Portuguese Cemetery, Pulicat, Thiruvallur
Portuguese
Cemetery is situated to the Northwest corner of Kottaikuppam in Pulicat in
Thiruvallur District of Tamilnadu. This is an older cemetery where the
Dutch, Portuguese and Indians were buried, but that area is largely
inaccessible, today. This cemetery belongs to 16th century and
it is in poor shape.
The
compound, overrun with thorny bushes, is now frequented by miscreants in the
area. The cemetery is unused now and contains 22 tombstones, including that of
a lone Raya (from the Vijayanagar empire), as well as those of a few Portuguese
and several Dutch people. One of the tombstones even has Tamil inscriptions on
it. All the graves are in the east-west alignment.
The
cemetery was discovered in 2007, by the Art and Architecture Research, Development
and Education (AARDE) Foundation, a not-for-profit architecture and design
service organization when it was scanning the area on Google Maps. Pulicat’s
other cemetery, called the new cemetery which is under the control of the
Archaeological Survey of India, is three centuries old and has 77 graves. It is
near the town’s bus terminus.
The
Cemetery is located at about 650 meters from Pazhaverkadu Bus Stop, 1.5 Kms
from Pulicat Bus Stand, 9 Kms from Thirupalaivanam, 10 Kms from Karungali, 20
Kms from Ponneri, 20 Kms from Ponneri Railway Station, 74 Kms from Thiruvallur,
70 Kms from Chennai Airport and 55 Kms from Chennai. Town buses are frequently available
from Ponneri and Red Hills.
