Mendrese

Athens – Greece

28.03.2010 31 °C

Opposite the Roman Agora of Athens, is the doorway of Mendrese or Medrese (from Arabic: Madrasah) originally a Muslim religious school founded in 1721 by Mehmet Fahri. 100 years later, in 1821 during the Greek War of Independence the Turks used it as a prison and hung many Greeks from a maple tree (platanos) and after the war the Greeks used it for the same purpose. In the minds of the Athenians it became a cursed place. In 1914 during archaeological excavations in the area the building was demolished except for the door.