Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Pantelleria
Summary
Pantelleria (pantelleˈɾiːa; Sicilian: Pantiḍḍirìa [pandɪɖɖɪˈɾiːa]), the ancient Cossyra or Cossura, is an Italian island and comune in the Strait of Sicily in the Mediterranean Sea, southwest of Sicily and east of the Tunisian coast. On clear days Tunisia is visible from the island. Administratively Pantelleria's comune belongs to the Sicilian province of Trapani.
According to the Italian National Institute of Statistics, the population of Pantelleria was in 2022
With an area of , Pantelleria is the largest volcanic satellite island of Sicily. The last eruption occurred below sea level in 1891, and today phenomena related to volcanic activity are present, such as hot springs and fumaroles. The highest peak, the Montagna Grande, reaches above sea level. The islanders speak Pantesco, a dialect of Sicilian influenced by Arabic.
The Carthaginians knew the island as (𐤉𐤓𐤍𐤌) or (𐤀𐤉𐤓𐤍𐤌).
The Greek geographers recorded it as Kossyra (Κόσσυρα) and Kossyros (Κόσσυρος), which became the Latin Cossura. This appears in Arabic as Qawṣirah (قوصرة) and Maltese as the former name Qawsra.
The original Arab name for the island was Bint al-Riyāh (Arabic: بنت الرياح and Maltese: Bint l-Irjieħ), meaning "Daughter of the Winds" after the strong gales that can arise off the north coast of Africa.
Its Sicilian name is Pantiddirìa, which gave rise to the present Maltese name Pantellerija.
The earliest evidence of human activity dates to the Neolithic period distinguished for its use of obsidian tools and construction of stone structures and tombs known locally as "Sese".
The original population of Pantelleria did not come from Sicily, but were of Iberian or Ibero-Ligurian ancestry. After a considerable interval, during which the island probably remained uninhabited, the Carthaginians took possession of it, no doubt owing to its importance as a station on the way to Sicily. This probably occurred around the beginning of the 7th century BC. Their acropolis was the twin hill of San Marco and Santa Teresa, south of the present town of Pantelleria.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.