Trikomo is a large Greek community in the occupied district of Ammochostos. It lies 19 kilometres north of Ammochostos, at an elevation of 20 metres, on the boundary between the Mesaoria plain and the Karpasia peninsula, about two kilometres from the sea. It was the administrative, commercial and educational centre of the surrounding area, and it is the birthplace of the leader of EOKA, Georgios Grivas Digenis.¹ In the 1960 census it had 2,195 inhabitants, of whom 2,188 were Greeks.

Name

In the Italian sources the village is written “Tricomo”. The 15th-century Cypriot chronicler Leontios Machairas calls it “the village of Trikomon” (τὸ χωργιὸν τὸ Τρίκωμον) in his account of events of 1366.²

Founding and first records

According to the village’s tradition, recorded by the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, there were once three neighbouring settlements here, which in time merged into one village and gave it its name.³

The first written record of the village concerns the year 1310. The 16th-century Cypriot chronicler Florio Bustron mentions it as a village (“casal”) of the lady of Tyre, “Tricomo”, in the region of Karpasia. At the end of the 15th century “Casal Tricomo” is the first of the royal villages of the bailiwick of Karpasia in a Venetian list published by the 19th-century French historian Louis de Mas Latrie.⁴

Archaeological sites

The land of Trikomo was inhabited in antiquity. The philologist Athanasios Sakellarios, who travelled in Cyprus in the 19th century, noted ancient Greek tombs in the village, and below the village the quarries of the ancient Salaminians, which the inhabitants called “latomais”.⁵

In 1967 a tomb of the archaic ancient Greek period was found in the yard of the primary school, at the northern edge of the village, and the Department of Antiquities carried out a rescue excavation. It held mainly plain jugs, together with a jar and a skyphos, that is, a drinking cup, from the eastern Greek world, that is, the Greek cities of the Asia Minor coast and the islands of the eastern Aegean. These vessels show that the people of the area had contacts with the Greek cities of the eastern Aegean. The cemetery had long been known to looters. The excavation was published by Vassos Karageorghis, who was born in Trikomo in 1929 and was then Director of the Department of Antiquities.⁶

Near the village the Barrington Atlas, the atlas of the ancient Greek and Roman world, marks an ancient settlement that was inhabited from the archaic ancient Greek to the Roman period.⁷

Antiquity

The tombs and the settlement on the village’s land show that the area was continuously inhabited from the archaic ancient Greek to the Roman period. Trikomo lies about 11 kilometres north of Salamis, the capital of the most important ancient Greek kingdom of eastern Cyprus, and most probably belonged to it. The quarries of the Salaminians below the village recall this link.⁸

Greek medieval period (“Byzantium”)

The church of the Panagia survives from the middle medieval Greek period. It was built in the 12th century and decorated with wall paintings of the same time, and it shows that the settlement already existed then. Sakellarios also noted in Trikomo many ruined churches of the medieval Greek (“Byzantine”) period.⁹

Frankish rule, Venetian rule

In 1310 Trikomo belonged to the lady of Tyre, that is, the wife of Amalric, lord of Tyre, who had taken power from his brother, King Henry II.¹⁰

Shortly after Cyprus passed to the Venetians, Trikomo was a royal village, that is, it belonged directly to the state and not to a feudal lord. In the Venetian list published by Mas Latrie, Trikomo is the first of the twenty-three royal villages of the bailiwick of Karpasia, together with its neighbours Spathariko, Agios Andronikos, Platanissos and Galateia.¹¹

Turkish rule

In the Ottoman land survey of 1832/33, which recorded only those who owned property, Trikomo is recorded as a village with a mixed population and 81 property-owning households. Most of the fields were cotton fields, followed by grain fields and fields of madder, the plant from which a red dye was made. The households owned almost 1,400 sheep, oxen and cows, five camels and a watermill, but very few trees.¹²

British rule

Under British rule Trikomo became a service centre for the villages of the area. According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, a steam-driven machine for processing cotton worked in the village from 1879, a police station was founded around 1905, and from 1920 the district doctor was based there.¹³ Sakellarios notes that the village already had a post office.¹⁴

Churches and monasteries

Trikomo had two parishes, Agios Georgios and the Panagia. Agios Georgios, on the eastern edge of the old village, dates from the 19th–20th century. The church of the Panagia Theotokos, in the southern part of the village, is an Ancient Monument and dates from the 12th and 16th centuries. The British architect George Jeffery, who recorded the monuments of Cyprus in 1918, noted that its south side belongs to the 12th century, while older architectural pieces are built into the rest of the building, which was renovated later.¹⁵

