The Karacaahmet Cemetery (Turkish: Karacaahmet Mezarlığı) is a 700-year-old historic cemetery, located in Üsküdar, the Asian side of Istanbul. Karacaahmet cemetery is the oldest in Istanbul and at 750 acres (3.0 km2), the largest burial ground in Turkey.
The cemetery was named after a warrior companion of Orhan I, the second Ottoman sultan and is believed to have been founded in the mid-14th century. It is estimated that over a million people are interred in the non-profit cemetery.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 burial ground is covered by high cypress trees.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 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.
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