Geçitkale

History / Places to Visit

DURMUS DEDE TOMB (SERDARLI)

BELIEVED TO HAVE POWER AND PROTECTION: The Durmuş Dede Tomb in Serdarlı is believed to have power and protection because it could not be passed by the Greeks during the 1974 Peace Operation. It is claimed that Durmuş Dede was a soldier who was martyred during the Ottoman conquest of Cyprus…

The Durmuş Dede Tomb in Serdarlı attracts attention both with its legend and because it is used as a place of pilgrimage. The legend surrounding the tomb amazes everyone.

Citizens from all over the country come to visit the tomb and make vows there for things they wish to happen. Tourists also show interest in this tomb.

It is believed that the Durmuş Dede Tomb, which is also visited as a place of vows in Serdarlı, is the tomb of a soldier who fell as a martyr during the Ottoman conquest of Cyprus.

According to information obtained from the local people, it was learned that the tomb was moved 300 meters to the west in 1958 due to damage to its original location.

The legend of the tomb

A woman goes to the fountain to get water and sees a child eating grapes there. The woman is surprised and asks where he got grapes at this time of year. The child says he got them from his grandfather. Unable to satisfy her curiosity, the woman asks the child who his grandfather is. The child says his grandfather's name is Durmuş. The woman then turned to the child and asked where he lived, and after walking a short distance, the child suddenly disappeared. The woman told everyone she met about this event, but no one believed her. The reason for the relocation… According to the legend, the reason for the tomb's relocation was that Durmuş Dede appeared in the woman's dream at the fountain. In the woman's dream, Durmuş Dede spoke of his foot pains, the repair of his tomb, and the burned wall. However, no one believed the woman's dream. After a while, the wall at the foot of the tomb began to crumble and crack. According to the rumor, Durmuş Dede, bothered by the weight of the wall, moved his feet, and the wall began to crack. After some time, the tomb was rebuilt, but it started to crack again. Tired of this, the craftsmen moved the tomb to another place. However, it is said that Durmuş Dede did not like the new tomb and visited the old one. According to the same legend, it is claimed that Durmuş Dede was seen on a road leading to the cemetery wearing white clothes.

Görneç Kızıl Burun- Hasan Maraşlılar Dinlenme Tesisi

Our ancestors who came and settled in the village in the past gave names to the regions according to their location. In this context, they gave names to rocks, streams, hills, and even roads with thin tracks. They resorted to this method so that people could describe the region to each other and communicate among themselves about who went where and where they came from. The name Kızılburun (Red Cape) also gets its name from the fact that the ground, the soil, is red.

Hacı Osman Ağa Sarnıcı- Gönendere

This underground cistern is considered one of the largest cisterns known to have been built in Cyprus during the Ottoman period. Winter rainsThe aim was to store the dirty water flowing from Yeni Dere, east of the village, in this cistern after it had been made potable. It stretches in an east-west direction, measures 6.20 x 11.30 meters, and is approximately 7 meters deep. The legend of its construction: In 1813, Hacı Osman Ağa, one of the wealthy men of Konedra, was working near Sütlüce (İpsilat (Psilatos)) village with about 25 sharecroppers when their water supply ran low. He sent one of the sharecroppers to Sütlüce village to get water. However, the water in the village's reservoir wasn't even enough for the villagers, so the person in charge there refused to give him water. Learning this, Hacı Osman Ağa decided to have a large cistern built in the village. The villagers were immediately gathered, and it was decided that a cistern would be built next to the Yeni Dere stream, which flowed past the village, with the promise of "The money is from me, the labor is from you." The wealthy villagers would also take turns slaughtering a sheep each day and feeding it to those who would work there. First, a lime kiln was built there, and lime was extracted from stones brought from the mountains. Stones brought from the hills were piled up there. Thus, the construction of the underground cistern began. First, a deep pit was dug. A thick foundation, about two meters high, was built at the bottom. The side walls were then started to be built on this foundation, beginning 10 cm from the inside. The top was covered with a vault supported by three pointed arches, each 2.40 meters apart. A pit was dug in the ground in the very center to collect the soil and other waste materials from the water that would flow in. The walls were plastered with oily lime mortar to prevent water leakage. An entrance hole was made on the upper part of the eastern side of the cistern for water to flow into it, while a drainage hole was made on the western side. To provide entry and exit to the cistern, an entrance door (ring) extending upwards in the shape of a chimney was built along the edge of the vault on the west, and a large almond-stone cover stone was placed on top. An inscription made of say stone was mounted next to the water entrance hole on the east side of the cistern. The content of this inscription, which is said to be currently covered with soil, was brought to our knowledge by İsmail Savalaş as follows:

“I built this cistern.
It is for drinking."

