelope The term antelope is used to refer to many species of even-toed ruminant that are indigenous to various regions in Africa and Eurasia. Antelope comprise a wastebasket taxon defined as any of numerous Old World grazing and browsing hoofed mamm ...

, and

giraffe The giraffe is a large African hoofed mammal belonging to the genus ''Giraffa''. It is the tallest living terrestrial animal and the largest ruminant on Earth. Traditionally, giraffes were thought to be one species, '' Giraffa camelopardal ...

, along with giant

turtle Turtles are an order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked t ...

hyena Hyenas, or hyaenas (from Ancient Greek , ), are feliform carnivoran mammals of the family Hyaenidae . With only four extant species (each in its own genus), it is the fifth-smallest family in the Carnivora and one of the smallest in the cl ...

s and other animals no longer extant in the area - have been found among the limestone crags of the mountain that looms over the present suburb of Athens. The Penteli mountains were renowned in

Classical Greece Classical Greece was a period of around 200 years (the 5th and 4th centuries BC) in Ancient Greece,The "Classical Age" is "the modern designation of the period from about 500 B.C. to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C." ( Thomas R. Marti ...

as well as in the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...

as a source of the marble, which was also used to build the Parthenon. The Romans constructed a 140-foot water tower and aqueduct to supply water to the city of Athens. Penteli is the site of the ancient town of

Pentele Pentele ( grc, Πεντέλη) was a deme of ancient Attica, situated at the north-eastern extremity of the Athenian plain, at the marble quarries of Mount Brilessus, which was called Mount Pentelicus from this place. The fact of Pentele being a ...

. During the

Greek War of Independence The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution or the Greek Revolution of 1821, was a successful war of independence by Greek revolutionaries against the Ottoman Empire between 1821 and 1829. The Greeks were later assisted by ...

, the French

philhellene Philhellenism ("the love of Greek culture") was an intellectual movement prominent mostly at the turn of the 19th century. It contributed to the sentiments that led Europeans such as Lord Byron and Charles Nicolas Fabvier to advocate for Greek i ...

Sophie de Marbois-Lebrun, Duchess of Plaisance Sophie de Marbois-Lebrun, Duchess of Plaisance (Greek: Δούκισσα της Πλακεντίας) (1785–1854) was a French noblewoman, known as an important figure in Greek high society the first decades after Greek independence. She was b ...

supported the revolutionary leaders. When she settled in Greece in 1834, she bought large plots of land in Athens and on the Penteli mountain. She had the Rododafni Castle in Penteli built for her. In July 1995, Penteli was ravaged by a large forest fire. According to Turkish former prime minister, Mesut Yilmaz, many of the forest fires that raged the Greek countryside during that summer were actually started by Turkish secret service agents. The forests of Penteli suffered damage again from the August 2007 fires.

Transport

The area is serviced by Pentelis railway station on the Athens Airport–Patras line.

Historical population

Sights

* Monastery of Penteli *Rododafni Castle, also known as ''Pyrgos Doukissis Plakentias'', a mansion built for the

Duchess of Plaisance Sophie de Marbois-Lebrun, Duchess of Plaisance (Greek: Δούκισσα της Πλακεντίας) (1785–1854) was a French noblewoman, known as an important figure in Greek high society the first decades after Greek independence. She was b ...

. Construction was started in 1840, but it was not finished until 1961, when

Constantine II of Greece Constantine II ( el, Κωνσταντίνος Βʹ, ''Konstantínos II''; 2 June 1940) reigned as the last King of Greece, from 6 March 1964 until the abolition of the Greek monarchy on 1 June 1973. Constantine is the only son of King Paul a ...

moved into it. *The Penteli Astronomical Station of the National Observatory of Athens, completed in 1936

Byzantine monuments

The catholicon of the old Monastery of St.Nicholas (Kallesia-Penteli). A wall painting monument of George Markou the Argus, the great and prolific post-Byzantine ecclesiastic iconographer of the 18th century.(''"...Nel 1727, Marcou si trova di nuovo ad Atene, dove assume l’agiografia dei Templi di....e di San Nicola Callision a Pendeli. E evidente, che Marcou acquistò, di nuovo, la conoscenza con il Monastero Pendelis..."'') Evangelos Andreou

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Gallery

file:Κέντρο Πεντέλης.jpg, Center of Penteli file:Είσοδος Μονής Πεντέλης.jpg, Penteli Monastery entrance file:Penteli Monastery97716358.jpg, Inside the monastery of Penteli file:Πεντελικά Λιβάδια.jpg, Penteli fields file:Tourelle (Πυργίσκος) Πεντέλη.jpg, Tourelle tower file:Μνημείο Πεσόντων Πεντελιωτών.jpg, Penteli fallen residents monument

References

External links

Official website
{{Penteli div Municipalities of Attica Populated places in North Athens (regional unit)