Kato Arodes Cemetery
Last year we blogged about Kato Arodes. It is an old Turkish Cypriot village that refused to die after 1974. At the time, we were unaware it had a cemetery, but the other day we noticed a couple of gravestones in a copse, as we were passing through, and stopped to take a look...
New Walls
We were driving back from the Akamas, and for some reason I turned left when I would normally turn right coming into Pano Arodes. This brought us to this copse, on the outskirts of Kato Arodes.
Doomed Tomb
There were a number of tombs in the copse, so I assumed it was an old cemetery. They weren't in a very good condition, but the front wall looked new, so the area is being looked after.
When I was a child I used to think that the deceased person would be contained within the actual tomb. I don't think that is the case with this sort of grave though. I have seen several with broken tops that are in fact hollow shells.
Up until this point I was unsure as to whether this was an old Christian or Muslim graveyard.
Ruhuna Fatiha
This grave answered my question. "RUHUNA FATIHA" has appeared in our blogs before. Indeed, I googled it, and one of the results was from the blog I wrote about Melandra:
"We found similar graves in Vretsia. 'Ruhuna Fatiha' appears frequently on Turkish graves, and is basically a request for you to say a prayer to God on behalf of the person who's grave you are looking at. "
It looks like Besim died fairly young, just after his 20th birthday. Apparently, Merhum is a surname, in case you were wondering why I didn't call him that.