Agios Iakovos is a Turkish community in the occupied part of the Ammochostos district. It lies 26 kilometres north-west of Ammochostos, at an elevation of 170 metres, at the southern foot of the Pentadaktylos. On its land lie a cemetery and two cult places excavated in 1929 by the Swedish Cyprus Expedition. In the 1960 census it had 365 inhabitants, all of them Turks.

Name

The village bears the name of Saint James (Agios Iakovos). It is recorded under this name in the Ottoman property survey of 1832/33, and the official gazetteer of Cyprus writes “Agios Iakovos”.¹ On its land the Gazetteer records place-names such as Agios Nikolaos, Antrouklia, Kounnerkia, Triminthi, Tenios, Moutti tou Kakotrou and an old kiln, Kamini tis Chchinnieris.²

Archaeological sites

In 1929 the Swedish Cyprus Expedition, led by the Swedish archaeologist Einar Gjerstad, worked for seven weeks at the site of Melia, where there is a cemetery of rock-cut tombs. Two tombs had already been opened and looted; the expedition opened fourteen more. Tomb 8 held 62 burials, in three phases of the pre-Greek period.³

In September of the same year the expedition made a trial excavation at the site of Dhima, where a farmer’s plough was bringing sherds to the surface. On the first hill a pre-Greek sanctuary was found, with a circular floor, two stone podia, a clay basin and a pit below the floor with ash and pottery, which the excavators interpreted as a bothros for offerings. Its main use is placed in the 14th century BC. On the second hill a rectangular house-sanctuary was excavated, with two floors and a small podium taken to be an altar, from the Geometric ancient Greek period.⁴

In 1959 the Swedish archaeologist Paul Åström dug three trial trenches at the site of Kakotris, where sherds had been found on the surface. No settlement was found; the pottery was mainly pre-Greek, and above the trench two chamber tombs were located. One of them, which had been partly looted, was partly investigated by the Department of Antiquities.⁵

Antiquity

The finds from Melia, Dhima and Kakotris show that the area was already inhabited in the pre-Greek period, and the sanctuary on the second hill at Dhima that worship continued into the ancient Greek period. The digital gazetteer of ancient places Pleiades marks, south-east of the village and on the community’s land, an ancient settlement bearing the village’s name, from the Archaic ancient Greek, the Ptolemaic Greek (“Hellenistic”) and the Roman periods.⁶

Turkish rule

In the property survey of 1832/33, which recorded only those who owned property, Agios Iakovos belonged to the district of the Mesaoria and is a Muslim village, with 13 households owning property. Their land was almost all fallow, with a few grain fields, fodder fields and almond groves. They had 24 mulberry trees, a few olive and carob trees, over 500 sheep and goats, 21 oxen, a few cows and horses.⁷

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 the inhabitants grew cereals, and olives to the north of the village; most of the land was uncultivated, with forests such as Asprovikla and Melia. Stock-raising, already dominant in the 1832/33 survey, was well developed: about 5,000 sheep and goats and 189 cows were kept.⁸

Population

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the village had 92 inhabitants in 1881, 126 in 1891, 135 in 1901, 196 in 1911 and 194 in 1921.⁹ In 1931 Agios Iakovos had 211 inhabitants, 210 Muslims and one Christian, and in 1946 308, of whom 307 were Muslims and one Orthodox (the 1931 and 1946 censuses recorded religion only). In 1960 it had 365 inhabitants, all Turks, and in 1973 around 400 Turks (estimate).