Milea (; also ''Milia'') is a village and a community of the Grevena municipality. Before the 2011 local government reform it was a part of the municipality of

Irakleotes Irakleotes () is a municipal unit of the Grevena municipality. Before the 2011 local government reform, it was an independent municipality. The seat of the municipality was in Agios Georgios. Irakleotes covers an area of 136.631 km2. Popula ...

, of which it was a municipal district. The 2021 census recorded 135 residents in the village. The community of Milea covers an area of 10.077 km².

History

Milea was populated by Greek speaking Muslim

Vallahades The Vallahades () or Valaades () are a Greek-speaking Muslim population who lived along the river Haliacmon in southwest Greek Macedonia, in and around Anaselitsa (modern Neapoli) and Grevena. They numbered about 17,000 in the early 20th centur ...

. The 1920 Greek census recorded 190 people in the village, and 15 inhabitants (4 families) were Muslim in 1923. Following the

Greek–Turkish population exchange The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey stemmed from the "Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations" signed at Lausanne, Switzerland, on 30 January 1923, by the governments of Greece and Turkey. It involv ...

Greek refugee Greek refugees is a collective term used to refer to the more than one million Greek Orthodox natives of Asia Minor, Thrace and the Black Sea areas who fled during the Greek genocide (1914-1923) and Greece's later defeat in the Greco-Turkish War ( ...

families in Milea were from

Pontus Pontus or Pontos may refer to: * Short Latin name for the Pontus Euxinus, the Greek name for the Black Sea (aka the Euxine sea) * Pontus (mythology), a sea god in Greek mythology * Pontus (region), on the southern coast of the Black Sea, in modern ...

(11) in 1926. The 1928 Greek census recorded 242 village inhabitants. In 1928, the refugee families numbered 11 (36 people). The village's original position has changed in the early '70s, when it was completely abandoned due to soil instability. The aforementioned village is now called Palia Milea (, which means Old Milea) and it maintains its original architecture where stone is the prevailing material.

Natural History Museum

In 1997 an inhabitant called Athanasios Delivos discovered the first pair of tusks by chance, after a heavy rainfall. Their length is 4,39m. Dr. Evaggelia Tsoukala with her colleagues from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki was responsible for the excavations. During the excavations which also continued in the sequential years, a partial skeleton of the mastodont ''

"Mammut" borsoni ''"Mammut" borsoni'' (sometimes called Borson's mastodon) is an extinct species of mammutid proboscidean known from the Late Miocene to Early Pleistocene of Eurasia, spanning from western Europe to China. It is the last known mammutid in Eurasi ...

'' (Hays, 1834) (

Proboscidea Proboscidea (; , ) is a taxonomic order of afrotherian mammals containing one living family (Elephantidae) and several extinct families. First described by J. Illiger in 1811, it encompasses the elephants and their close relatives. Three l ...

) was discovered. The skeleton includes substantial portions of the skull — maxillary area — with left and right molar series, with the longest upper tusks ever found in Greece (4.39 m), the most complete mandible with left and right molar series (M2 + M3) and two lower incisor tusks, as well as post-cranial skeleton. It represents a very large adult of about 40 years in age. In 2007, Dr. Tsoukala and her team discovered new, longer tusks along with other findings. Their length is 5,02m and they have been awarded the World's Guinness Records Award. The mastodont's age is evaluated at 3.000.000 years. Various other parts of mastodonts and other pre-historic animals were found there. All those findings can be seen at the Natural History Museum of Milia. It already counts more than 15.000 visitors from all over the world.

References

{{Grevena div Populated places in Grevena (regional unit) Grevena Former Vallahades settlements