| Karacaahmet Mezarlığı | |
| Established: | Mid-14th century |
| Country: | Turkey |
| Location: | Üsküdar, Istanbul |
| Coordinates: | 41.0111°N 29.0261°W |
| Map Type: | Turkey Istanbul |
| Map Size: | 250 |
| Type: | Public |
| Owner: | Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality |
| Size: | 750acres |
| Interments: | over 1 million |
| Findagraveid: | 2415920 |
| Website: | İBB Mezarlıklar Md. website |
The Karacaahmet Cemetery (Turkish: Karacaahmet Mezarlığı) is a 700-year-old historic cemetery located in Üsküdar, on the Asian side of Istanbul. Karacaahmet cemetery is the oldest and largest in Istanbul at 750acres, and the largest burial ground in Turkey by the number of interred.[1]
The cemetery was named after a warrior companion of Orhan, the second Ottoman sultan and is believed to have been founded in the mid-14th century. Karacaahmet Cemetery, which hosts many bird species, looks like a forest with trees such as cypress, plane tree, oak, laurel, hackberry, and various other plants. The burial ground is covered by high cypress trees.
As a 700-year-old burial ground of historical importance, Karacaahmet Cemetery was declared a natural protected area and national historical landmark site in 1991, in accordance with the decision of the Istanbul Cultural and Natural Heritage Preservation Board. According to this decision, the cemetery area can only be used for burial of the dead, the cemetery cannot be removed or used as a park area in any way.
Karacaahmet Cemetery comprises 12 parcels, each dedicated to different religious groups. Many historical headstones can still be seen with inscriptions written in the Ottoman Turkish alphabet, a version of the Arabic alphabet. The total number of burials is not known precisely, because no records were kept in the past, but it is estimated in millions. Because the burial registers of the Istanbul Cemeteries Directorate started to be kept only after 1937.
The shrine of Karaca Ahmet Sultan, a 13th-century physician and saint of Bektashis, a tariqah of Islam, is situated within the cemetery. There are also many other historical tombs and masjids, which is the Arabic word for mosques, built during the Ottoman period.
The cemetery, which began to expand in parallel with the increase in the Turkish population during the reign of Sultan Murad I, expanded further after the conquest of Istanbul in 1453. Karacaahmet was officially turned into a cemetery in 1582 by the mother of Murad III and Selim II's wife, Nurbanu Sultan,who donated 124 hectares of land from her own property for a city cemetery and ordered the cypress trees to be planted there. In addition, she appointed 13 guards for the preservation of these cypress trees and 24 people as gravediggers for the burial of dead.
The name of the cemetery, which was first mentioned in official sources as the cemetery of Karacaahmet Sultan in 1698, is also "Usküdar Mekabir-i Muslimini".
This cemetery, which was originally an empty, vast and clean ground, has always been a favorite place for the people of Istanbul for centuries and has served as a burial ground without interruption since its foundation.
The famous English poet Lord Byron included Üsküdar and the Karacaahmet cemetery in the following lines: «O Scutari! Your white houses look at thousands of graves, and above these graves rises that evergreen tree, that tender and dark cypress, inscribed in the foliage of eternal sorrow, like unrequited love».The cemetery has fascinated foreign travelers for centuries with its impressive view and architectural splendor, and many travelers have mentioned this cemetery in their memoirs. The French poet and writer Theophile Gautier, who was one of the first to describe the cemetery in his memoir, expressed his admiration, saying that Karacaahmet is the largest cemetery in the East. In addition, the Polish Count Edward Raczyński in 1814 in his book “Journey to Istanbul and Canakkale” and the German Generalfeldmarschall Helmuth Karl Bernhard von Moltke in his book “Letters from Turkey” gave a large place to the Karacaahmet cemetery. Calculating that the underground population of Karacaahmet far exceeds the living population of Istanbul, Marshal Moltke said in 1836: "You can build a big city out of these gravestones."
The famous Danish writer and master of fairy tales, Hans Christian Andersen, who was impressed by its size during his visit to Istanbul in 1841, just 5 years after Moltke, described the Karacaahmet cemetery, as if confirming Moltke: “The area of this cemetery is so vast that if sow wheat, it would feed the whole city, and if all the local tombstones were used, then a new wall could be built that would surround Istanbul."[2]
As if in unanimous agreement, Western travelers and writers have argued that the cemetery does not receive much sunlight, because it is covered with cypresses, and looks like a forest in dark greenery. This is one of the rare cemeteries for which poetry has been written in history.
The oldest photographs of the cemetery were taken by Ernest de Caranza in 1852–1854, followed by the brothers Abdullah, Bergren and Photo Sabah. The Anglican clergyman Robert Walsh, who had been the personal chaplain to the British ambassador Lord Strangford in Istanbul since 1820, compared the place to a large forest divided by wide roads on sloping ground. The scene he depicts was engraved by the English artist Thomas Allom.
The excavation works in the tunnel for the Marmaray project caused little damage as by June 2007, a dent of 1.5 m diameter and 4 m depth occurred close to the cemetery wall. It was reported that some graves were damaged.[3]
List is sorted in order of the year of death.