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A small yellow building that looks a little like a Greek temple faces
the campus wall near the Teacher-Student Center of Dhaka University.
It looks old and was in very bad state until the 1960s, when
university authorities renovated it. A mysterious inscription is
written on the frieze above the entrance to the building.
Many students and professors over the years have passed by this small
building and wondered what the strange letters said. Those who peeped
inside the usually locked gates and behind the furniture that is often
stashed there, saw several plaques with inscriptions and wondered what
they were. This article solves the mystery. It provides translations
of the inscriptions and makes some inferences about the people
commemorated there and their families.
The Inscriptions and
Translations
On the frieze of the front entrance, facing the Nazrul Islam avenue,
it is written in capital Greek letters:
"Happy are those whom you chose and took with
you."
Without seeing the inscriptions inside, a reader of ancient Greek
might think that the happy ones are the students admitted to the
university! However, the inscription was carved long before students
starting strolling casually by the little building. It refers to the
nine gravestones which are embedded in the walls. Four are written in
Greek, four in English, and one is in both languages. They belong to
Greek families who lived in Dhaka 150-200 years ago.
Counterclockwise, the nine gravestones have the following inscriptions
in Greek, English, or sometimes in both. (Download
table with original scripts and languages in PDF format.)
Gravestone 1
(bilingual inscription)
Here lies
Sultana, wife of Alexander [son of] Kyriakos Philippou Politou (or
Philippou from Istanbul); 1800; January 25 [by the Julian calendar].
Paid the common debt in Dacca. [Greek language]
Under this stone
are deposited the mortal remains of Mrs. Sultana Alexander, who
departed this life on Tuesday the 6th of February 1800; Aged 34 years.
[English language]
Gravestone 2
(Greek):
Here lies the late
Theodosia, wife of Theodore [son of] George Philippou Politou (or
Philippou from Istanbul). 1805; April 10. Paid common debt in
Dacca. May her memory be everlasting.
Gravestone 3
(English)
To the memory:
Mrs. Magdalene and Sophia Jordan; also to that of their husband, Mr.
Joseph Jordan of Cesareah, Merchant at Narayangange. The latter
departed this life the 10 of February 1819; Aged about 60 years. This
monument is erected as a tribute of affection to their memory by their
afflicted orphan children.
Gravestone 4
(English; the Urdu poem is in Latin characters, translation by the
author)
To the memory of
Nicholas Demetrius Elias, elder son of Demetrius Elias Esq. Died 5th
March 1843; aged 46 years. His desired verse:
Dune_ka jomuza hain The enjoyments of the world [after I
die]
hurgeze_ cumnu honga will never [emphatic] become less
churcha ahe ruhaga there will be talk of sighs [my pain]
ufsose
humnu honga it is sad [emphatic] that I will not be there
Erected by his sincere friend, Basil
Demetrius, in 1859
Gravestone 5:
(Greek, ornate stone centrally located)
Here lies the
late Jacob Essai Iakoboglous, from Caesarea; died 1819, June 22 and
was 48 years old. The one who sees this stone from above, God, may he
forgive him.
Gravestone 6
(English)
Sacred to the
memory of Basil Demetrius, Clerk, St. Thomas Church. Born 5th Sept.
1800. He faithfully served as Commissariat Assistant IX [9] Years,
Writing Master & Teacher in the Dacca College X [10] Years, Clerk in
St. Thomas Church Dacca XL [40] Years.
Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall
see God
Matthew V.8 MDCCCLX [1860]
Gravestone 7
(Greek)
This is the grave
of Father Nathaniel; holy and saintly, preaching about Jesus through
word and life. Second appeared Thomas priest in the inimitable happy
Dhaka. And at the same time, his fatherland was Sifnos [an Aegean
island], where he saw the light in 1736. The [date in] which he died
was 1810, March 12. Happy is the one who by paying homage respects.
Gravestone 8:
(Greek)
The husband-loving
woman who has not forgotten her husband's affection has erected this
sign as an indication of her everlasting passion to her husband,
Constantine [son of] George Mavrodoglou, whose home town was Istanbul
and who spent his life as a merchant and was relieved [of his life] on
July 24 1806. Dhaka.
