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Modern Description: Tenea was a city in the S Corinthia where Oedipus was said to have spent his childhood. The city had a famous Sanctuary of Apollo. It supplied most of the colonists when Corinth founded Syracuse in the late 8th c. B.C. It became an independent city, probably in the Hellenistic period and, thanks to its good relations with the Romans, continued to exist after Lucius Mummius sacked Corinth in 146 B.C.
Ruins of the large ancient city extend from the S edge of the modern town of Chiliomodhion to the village of Klenia, a distance of about 2 km. A dramatic mountain pass (Haghionorion) opens to the S of Tenea and leads to Argolis. Chance finds resulted in the excavation of several burials ranging in date from the Early Geometric period to late Roman times. There are Roman chamber tombs on a ridge projecting N from Klenia and a small cloth-dyeing establishment was excavated near its NW base in 1970. The so-called Tenean Apollo, an archaic kouros, was found not at Tenea but on a ridge about 20 minutes by foot to the SE of the modern town of Athikia. (J. R. WISEMAN)
Systematic excavations began in 2013 under Eleni Korka, director of the Antiquities Service, exploring both the cemeteries (where important kouroi were recovered in 2010) and the city. Finds include a substantial Roman bath of the Augustan period.
Wikidata ID: Q25535198
Trismegistos Geo: 37843
Manto: 10157807

Info: Princeton Encyclopedia

(Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, from Perseus Project)

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