Mihăilești is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

located in

Giurgiu County Giurgiu () is a county (''județ'') of Romania on the border with Bulgaria, in Muntenia, with the capital city at Giurgiu. Demographics In 2011, it had a population of 265,494 and the population density was . * Romanians – over 96% * Roman ...

Muntenia Muntenia (, also known in English as Greater Wallachia) is a historical region of Romania, part of Wallachia (also, sometimes considered Wallachia proper, as ''Muntenia'', ''Țara Românească'', and the seldom used ''Valahia'' are synonyms in R ...

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

. It administers three villages: Drăgănescu, Novaci and Popești. It officially became a town in 1989, as a result of the

Romanian rural systematization program The Romanian rural systematization program was a social engineering program undertaken by Nicolae Ceaușescu's Romania primarily at the end of the 1980s. The legal framework for this program was established as early as 1974, but it only began in ...

. The town stands beside the river Argeș, which at this point is dammed, forming a lake about long. It was created as part of the

Danube–Bucharest Canal The Danube–Bucharest Canal is a long canal project that is planned to link Bucharest, Romania to the Danube via the Argeș River, and ultimately create direct access to the Black Sea via the existing Danube–Black Sea Canal. The earliest pla ...

project and feeds a hydro-electric plant. Popești village is the location of an important archeological discovery: a large

Dacia Dacia (, ; ) was the land inhabited by the Dacians, its core in Transylvania, stretching to the Danube in the south, the Black Sea in the east, and the Tisza in the west. The Carpathian Mountains were located in the middle of Dacia. It thus r ...

n settlement believed by some historians such as

Vasile Pârvan Vasile Pârvan (; 28 September 1882, Huruiești, Perchiu, Huruiești, Bacău County – 26 June 1927, Bucharest) was a Romanian historian and archaeologist. Biography Vasile Pârvan came from a modest family, being the first child of the teach ...

and professor

Radu Vulpe Radu may refer to: People * Radu (given name), Romanian masculine given name * Radu (surname), Romanian surname * Rulers of Wallachia, see * Prince Radu of Romania (born 1960), disputed pretender to the former Romanian throne Other uses * Radu ( ...

to be the

Argedava Argedava (''Argedauon'', ''Sargedava'', ''Sargedauon'', ''Zargedava'', ''Zargedauon'', grc, Αργεδαυον, Σαργεδαυον) was an important Dacian town mentioned in the Decree of Dionysopolis (48 BC), and potentially located ...

mentioned in the

Decree of Dionysopolis The Decree of Dionysopolis was written around 48 BC by the citizens of Dionysupolis, Dionysopolis (today's Balchik, on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria) to Akornion, who traveled far away in a diplomatic mission to meet somebody's farther in ''Argeda ...

. This ancient source links Argedava with the Dacian king

Burebista Burebista ( grc, Βυρεβίστας, Βοιρεβίστας) was the king of the Getae and Dacian tribes from 82/61BC to 45/44BC. He was the first king who successfully unified the tribes of the Dacian kingdom, which comprised the area locat ...

, and it is believed to be his court or capital.

References

External links

A fost Argedava (Popesti) resedința statului geto-dac condus de Burebista?
- Article in ''Informația de Giurgiu'' (Romanian) Argedava - Graphical Reenactment by Radu Oltean

Argedava - Graphical Reenactment by Radu Oltean

Towns in Romania Populated places in Giurgiu County Localities in Muntenia Archaeological sites in Romania Ruins in Romania Dacian sites {{Romania-hist-stub

See also

References

External links