Gravestone 9
(English)
Sacred to the
memory of John Demetrius Ellias, second son of Demetrius Ellias
Esquire, who was killed by a tiger whilst out shooting at Mirzapore 25
milles N.W. of Dacca on Sunday the 31st of January 1836. Aged 35
years.
Three noble
brothers lie mouldering here
named Nicholas, John and Constantine
famed as brave Hunters and to kindred dear
who erst to sport did their merry lives confine.
Erected by
his cousin and godson, Manuel Ellias Mitchoo.
MURDOCH
History of the Greek
Community in
Dhaka
The existence of
Greeks and Armenians in Dhaka is known from Dr. James Taylor who wrote
in a book called "Topography of Dhaka" and referred to the immigrant
communities. Greeks were late-comers to the Bangladesh area, after
the Portuguese, Dutch, and Armenians. Alexis Argyris, the founder of
the Greek community in Calcutta, died in Dhaka in 1777 and left
considerable property, which was divided among his sons who took up
their abode in Dhaka and Bakerganj. The Greek community apparently
was small. According to Dr. Taylor, there were 40 Armenian and 12
Greek families in 1838. Like the Armenians, the Greeks were chiefly
engaged in the inland trade, and there were a few who dealt
extensively in salt at Narayanganj. Apparently some achieved wealth,
like the Elias family whose sons could afford to live a life of
sports. The most prominent Greeks at the time Dr. Taylor wrote his
book were the Ralli brothers, who had a jute factory at Narayanganj.
According to Dr.
Taylor, the Greek church was built in 1821. Its name, St. Thomas,
(one of the 12 disciples of Jesus who is presumed to have lived in
India) refers to a saint commemorated much more by South Indians than
by Greeks and may indicate a tribute to Indian Christians. Since the
church was built in 1821, most university gravestones predated it.
This means that maybe a smaller church existed previously or another
church had been used for community events, such as a South Indian,
Russian, or Armenian church. The priest attached to the church came
from the ancient monastery of Mount Sinai in Egypt. A community
center and a cemetery with about two bighas of land also existed in
Maulvi bazaar, at and around Gulbadan house. The gravestones were dug
up in recent years, and a high-rise building was built on the site in
1990, apparently illegally.
It is reputed that some more gravestones are still to be found in the
immediate vicinity of the cemetery.
The St. Thomas
church was demolished in the severe 1897 earthquake. By then the area
had become valuable property, and the colonial government took it over
to build the Mickford medical school (now Salimullah Medical
College). Taking over a church site was unusual and an indication
that the Greek community had limited membership or wealth at the end
of the 19th century. Interviews with knowledgeable people suggest that
land was given elsewhere as compensation, at a site at or near the
current fine arts building of the university. In the beginning of the
century, Ramna had a garden and a cemetery, so taking the gravestones
there may have been seen as appropriate. At about 1905, the British
took over the Ramna land to build buildings for the East Bengal and
Assam province. After several buildings were built, the province plan
was annulled in 1911. The land given to the Greeks, therefore, was at
a new city location rising in value as a result of British
administrative activities. Reportedly, the Greek community owned
other buildings in that area in the 20th century.
The little
monument must have been built to house gravestones that were left
exposed after the church was demolished. It is a rough imitation of a
Greek temple (which the British would associate with Greeks) rather
than a miniature byzantine church, which one would expect given the
gravestones in it. It is not a family crypt, because most people
listed on the stones appear unrelated to each other. One wonders why
the gravestones and the bones that must have been underneath them were
not interred in the cemetery that continued to exist until recent
years. Perhaps those were the earliest burials or the gravestones
were removed from the ground even before the church was destroyed.
The good condition of the stones suggests that they were not exposed
to the elements for long. They may have even been dug up to make room
for the church in 1821 and some may have been stored in or around that
church. Some examples of old embedded gravestones on walls of
buildings do exist, as in the 9th century church of St. Lazarus in
Larnaca, Cyprus.
