History of the Settlement Petelea

a) Age of the settlement

 The monography of the village and the archaeological data point to he fact that the village already existed in Neolithic, and that archaeological findings have been made on the territory of the village in form of coins and thesauri.We mention the pottery fragments from the Bronze Age and from the Iron Age (1st Periode) that were found close to the orthodox church. In 1869, a peasant found, by chance, on his field a thesaurus consisting of 200 pieces, of which 198 dacical-schyphatae, belonging to the III group of Dacical coins, of the Type "Petelea", as well as two Tetradrahmas, of Macedonia Prima.The coins from the thesaurus, were set out around the 1st century B.C.and are kept in different museums: The Brukenthal Museum from Sibiu, and different other museums from Vienna and Budapest. In 1939 a Roman silver coin from the rule of emperor Comodus was discovered. All these are living proof of the continuity and ancient being of man in this area.

b) To the name of Petelea

  It is the general belief that the name Petelea comes from the birch tree- Latin Betulia vulgaris. before the Saxons (German settlers) arrival to Petelea, the locality may have been named To the Birches, according to the priest Branea, who made an attempt to write the village's monography.This affirmation is supported by the name of the nearby forest, which is called to this day "To the Birches", and the German name of the village, that translated means nothing else than birch. The German custom says that upon their colonization here, the German settlers have found extended areas of birch wood, which they later on, cut.

 According to the documents, the history of the name Petelea is as follows:

1332 Pytula, Pycula

1348 Pechwle

1426 Petele

1465 Pethele

1645 Petelye

1824 Pelelye

1854 Petele, Birk, Petelea

c) The first documentary mention of the locality

 The first documentary mention of the locality, anniversary of 665 years is made in a Pope's register, that had a fiscal character, where mention is made of the priest Ilie from Pycula who in 1332 had payed 1and1/2 "fertun" of silver to the Archbishop of Ozd for the first year in 1332. The Archbishop had its territory on the middle flow of the Mures, and the reference of the information was found in another pope's register, where mention was made about a certain priest Ilie from Pytula (different spelling) that had payed 40 old "banali".