Karikop Cemetery

Karikop Cemetery (also Karicop Cemetery) is a historic Christian burial ground in Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu, India. Its name is generally linked to the Dutch kerkhof, meaning churchyard or cemetery. It preserves graves of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) community and later European residents of the port. About 50 Dutch graves survive; a historical catalogue recorded 57 gravestones.

History

The VOC captured Nagapattinam from the Portuguese in 1658 and transferred the headquarters of Dutch Coromandel from Pulicat to the town in 1690. Officials, merchants, ministers, soldiers and their families formed a European community around the port. The inscriptions reflect this wider VOC world, with connections to Pulicat, Batavia, Malacca and other Asian settlements.

The oldest recorded burial is Ioannes Kruyif (died 1664). Others include Willem Groenegeus, secretary at Nagapattinam (1667); Willem Caulier, formerly chief at Palakollu (1715); and the minister Jacobus van der Vorm (1717). Later inscriptions include Armenian merchants as well as Dutch and British residents.

Monuments

The most prominent monument is the domed tomb of Anthonia Nilo (1677–1709), wife of VOC governor Joannes van Steelant. She died in childbirth and was buried with a stillborn child. Built of brick and lime plaster around a stone burial slab, the tomb combines European funerary forms with local materials. In local tradition it became known as the Rani Kallarai ("queen's tomb").

Nearby is the obelisk of Adriana Mossel-Appels (1714–1743), wife of Jacob Mossel, later Governor-general of the Dutch East Indies. Together with smaller graves of children, clergy and company servants, the monuments preserve a personal record of VOC life in Nagapattinam.

Christianity pre-dated Dutch rule. After 1658, Dutch Reformed ministers served the VOC community and also preached in Portuguese and, in some cases, Tamil.

Conservation

By the early twenty-first century the cemetery was overgrown and several monuments had deteriorated. Dutch heritage specialists and INTACH began documenting and conserving the site in the 2010s. INTACH's 2016 heritage survey listed both St Peter's Church and the Dutch cemetery. The Van Steelant mausoleum and Mossel-Appels obelisk were restored in 2020–21.

See also

  • Dutch Cemetery – other cemeteries associated with Dutch settlements
  • Dutch Coromandel
  • Dutch Cemetery, Chinsurah
  • Dutch Cemetery, Murshidabad
  • Dutch Cemetery, Surat
  • Pulicat – former headquarters of Dutch Coromandel and site of surviving Dutch cemeteries
  • Dutch Malabar
  • Dutch India
  • Nagore Dargah
  • Basilica of Our Lady of Good Health
  • Fort Dansborg