Typical to the
style of other foreigner burials (such as the Armenians) two
English-language inscriptions say "Sacred to the memory of.." The
Greek inscriptions are written with Byzantine letters that are ornate
and rather difficult to read. The language of the gravestones is
ancient (like classical Sanskrit) and similar to the language spoken
2000 years ago. It is likely that only the priests knew how to
compose the inscriptions. (The inscription on the frieze, in
particular, is part of a hymn known mainly by priests.) There are a
few spelling and syntactical mistakes, but the complexity of the
sentences shows that the writers were well versed in ancient Greek.
The likelihood that priests composed the inscriptions is reinforced by
the use of the Julian calendar in at least one case. The older Julian
calendar, which shows dates 12 days later than the Gregorian calendar,
was still used by the Orthodox church in the 1800s. The Sultana
Alexander gravestone mentions two dates, January 25 in Greek and
February 6 in English.
The quality of
most letters suggests that there were engraved by persons who knew
what they were writing, but some plaques (such as that of Iakoboglou)
contain errors in letter design that suggest the opposite. Probably
these gravestones were made elsewhere, such as Calcutta. At the
bottom of gravestone 9, which is in English, the name Murdoch appears
in small-sized letters, probably indicating the stonecutter company
that made it. One may compare the engravings with those in the
Armenian cemetery, which also seem carved by experienced writers but
were indeed engraved in Calcutta, as inscriptions indicate. Contrary
to many Armenian plaques which were made of Italian marble that was
imported to Calcutta, eight of the Greek plaques were made out of a
black stone, perhaps granite. One large plaque was made of a whiter
soft stone and is slowly being eroded by moisture.
The inscriptions
do not permit us to see what language these people spoke. Most were
from Asia Minor, Istanbul and Caesarea (now called Kayseri, a city of
600,000 in the central Anatolia of Turkey), and one priest was from
Sifnos, an Aegean island. Asia Minor Greeks spoke an archaic dialect,
which has become nearly extinct after the removal of Greeks from Asia
Minor in about 1927. Persons from Istanbul spoke a dialect that
linguistically resembled Urdu, that is it contained many Turkish and
Arabic nouns. Greeks from certain parts of Asia Minor had lost Greek
altogether and spoke Turkish. In much of the Ottoman empire, teaching
of Greek letters was forbidden and was done secretly by priests, who
were the keepers of the written language. Ancient Greek inscriptions,
therefore, served as a marker of Greek nationality for persons who
could hardly understand them.
The People and
Their Stories
What family
relationships and stories do these gravestones tell? Below is what
can be deduced without further research.
1) Philippou
(possibly Philippou Politou). The names mentioned on the gravestones
are: (a) Sultana, wife of Alexander, son of Kyriakos Philippou
(nickname Alexandris) who was born in 1766 and died in 1800 at 34; (b)
Theodosia, wife of Theodore son of George Philippou, who died in
1805. Since the two men do not have a common father's name, they
sound like cousins, or perhaps an uncle and nephew. The word Politou
may imply either that they were from Istanbul or possibly from
Philippoupolis, a city now in Bulgaria.
2)
Jordan
(from Caesarea). Joseph Jordan was the husband of Magdalene and later
Sophia. He was born in 1759 and died in 1819 when he was 60.
Children from both wives are mentioned but not named.
3) Ellias
(correct spelling should be Elias). The father, Demetrius, had at
least three sons and one nephew: a) Nicholas, the eldest (born in
1797), who died at 43 in 1846; b) John, the second (born in 1801), who
was killed by a tiger at 35 in 1836; c) Constantine, with no dates
mentioned. The nephew was Manuel Ellias Mitchoo, godson and cousin of
the three sons (dedicator).
Among Greeks,
Elias is a first name, not a family name. (Family names using this
name could be Eliades, Eliou, Eliopoulos, etc.). It is possible that
Demetrius gave up his last name in favor of his father's first name,
Elias, which serves as the middle name of Greeks. This seems likely
because the cousin of the three men also had the middle name Elias.