The wall paintings of the Panagia date from the early 12th century and have been conserved. The apse shows the Virgin praying with raised arms, with Christ in a medallion before her chest, that is, in the type of the Blachernitissa. The dome shows Christ Pantocrator, with the Prepared Throne (Etimasia), the Virgin, John the Baptist and other figures around him, and the vault of the sanctuary shows the Ascension of Christ.¹⁶

In the centre of the village stands the chapel of Agios Iakovos, of the 14th century, which is also an Ancient Monument. It is a small cross-shaped church, and Jeffery noted that its interior was plastered and decorated with porcelain plates set into the walls, as was the local custom.¹⁷

The village also had the church of the Archangel in the cemetery and the chapels of Agia Anastasia, Agios Epifanios, Agios Thomas, Agios Dimitrios, Agios Andronikos, Agios Athanasios, Agia Aikaterini and two of Agios Mamas.

Economy and society

Trikomo stood at the crossroads of the Ammochostos–Kantara and Lefkosia–Rizokarpaso roads, and so it was the commercial and transport centre of the area.¹⁸ According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 the inhabitants grew mainly cereals and fodder crops, and to a lesser extent citrus fruit and vegetables, and kept many sheep, as already in the survey of 1832/33.¹⁹ The Trikomo Cooperative Credit Society was founded in 1926 and the Trikomo Cooperative Grocery in 1946. The village had two sports clubs, Neos Aionas and Anagennisi, two cinemas, a music club with a choir, and a philharmonic band.²⁰

Education

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, Greek letters were taught in the village from the middle of the 19th century. Until 1871 the teacher Menikos taught the children in his house, and before him priests and laymen had taught. In 1872 the inhabitants founded the first monitorial school, in a building belonging to the church, with Alexandros Loukas, a graduate of the Scholarcheio of Lefkosia, as its teacher.²¹

From 1935 a private English school operated in Trikomo, which grew into a six-year gymnasium for the whole area.²² During the Second World War the Ammochostos Gymnasium was also moved to Trikomo, and the EOKA hero Kyriakos Matsis studied there.²³ According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, in the school year 1971–72 the Trikomo gymnasium had 415 pupils.²⁴ In the school year 1973–74 the Greek primary school had 253 pupils and 8 teachers.

Population

The population of Trikomo grew steadily. According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, Trikomo had 869 inhabitants in 1881, 1,081 in 1891, 1,262 in 1901, 1,501 in 1911 and 1,699 in 1921.²⁵ In 1931 it had 1,804 inhabitants, 1,801 Christians and 3 Muslims, and in 1946 2,090, of whom 2,081 were Orthodox, 6 Muslims and 3 others (the 1931 and 1946 censuses recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 2,195 inhabitants, 2,188 Greeks and 7 Turks, and in 1973 2,325 Greeks.

National struggles

In the 1950 Enosis plebiscite 1,234 inhabitants signed in the village’s two parishes, Agios Georgios and the Panagia: essentially all the adult Greek inhabitants.

The Leader of EOKA, Georgios Grivas Digenis, was born in Trikomo on 23 May 1898.²⁶ The EOKA Fighters’ Register lists 406 Greek inhabitants of the village who took part in or supported the Struggle. The EOKA fighters Giannis Stylli and Nikos Karantonis also came from Trikomo.²⁷

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Trikomo was occupied by the Turkish army and its Greek population was ethnically cleansed. Most of the inhabitants became refugees. Those who stayed in the village were held in confinement: in its second application, in 1975, the Republic of Cyprus reported to the European Commission of Human Rights about 120 Greeks held in confinement at Trikomo.²⁸ According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, in October 1975 92 Greeks still remained in the village and later 23, until all were forced to leave.²⁹ Since then the Turkish occupation forces and the illegal occupation authority prevent the inhabitants from returning.

Twelve inhabitants of Trikomo, all soldiers, were recorded as missing; none disappeared in the village itself, but at Keryneia, Aspri Moutti, Syngrasi, the Kythrea - Lefkoniko - Chalevka area, Dikomo, Mia Milia and Pella-Pais. The remains of 7 have been located and identified, while 5 are still missing. Three soldiers from Trikomo were killed elsewhere, in the Famagusta area and at Syngrasi. In Trikomo itself 12 dead of 1974 are recorded, all civilians. Among them are an enclaved woman who was ill-treated by the occupation troops and later died in Larnaka, and an inhabitant who died years later of his wounds.

The occupation authorities illegally converted the church of the Panagia Theotokos into an icon museum and the church of Agios Georgios into a folk-dance centre; all the crosses have been removed from Agios Georgios.³⁰ The chapels of Agios Thomas and Agios Dimitrios were demolished. In the Greek Orthodox cemetery all the crosses and the larger grave monuments have been damaged, and many crosses lie scattered.³¹