Palaiosofos (locally Paliosofos) is a small Greek community in the occupied district of Keryneia. It lies 11 kilometres west of Keryneia, at an elevation of 200 metres, on the northern slopes of the Pentadaktylos, near Karavas and Motides. Its land, rugged and cut by narrow valleys, rose towards the ridge, as far as the locality Gomaristra and the forest of Karmi.¹ In the 1960 census it had 151 inhabitants, all of them Greeks.

Name

The origin of the name is not known. On Kitchener’s British map of 1882 the village is written “Palaeosophos”.

Founding and first records

According to the Union of Communities of Keryneia District, it is believed that the first inhabitants of Palaiosofos came from ancient Lapithos, Lambousa, when its inhabitants abandoned it because of the Arab raids and went up onto the slopes of the Pentadaktylos, where Lapithos, Karavas, Motides, Elia, Ftericha and Palaiosofos took shape.²

The village is not mentioned in the 15th-century lists of fiefs and royal villages preserved by the 16th-century Cypriot chronicler Florios Voustronios and the 19th-century French historian Louis de Mas Latrie, nor in the 15th-century Cypriot chronicler Leontios Machairas.³ According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, it is most probably a later settlement, which took shape during the years of Turkish rule.⁴ The oldest written mention found is the property survey of 1832/33.

Turkish rule

In the property survey carried out by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33, which recorded only those who owned property, Palaiosofos is recorded as a Christian village with 11 property-holding households. The inhabitants had wheat fields, threshing floors, small vineyards, gardens with mulberry and lemon trees, shares in running water and 182 trees, mainly olives and carobs, and a few almond trees. In the village there were an olive press and beehives.⁵

British rule

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, Palaiosofos was one of the villages of the area that signed the petition of neighbouring Karavas to be recognised as a municipality, which happened in 1884. From then until 1933 the village belonged to the municipality of Karavas.⁶

Churches and monasteries

The Greek Orthodox church of the village, at the north-eastern edge of its old core, is dedicated to Agia Paraskevi and dates from the 18th or 19th century. According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the British researcher of the monuments of Cyprus Rupert Gunnis saw the date 1857 on its iconostasis. Around the church spread the village cemetery.⁷

Economy and society

The steep land and the poor soils left little room for crops. According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 the inhabitants grew lemons and citrons, cereals and almonds, while most of the land was covered with pines, cypresses, wild olives and thorny burnet (spalathkies).⁸ According to the Union of Communities of Keryneia District, the many mulberry trees of the village bore witness to silkworm breeding, and most inhabitants went daily to work in Karavas, in Keryneia or even in Lefkosia and came back in the evening.⁹ On the village’s land the official place-name index of Cyprus (the Gazetteer) records, among others, the place-names Melissonas, Mersineri and Kalamoullia.¹⁰

Population

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the village had 92 inhabitants in 1881, 99 in 1891, 110 in 1901, 132 in 1911 and 151 in 1921.¹¹ In 1931 Palaiosofos had 148 inhabitants, all of them Christians, and in 1946 139, all Orthodox (the censuses of 1931 and 1946 recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 151 inhabitants, all of them Greeks, and in 1973 150 Greeks. In the school year 1973–74 the Greek elementary school of the village had 21 pupils and one teacher.

National struggles

In the Enosis plebiscite of 1950, 107 inhabitants of Palaiosofos signed, practically all the adult Greek inhabitants. The Register of EOKA Fighters lists 2 Greek inhabitants of the village who took part in or supported the Struggle.

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Palaiosofos was captured by the Turkish army and its Greek population suffered ethnic cleansing. Since then the Turkish occupation forces and the illegal occupation authority prevent the return of the inhabitants.

One inhabitant of the village, a civilian, went missing at Agyrta in the district of Keryneia; his remains have been located and identified. Another inhabitant, a civilian, was killed at Karavas. On the land of Palaiosofos five dead of 1974 are recorded: three civilians in the village itself and two soldiers on the Pentadaktylos, one of them at the locality Gomaristra.

The 2009 list records the church of Agia Paraskevi as desecrated and looted. The crosses and the bell were removed from its bell tower, almost all its furnishings from the interior, and its walls are cracked. The cemetery around it is in ruins, with the crosses of the graves scattered.¹²