If so, then the original last name of the family may have been Mitchoo
like the cousin, Manuel [son of Elias] Mitchoo. The Greek custom of
having one name only and naming children after grandparents helps
establish the relationship among these people. Manuel apparently was
a third cousin by British reckoning, nephew of the three brothers by
Greek reckoning. (The fact that he was John's godson indicates that
he was younger.) This relationship indicates that a family with
lateral relatives became established in Dhaka. They were apparently
rich, and the sons could spent their lives in hunting and other
sports.
The focal point of
the three brothers' gravestone ("three brothers lie mouldering
here..") is John Elias, who was killed by a tiger in 1836. However,
the plaque includes Nicholas and Constantine, who appear to have died
earlier. Manuel, John's godson, financed the plaque for his
godfather's tragic death and seems to have reburied previously exhumed
bones for the two other brothers. Greeks have an old custom of
exhuming their dead, sprinkling the bones with oil and wine, and
putting them on the side of subsequent burials or keeping them in
boxes. "Three noble brothers lie mouldering here..." implies that
this gravestone was placed over the remains of people exhumed. The
bones of one were moved when another was buried and placed inside the
later burial. In the case of the three brothers, at least, there
seemed to be relatives in the area who were interested in doing the
appropriate ceremony.
One other
gravestone was erected for a Nicholas Elias (spelled with one l) in
1859, 13 years after Nicholas Ellias' death. Are they the same
person? They both have the same father's name. The name Elias is not
so common among Greeks that two persons named Nicholas Demetrius Elias
(both having given up their last names in favor of their middle names)
could be easily found in Dhaka's small community. Perhaps Nicholas
Ellias and Nicholas Elias were the oldest sons of two cousins who also
had the same name. If they are the same person, then there are two
gravestones for one person, and that is quite strange. The gravestone
dedicated by Manuel has John as the focal figure, yet includes someone
who died seven years after John's death. Perhaps the "Three noble
brothers..." was carved later on blank space. Manuel's direct
reference to John as "his cousin" implies that initially there was no
inscription in between. However, the space that would have been left
accidentally is considerable, and the letters on the plaque do not
change appreciably to indicate newer writing.
What else could
have happened? Perhaps the stone was erected on the occasion of
Nicholas' death by the nephew who specifically wanted to commemorate
his godfather's death. The two inscriptions could have been composed
independently, and the syntactical difficulty was not visible until
later. But why did Basil Demetrius put up another stone for Nicholas
much later, in 1859? Perhaps the 1859 gravestone is a commemoration
of an earlier death rather an actual gravestone, but Greeks do not
have such a custom. Or perhaps, one of the dates is an engraver's
mistake, and the latter gravestone is Nicholas Ellias' original
gravestone before he was reburied with his brothers. The correct
explanation, which was probably quite simple, has been lost with time.
The fact that
friends and relatives put up the Ellias family gravestones suggests
that the brothers died childless or that their children lived
elsewhere. It may also indicate that the family's fortunes diminished
after a life confined to hunting and other sports. This mention on
the inscription seems to be a deliberate hint.
4) Basil
Demetrius. He was born in 1799 and died at 61 in 1860. The stone
mentions no family.
Basil Demetrius
was educated but apparently not rich. He was a commissariat assistant
for nine years before he became an English teacher at Dhaka College
for 10 years. If the engraving dates are correct, he was also a clerk
at the St. Thomas church for 40 years. This implies that he became a
clerk at age 20, two years before the church was built. This is
possible, since there were community events and at least one priest
who died in 1810, before the building of the known church. Basil died
much later than the other persons mentioned on the gravestones and at
a time when there was a separate cemetery. Perhaps he was buried near
the church as an honor for his life-long service. If the gravestones
were transferred to the university grounds from the church area, then
this later burial was included.
Basil Demetrius
must have known the Ellias family; he was two years younger than
Nicholas and two years older than John Elias, who may have been his
childhood friends. He erected a gravestone for a Nicholas Elias in
1859 (near the church rather than at the cemetery), shortly before his
own death. His own gravestone as well as the Nicholas, which he
financed, are both written in English and indicate that he was
primarily an English speaker and oriented towards the British. This
indicates that Basil Demetrius and the Ellias sons and cousins were
second-generation Greeks, who were born in the Dhaka area or came as
children. They had obviously British education and perhaps they did
not speak Greek.
