Neta is a small Greek community in the occupied district of Ammochostos, on the Karpasia peninsula. It lies 47 kilometres north-east of Ammochostos, at an elevation of 130 metres, on the southern side of the peninsula, on land that slopes down towards the sea.¹ On its land stands the medieval church of Agios Sergios, an Ancient Monument. In the 1960 census it had 224 inhabitants, all of them Greeks.

Name

The origin of the name is not known. The official gazetteer of place names of Cyprus (Gazetteer) writes the name “Neta” and records on the village’s land, among other places, the forest of Zorpas and the church and forest of Agios Sergios.²

Founding and first records

The earliest written record of Neta found is the land survey carried out by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33.³ In the early 20th century the British architect George Jeffery, who recorded the monuments of Cyprus, notes that the sites of several abandoned villages lay along this coast, and that one of them survived, under the name of Neta, as a chiftlik, that is, a large farming estate, with a small old church.⁴

Archaeological sites

In 1928 the Swedish Cyprus Expedition, led by the Swedish archaeologist Einar Gjerstad, excavated at Neta. It explored a pre-Greek cemetery of rock-cut tombs and a sanctuary which yielded limestone sculpture of the Archaic ancient Greek period. The excavations were never fully published; two of the sculptures, kept in the Museum of Mediterranean Antiquities in Stockholm, were published in 2003.⁵

Turkish rule

The survey of 1832/33 recorded only those who held property, not all the inhabitants. Neta is recorded as a Christian village, with 11 property-holding households. They had cotton fields, cereal fields and gardens, some 140 olive trees and 50 wild olives, a few carob trees, two mills and beehives, and about 200 sheep and a few oxen and cows.⁶

Churches and monasteries

The old church of the village, dedicated to the Virgin (Panagia), dates from the 18th century. Below its bell tower steps lead down to a chamber which Rupert Gunnis, the British recorder of the monuments of Cyprus, called a holy well.⁷ Later the villagers also built a new church of the Panagia, of the 19th or 20th century.

About two kilometres east of the village, in the fields, stands the church of Agios Sergios, of the 13th century, which is an Ancient Monument.⁸

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 the inhabitants grew olives, carobs, tobacco, cereals and fodder crops, and livestock farming, mainly of sheep, was fairly well developed.⁹ The Neta Cooperative Credit Society was founded in 1960 and the Cooperative Grocery Store in 1961.

Education

In the school year 1973–74 the Greek primary school of the village had 32 pupils and one teacher.

Population

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, Neta had 73 inhabitants in 1881, 81 in 1891, 111 in 1901, 121 in 1911 and 139 in 1921.¹⁰ In 1931 it had 150 inhabitants, all Christians, and in 1946 222, all Orthodox (the censuses of 1931 and 1946 recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 224 inhabitants, all Greeks, and in 1973 205 Greeks.

National struggles

In the Enosis plebiscite of 1950, 117 inhabitants of Neta signed. The Register of EOKA Fighters lists 51 Greek inhabitants of the village who took part in or supported the Struggle.

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Neta was occupied by the Turkish army. Almost all the inhabitants stayed in their homes, as in other villages of the Karpasia, and found themselves in confinement, enclaved.¹¹ According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, in October 1975 the enclaved numbered 172. The primary school reopened on 29 March 1976, but worked only for a short time: by August 1976 all the inhabitants had been expelled.¹² In this way the Greek population of the village was ethnically cleansed. Since then the Turkish occupation forces and the illegal occupation authority prevent the inhabitants from returning.

One inhabitant of Neta, a soldier, went missing in the area of Lapithos and is still missing. One death is recorded in the village itself: an elderly civilian woman of Neta who died while living enclaved.

The occupation authorities illegally converted the old church of the Panagia into a mosque. According to Cyprus Religious Heritage, it was used as a mosque until a new mosque was built in the village, and its crosses have been removed.¹³