Pano Dikomo is a Greek community in the occupied district of Keryneia. It lies 7 kilometres south of Keryneia, at an elevation of 280 metres, on the southern slopes of the Pentadaktylos, and its land stretched up to the peak of Alonagra. A little further south lies Kato Dikomo, which is a separate community. In the 1960 census Pano Dikomo had 692 inhabitants, all of them Greeks.

Founding and first records

The oldest written sources mention simply “Dikomo”, without distinguishing the two settlements. On the land of Pano Dikomo, north-west of the village, the official place-name index of Cyprus (the Gazetteer) records the settlement of Onicheia, also known as Onicheia tou Paskali.¹ According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, it is the “Ανύχια” (Anychia) mentioned by the 15th-century Cypriot chronicler Leontios Machairas. Machairas does indeed mention a village of this name on the road from Lefkosia to Keryneia, in the years of Frankish rule, in the Genoese war of 1373.²

Archaeological sites

At the locality Mavron Neron, where the Gazetteer also marks a spring, the expedition of the British School at Athens led by the British archaeologists James and Eleanor Stewart worked in 1937–38. The expedition was then excavating the pre-Greek cemetery of Vounous, on the land of neighbouring Belapais, and one tomb is recorded from Mavron Neron.³

Churches and monasteries

The Greek Orthodox parish church of the village was dedicated to the Prophet Zacharias and dates from 1864. The British architect George Jeffery, who recorded the monuments of Cyprus in 1918, notes that it was built on the site of a medieval church of Agios Zacharias, which the inhabitants called “Ζαχή” (Zachi).⁴

North-west of the village, near Onicheia, stands the rock-cut Greek Orthodox country chapel of the Prophet Elijah (Profitis Ilias), which is an Ancient Monument. On the village’s land there were also the chapels of Agia Marina, Agios Mamas and Agios Kournoutos.

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 the inhabitants grew mainly cereals and a few fruit trees, while a large part of the village’s steep land remained uncultivated. In 1973 they kept 407 goats, 31 oxen and 1,455 poultry. Because Lefkosia was close, many inhabitants worked there and returned to the village every evening, and for this reason Pano Dikomo did not experience the drift to the towns. At Onicheia an agricultural co-operative operated from 1946, founded by Cypriot veterans of the Second World War, until in 1963 the area was seized by armed Turks.⁵

Education

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, when the pupils of Dikomo increased in number, a second elementary school was built, next to the church of the Prophet Zacharias in Pano Dikomo.⁶

Population

The population of the village almost doubled within thirty years. According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the village had 227 inhabitants in 1881, 307 in 1891, 338 in 1901, 350 in 1911 and 404 in 1921.⁷ In 1931 Pano Dikomo had 338 inhabitants, all of them Christians, and in 1946 534, all Orthodox (the censuses of 1931 and 1946 recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 692 inhabitants, all of them Greeks, and in 1973 653 Greeks.

National struggles

In the Enosis plebiscite of 1950, 334 inhabitants of the village signed, practically all the adult Greek inhabitants. The Register of EOKA Fighters lists 3 Greek inhabitants of the village who took part in or supported the Struggle.

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Pano Dikomo 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.

Ten inhabitants of Pano Dikomo, 7 civilians and 3 soldiers, have been missing since 1974. The remains of one have been located and identified, while 9 are still missing. Six were lost in the village itself and 4 elsewhere: at Kato Dikomo, at Kythrea and in the areas of Kazafani and Agios Dimitrios in Kaimakli. Another inhabitant, a soldier, was killed at Karavas.

The church of the Prophet Zacharias, which after 1974 was included in a military area, was demolished; according to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, this happened in the early 1990s.⁸ The chapels of Agios Mamas and Agios Kournoutos were also demolished, while the country chapel of the Prophet Elijah was desecrated and looted.