As in the other
cases, it is unclear what Basil's last name was. Demetrius is a first
name in the nominative case and could not be a Greek family name. The
name in the genitive case (Demetriou - son of Demetrius) it is indeed
a common family name. Basil's family could have a last name that was
dropped in favor of a simple father's name which became the family
name, like other families did (such as Jacob Essai). But the family
name Demetriou could have possibly acquired an incorrect final s, as
some contemporary Greek-American names are known to do. Probably the
former explanation is most likely. If the latter is the case, then it
is an indication that Basil did not know much Greek. At any rate, the
family name Demetrius lived on in Dhaka. The cemetery of the Armenian
church hosts Mary, widow of the late Gregory Demetrius. The
inscription is in English and states that she was born in 1853 and
died on October 12 1929 at age 76 years and three months.
Gregory could have been a son or a nephew of Basil.
Despite the
British education of the second generation of Greeks, one sees a
tendency to adopt elements of the local culture: the poem Nicholas
Elias desired for his gravestone was in Urdu (possibly written by
Mirza Ghalib) and showed that he understood the language and the
poem's somewhat convoluted reference to death. Urdu was never spoken
widely in Bengal, and the grammatical mistakes on the plaque indicate
that the person who wrote out the verses for the stonemason did not
understand it word for word. (The idiomatic verb conjugation appears
to be from the Hyderabad area, but the song could have been
transmitted by Hyderabad singers.) It is possible that Nicholas
learned Urdu in other parts of India or that he had considerable
contact with the Urdu-speaking Nawabs of Bengal.
5) Nathaniel
and Thomas were two priests. Nathaniel seems like the assumed
name of a celibate priest, and the fact that last names are not
mentioned reinforces the impression that they were priest-monks.
(Orthodox Christian priests may be married or single.) Perhaps Thomas
was the priest from the Mount Sinai monastery mentioned in Dr.
Taylor's book, and the Dhaka church may have been named at his honor.
The inscription
referring to the priest is confusing. The gravestone clearly states
that it belongs to Nathaniel, but then a second priest, Thomas, is
mentioned as having appeared, with subsequent dates of birth and
death. Since these dates are quite early (1734-1810), they must refer
to the older priest, Nathaniel. Thomas then must have merely erected
the stone. The priest who died was 74 (quite old for the times). He
was 40 years old when Alexis Argyris founded the community in 1776,
and it would seem reasonable that he moved there a few years later.
He may have been the individual who composed the 1800 and 1805
inscriptions of the Philippou Politou wives and the touching, quite
complex dedication of the Mavrodoglou widow. Certain points in the
inscription of the priests are unclear, but Dhaka is mentioned as a
happy, inimitable place looked upon as a fatherland for the priest.
6) Constantine
Mavrodoglou had a wife (unnamed) but was not local; he was a
merchant from Instanbul, who may not have had other relatives in the
area. The affectionate dedication and lack of mention of children
suggest that perhaps they had not been married for very long.
7) Jacob Essai
Iakoboglou has the most ornamented, centrally located gravestone,
indicating a man of some means who came to Dhaka and died middle-aged
at 48. Aside from the priests, he is he only person with no relatives
or connections mentioned. Again, the father's name has become a last
name, but Jacob's last name was mentioned in the gravestone, so it is
known. The ending of the name Iakoboglou (son of Jacob, denoting that
Jacob may have been the decedent's grandfather or great-grandfather)
is Turkish, as it often happens with Greek names from Asia Minor. A
final s has been inserted, however, to make the ending more compatible
with Greek grammar.
What did the
Greeks (and other immigrants) suffer and die from? Tuberculosis,
childbirth infections, malaria? The cause of death is only mentioned
in a killing by a tiger, and the fear of the event may have caused the
detailed description of the location of the accident. Burials from
the US at about that time indicate that many well-to-do families still
suffered from malnutrition and serious health complications. Deaths
of children must have been common, but none of these gravestones
belongs to young people or to children buried with parents. The
youngest burial is that of a woman who died at a relatively advanced
age of 34. At least four people were in their 30s and 40s, but three
others reached old age, including the 74-year-old priest. Perhaps
these persons who were of Asian heritage enjoyed relatively good
health in Dhaka, unlike some Europeans.
