Páros
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Related to Parian marble: Parian Chronicle, Parian ware
Páros
Páros (päˈrôs, pârˈŏs), island (1991 pop. 9,591), c.81 sq mi (210 sq km), SE Greece, in the Aegean Sea; one of the Cyclades. The main town is Páros. The land slopes to the coast from Mt. Hagios Ilias (c.2,500 ft/760 m high). Wine, tobacco, figs, and grains are produced on the island. The beautiful white, semitransparent Parian marble, used by sculptors and architects as early as the 6th cent. B.C., is quarried on the mountain. Páros was settled by Ionians and became a maritime power and a center of Aegean trade. In the 7th cent. B.C. it established colonies in Thásos and on the Sea of Marmara. During the Persian Wars, Athens accused Páros of aiding the Persians and captured the island in 479 B.C. Páros was held by the Ottoman Turks from 1537 to 1832, when it joined Greece. Two marble fragments of a great historical inscription, called the Parian Chronicle, have been found on the island. The chronicle was set up after 263 B.C., its terminal date. The larger fragment (covering 1581–354 B.C.) is one of the Arundel Marbles, housed at Oxford, England; the smaller (covering 356–299 B.C.) is in a museum on Páros.
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The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.
Paros
a Greek island in the Aegean Sea, in the Cyclades group. Paros has an area of 196 sq km and a maximum elevation of 771 m. The island is composed of crystalline rock and limestone. There are traces of volcanic activity. Paros is famous for its marble. The vegetation consists of Mediterranean shrubbery. There is stock raising and wine-making. The harbor of Naousa is on the northern part of the island.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.