Kontemenos is a Greek community in the occupied district of Keryneia. It lies 20 kilometres south-west of Keryneia, at an elevation of 210 metres, on the southern foothills of the Pentadaktylos. It was one of the main stock-breeding villages of the district.¹ In the 1960 census it had 831 inhabitants, of whom 829 were Greeks.

Name

The origin of the name is not known. In the English sources of British rule the village is written “Kondemenos”.²

Founding and first records

According to a tradition recorded by the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the village was founded by shepherds from Kontea.³ The earliest written record of it that has been found is the Ottoman property survey of 1832/33.

Turkish rule

The property survey carried out by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33 recorded only those who owned property. At Kontemenos 15 property-holding households are recorded, all of them Christian. They grew cereals and cotton, no trees at all are recorded, and the greater part of their property was their animals: about 1,800 sheep and goats, and a few oxen and cows.⁴

British rule

On 12 June 1958 British security forces arrested 35 Greeks, disarmed them and then released them in the open country, near the Turkish village of Kioneli. There a Turkish mob attacked them and killed eight. They were inhabitants of Kontemenos.⁵ The British governor appointed a commission of inquiry headed by the Chief Justice of Cyprus, Paget Bourke.⁶

Churches and monasteries

The Greek Orthodox church of the village, large and single-aisled, is dedicated to the Archangel Michael and was built in 1841. It stands in the eastern part of the old centre of the village. The Greek Orthodox cemetery was at the northern edge of the village, on the road to Asomatos.⁷

Economy and society

Stock-breeding, which already dominates in the survey of 1832/33, remained the main occupation. According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, in 1973 133 stock-breeders of the village kept 1,401 sheep, 1,499 goats and 4,411 poultry, and the fields were sown with wheat, barley and fodder crops, with a few carob trees. In 1972 the village had vehicle repair workshops and small units making metal goods and clothing.⁸ The Union of Communities of Keryneia District records that from 1950 the inhabitants were early to acquire lorries, excavators and modern farm machinery.⁹

In 1927 the Kontemenos Cooperative Credit Society was founded and in 1959 the Kontemenos Cooperative Grocery.

Education

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, around 1850 the priest Christodoulos Protopapas from Agridaki taught the “common letters”, that is, elementary reading and writing, in the village. He was succeeded by the local man Kyprianos Eleftheriou or Siakallis, who taught in his house and, during the farming season, in the fields. On his initiative the first school of the village was built in 1870, which cost the community 3,000 piastres and was used until 1921. In 1879 Lambros Vasileiades from Karavas came as teacher; he had studied in Athens and brought the monitorial method. In the first years of British rule the school had five classes with 22 boys, four of whom were from Asomatos.¹⁰

According to the Union of Communities, in 1933 the benefactor Loukas Christofides built a new school, which was extended in 1960.¹¹ In the school year 1973–74 the Greek elementary school of Kontemenos had 88 pupils and three teachers.

Population

The population of Kontemenos grew steadily throughout British rule. According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the village had 270 inhabitants in 1881, 311 in 1891, 369 in 1901, 365 in 1911 and 439 in 1921.¹² In 1931 it had 558 inhabitants, 554 Christians and 4 Muslims, and in 1946 637, of whom 635 were Orthodox (the censuses of 1931 and 1946 recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 831 inhabitants, 829 Greeks and 2 Maronites, and in 1973 839 Greeks.

National struggles

In the 1950 Enosis plebiscite 411 inhabitants signed, essentially all the adult Greek inhabitants. The Register of EOKA Fighters lists 16 Greek inhabitants of the village who took part in or supported the Struggle.

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Kontemenos was bombed and captured by the Turkish army, and its Greek population was subjected to ethnic cleansing.¹³ Since then the Turkish occupation forces and the illegal occupation authority prevent the return of the inhabitants.

Five inhabitants of Kontemenos, three of them civilians, were recorded as missing. The remains of one have been identified; the other four are still missing. One went missing in Kontemenos itself and four elsewhere: at Kormakitis (2), in the area of Templos in Keryneia and in Keryneia. One more soldier from the village was killed at Karavas. On the land of Kontemenos 17 dead of 1974 are recorded, 12 soldiers and 5 civilians, in the village and its area.

The Turkish army enclosed the church of the Archangel Michael within a military camp, where it is inaccessible; the 2009 list records it as desecrated and looted. According to the Union of Communities, the army illegally converted it into a dormitory. The cemetery is in ruins and the crosses of the graves are scattered.¹⁴