Predictably, men
and women are treated quite differently in the inscriptions. Only two
graves are women's, perhaps indicating a lopsided gender ratio and a
society where men came but did not bring wives. Five women are
mentioned in the stones, but practically nothing is said about them.
One dedicated a loving plaque to her husband, but her name was not
deemed worthy of reference. On the other hand, there is considerable
detail on some men's stones, some of which appears unimportant, such
as service as a commissary assistant. The only characterization of
women does not say much. The two Philippou wives "fulfilled their
common debt in Dhaka", i.e. lived in Dhaka.
Many of the people
mentioned in the inscriptions were clearly first-generation
immigrants; their place of origin is mentioned. Lack of mention of a
family in some cases makes one wonder whether lonely, transient men
came and died in Dhaka. Joseph Jordan and his two wives had children
which are mentioned as "afflicted orphans". This implies small
children, which 60-year old Joseph may have had with his second wife
(who also predeceased him). If they did not have relatives in this
country, the children may indeed have been afflicted.
Why did Greeks
come to Dhaka? Greeks have always been people of diaspora, and large
numbers have lived throughout history outside the traditional Greek
lands (which include Asia Minor). In this case, they were perhaps
attracted by the relative freedom and human rights they enjoyed under
the British in comparison with the Ottomans who conquered the
Byzantine empire in 1453. One guesses a tendency to identify and
merge with the British or other Europeans. As mentioned earlier, most
persons mentioned in the inscriptions anglicized their last names or
used the easier fathers' names as last names. Therefore, we really do
not know their exact last names. This makes it difficult to trace
subsequent generations in Bangladesh or elsewhere and leaves them
unaccounted for in history. What happened to the second generation of
Greeks? Did they mainly merge with the locals and other foreigners or
did they leave? There certainly was intermarriage with other
foreigner communities, such as the Armenians and the British. Some
until recently knew of Greek ancestors, such as the Lucas family
(whose name may have also been a father's name turned to a family
name). At any rate, the community did not live to see the
independence of Bangladesh. Greece became independent in 1827 and
eventually became a homeland for Asia Minor Greeks who were expelled
from Turkey around 1927. Political disturbances in the last 50 years
encouraged even long-time resident families to migrate, leaving behind
them property which local keepers later expropriated. Five Armenian
families were still left in 1994, but no Greek family now lives in
Bangladesh.
Faced with names
and data of people who lived two hundred years ago, one wonders how
those people viewed their past and present. Greece had not yet
regained its independence; the mainland and Asia Minor had been under
the Ottoman empire since 1453, and the Greek population lived with
memories of the Byzantine past. (The two-headed eagle, the emblem of
the Byzantine empire, appears on the central J.E. gravestone.) The
1757 British occupation of Bengal had only taken place 50 years before
most of the Greeks died. In their lifetimes they must have watched
the British consolidate their domination over Bengal, which still had
a figurehead Nawab. What did they know about Bengali literature and
culture? One expects that at least the second generation (such as the
Elias family) spoke Bangla, but the only indic linguistic reference is
in Urdu. Greeks occasionally became literary figures in countries
where they lived, but at the end of the 18th century Bengali
literature was heavily sanskritized and mainly comprehensible to
people with brahmanical education, which Greeks clearly did not seek.
Most of the gravestone people lived and died before Rabidranath Tagore
and Vidyasagar made Bangla accessible to the more common people,
comprehensible, and interesting.
The stories of
these people are fading fast, though documents may still be found in
Calcutta, Dhaka, or Greece regarding their acts. If more were known,
their lives would be better understood. Perhaps some day a doctoral
student will research the archives and write a dissertation on the
Greek community. But whether or not any more is ever known, the
university has in its grounds an interesting memorial of people who
came, learned, and apparently found Dhaka a good place to live.
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