The following is extracted from the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (November 1907) pages 595-598. Courtesy of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong.*
 

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An Old Christian Cemetery in Haidarabad

By Major T.W. Haig

The following epitaphs, the dates of which range from 1645 to 1807, are from the old Armenian graveyard in Haidarabad.  One epitaph, as will be seen, is in Dutch.  Dr. Daniel Havart in his work Open Ondergangh van Koromandel, informs us that the English and Dutch merchants in Haidarabad originally had but one cemetery between them, an hour’s journey distant from the Dutch factory which stood near the Car minar.  It is not easy to verify this statement for no English graves of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are known to exist in or near Haidarabad, and from the fact that Stephen Visser’s tomb is found in an Armenian cemetery it appears that the Dutch shared with the Armenians which is still, as it was described by Havart, an open field. From the same authority we learn that Johannes van Nijendaal, chief of the Dutch factory, bettered this state of affairs in 1678, when at great cost, he surrounded the (new) Dutch cemetery with a hedge of milk trees with a stone gate, and built a small house for the mourners. At the same time he collected the bones of all the Dutch who had been buried in the old (or Armenian) cemetery, and reinterred them in two stone tombs. The book-keeper’s tombstone is particularly mentioned as being too heavy to be carried far, and for this reason his remains were left undisturbed.

In the immediate neighbourhood of the Armenian cemetery, is a plot of cultivated land surrounded by milk trees, and it appears highly probable that this is the “new” Dutch graveyard, but of the stone gate, the house for mourners and the tombs no trace remains.  These were perhaps demolished after the annexation of the kingdom of Golkonda by Aurangzib in 1687, shortly after which time the Dutch factory was removed from Haidarabad

For these references to Havart and for the reading of the Dutch epitaph I am indebted to M.Maurits Wagenvoort of Amsterdam, and for the translations of the Armenian epitaphs to Mr. S.N. Pahlaw of Haidarabad.

The photos in this column were taken prior to 2005 by Dr. Omar Khalidi		The photos in this column were taken 27 June 2009 By Leon Avedissian

Historic Armenian cemetery buried under waste:
To read a recent article about the neglect and disintegration of this historical site,
please click here or the link below

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?title=Historic+Armenian+cemetery+buried+under+waste&artid=QdTqTgmA4zQ%3D&type

	This group of photos: Courtesy of Dr. Omar Khalidi