El Haç Osman Ağa
1228 H (1813)

Gaferallahu zembe (May Allah forgive his sins)” After the construction of the cistern was completed, work began on creating a system to transport the water from Yeni Dere, which flowed only with the rains during the winter months, into the cistern. Therefore, a water channel was built between the stream and the cistern, and two separate pools were constructed at regular intervals along this channel to purify the water. The water that first arrived from the stream was very dirty and had a very bad, grassy smell, so it was not channeled into the reservoir. When the stream flowed a second time, the channel along the stream bank was opened, allowing the water to flow into the first pool. As the soil settled at the bottom of the pool, the water filled, and then continued to flow through the bushes placed in front of the channel opposite, towards the second pool. If there were weeds or other materials in the water, they would get caught in these bushes. Thus, after being purified in the second pool, the water flowed into the cistern through a hole to the east of the cistern. Since clean water flowed into the cistern, it was only used for drinking. During the summer months, only two jugs of water were given to each house per day. Two kuruş per household was collected in the village for the annual cleaning of the cistern. To clean the cistern, a sack attached to a rope was lowered into the cistern through the ring stone, and after the mud and other waste materials accumulated in the pit in the middle of the cistern were filled into the sack, it was pulled up. This cistern was the only water source that met the village's drinking water needs for approximately 122 years. However, it lost its function from 1935 onwards when drinking water began to flow to the village from Ergenekon (Ayios Chariton (Ayharida)). Although it was not used for many years, it has survived to the present day in very good condition due to its good workmanship. GEOLOGICAL CONDITION OF THE CAVE Located within the boundaries of Çınarlı Village, İncirli Cave is the most geologically important cave on the island of Cyprus, situated just below the Pliocene surface, with an entrance 239 meters deep. İncirli Cave is a characteristic form of the Quaternary relief system. The cave takes its name from the fig tree at the entrance of the cave. Of the cave's total length of 311 meters, only 70 meters are currently illuminated and open to visitors. The gypsum layer is thought to be 5 million years old, the structural evolution of the bed to its present stage is estimated at 1.5–2 million years, and the cave's formation is believed to date back 150–200 thousand years. Due to the lithological characteristics of the gypsum (plasterstone) and its dense, intersecting cracks, the cave has a hooked and lattice-like structure. Its final sections, in particular, consist of galleries and corridors connected to each other in a labyrinthine manner. The Incirli Cave, with a width varying between 1–7 meters and a ceiling height between 0.5–6 meters, has its furthest point considered to be 0 meters.It is located at -14 meters (the deepest point) relative to the entrance.

In contrast, the gallery located in the southeast is 2 meters high. Incirli Cave, which is densely covered with chemical precipitates consisting of stalactites, stalagmites, columns, draperies, wall vein stones and cauliflower-like formations, is a fossil cave with a completed passageway. The last section of the cave, whose entrance was opened later as a result of collapses, is closed with blocks that have fallen from the ceiling.

THE ONLY GYPSUM CAVE

Incirli Cave is the only known gypsum cave within the TRNC area. The cave has only one entrance from the west, and its mouth is at a height that a person can enter by bending down.

Gypsum is a rock that is extremely susceptible to erosion. Therefore, while the formations belonging to the gypsum morphology form very quickly, they are also destroyed very quickly. Furthermore, in Turkey, which has a wider distribution of gypsum compared to the TRNC, no such gypsum cave has been encountered so far, except for some small tunnels. Therefore, İncirli Cave has a very important place in terms of speleology.

THE DISCOVERY OF THE CAVE

According to the widespread rumor in Çınarlı about how the cave was discovered, two thieves who were stealing fruit from the orchard located south of the cave, while waiting for evening under the fig tree at the cave entrance, dropped one of the pomegranates they had stolen into the cave. The thieves, who entered the cave to retrieve the pomegranate that had fallen inside, came to the village and told them what they had seen. Upon this, the villagers became aware of the existence of the cave.

RAILWAY (KURUDERE)

The railway, known as the longest bridge on the island, with a length of 72 meters, whose construction started in 1904 during the British period and was completed in 1905, is located in our Kurudere Village.

The 13th-century church in Geçitkale…

The Archangelos Michael Church, built in Geçitkale in the 13th century, was restored within the framework of the Cultural Heritage Technical Committee's work.

Although its construction date is unknown, the church, whose oldest part is said to be a medieval structure, is built entirely of stone.

Double aisle

The church, whose oldest structure dates back to the Middle Ages, is a historical monument with a double aisle, a protruding room in the southwest corner, and an arched passageway on the south side.

On the second floor of the church, there is an upper balcony for women, accessed by a staircase that is half stone and half wood. The church, built entirely of stone, has its southern wall arch completely covered in frescoes. The blind arch wall of the church is entirely covered with the work of Archangel Michael, to whom the church is attributed.

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