After publishing our book in 1981, I sent it to an important Italian Numismatist Prof. Dr.Paul Balog, asking for his comments and criticisms about our book, his reply from Rome on January 2, 1982.
1981 senesinde kitabımızı bastıktan sonra önemli bir İtalyan Numismat olan Prof. Dr. Paul Balog’a yolladım, kitabımız hakkında yorum ve tenkidlerini rica ettim, Roma’dan 2 Ocak 1982 senesindeki cevabı.
Long before the Romans founded Londinium on the North Shore of a large river flowing to the sea in one of their cold and foggy offshore islands, accurate scales were being used all around Anatolia for trading between ancient societies. Leviticus 19:35-37 states “You shall not pervert justice in measurement of length,weight or quantity. You shall have true scales, true weights, true measures, dry and liquid. You shall observe all my rules and laws and carry them out. I am the Lord.” The Koran XI:84-85 instructs “Oh my people, give measure and full weight in justice, and wrong not people in respect to their goods.”
The Suna and Inan Kirac Research Institute on Mediterranean Civilizations has assembled a museum full of scales and weights used from prehistory to the present around Anatolia, that broad plateau between the Black and the Mediterranean seas that we call modern Turkey. Having successfully published on their ceramics collection they induced Garo Kürkman to create a book on their scales and weights. His six pound, coffee table sized tome shows all 513 items of the collection in magnificent color. Further he shows many detail photos illustrating specific subjects. Moslems obey God’s command to create no graven images, but the sweeping script “Turgas of the Sultans, Municipal Assay Stamps and Marks provide visual evidence of a vibrant past and also great identification for your possible finds. He has included many conversions tables collected from such standard references as Kisch updating and correcting them citing data from the Kirac Collection.
The book starts with weights from the first quarter of the second millennium BC. It continues with Bronze weights used in Mesopotamia in the third century BC. There is extensive coverage of the Greek and Roman periods. The Byzantine period from the 5th – 13th century AD is covered with a number of scales from that period’ as well as weight conversion tables.
The book’s major strength is in its coverage of Dirhem weights. This weight system was derived from the Greek Drachma and this book covers its introduction and efforts toward standardization in Islamic societies. Weights from the reign of Mehmed II, 1464 AD through Mehmed V. 1909 AD are measured, explored, illustrated, correlated and tabled in the book.
In order to prevent fraud the Ottoman government made it compulsory that weights be inspected and stamped with sweeping stroked, assay marks that they call “Turgras.” Shown in the book are the Turgras of 40 Sultans, 30 towns and 20 Makers, which is a tremendous tool to provide provenance for your random weight.
And then the Metric System came to Anatolia. The book has a copy and translation of the first law promulgating the metric system in Ottoman lands. It has a poster showing the size and construction of all the metric weights and measures. Tables are provided to state and convert old measurements to this new system. It gives some comparative satisfaction that their world had all the problems of the West.
The book concludes with a photographic “Catalogue” of each of the items in the KMA (Mediterranean Civilisations Research Institute) collections and a glossary of the local and foreign terms used in the Ottoman Empire.
This is a magnificent book for both your library and your coffee table. 1000 pictures and tables make this a reference book on a world of scales that we in the West hardly know. The book’s purpose was to enlighten us, and it has certainly done that. It even identified my set of Anatolian weights that stumped everyone at the 2003 ISASC Convention. At $250.00 delivered from Istanbul, it is a bit pricey. At 25¢ a picture it is a bargain. On the used market Kürkman’s, “Ottoman Silver Marks” has appreciated 7% a year since issue.
Değerli taş ve madenlerin işlenip sanat şaheserine dönüştüğü bir sanat ve zanaat dalı olarak kuyumculuk, bu topraklara yüzlerce yıldır çok farklı usta sanatkârların ellerinde önemli merhaleler kat etmiş, sanat tarihinin birbirinden nezih onlarca eserinin gün yüzüne çıkmasına vesile olmuştur. Günümüz dilindeki bağlamından daha geniş bir anlam alanına sahip olan sarraflık (frs. zerraf) ise Osmanlı dönemi iktisat, ekonomi, maliye, muhasebe ve finans tarihi araştırmaları için birincil derecede araştırılması gereken önemli çalışma konularından birisidir zira modern bankaların ve bankacılık sisteminin Osmanlı topraklarında aktif olarak bulunmadığı dönemlerde bütün ekonomi ve para trafiği sarraflar eliyle ve onların üzerinden yürütülmektedir.
Osmanlı dönemi sarraflık mesleğinin tarihinin ise birkaç makale ve kitap müstesna olmak üzere hakkıyla araştırılıp bu meslek erbabı ve sanatkârlarının tüm vecheleriyle ortaya konulduğunu söylemek ne yazık ki mümkün değildir. Zira hemen hemen tüm klasik sanat dallarında olduğu gibi bu sanatı icra eden sanatkârların mesleklerine dair birikimlerini kendinden sonra gelen kuşaklara çoğunlukla usta-çırak ilişkisi içinde aktardıkları, bunun yanında mesleklerine dair bilgi birikimlerini sistematik biçimde bir yerlere kaydetmedikleri de yine malumdur. bu sebeple sarraflık mesleğine dair her türlü tarihsel kaydın gün yüzüne çıkarılması elzemdir ve dahi bu sanat dalına dair bilgi birikimine ve literatüre önemli katkılar yapacağı da aşikardır.
Para tarihi konusunda önemli çalışmalara imza atan Cüneyt Ölçer’le birlikte uzun yıllar çalışan ve sarraflık mesleği ile darphane-i âmire konusunda çok önemli bilgi, belge, doküman ve koleksiyonluk malzemeyi derleyen Garo Kürkman’ın “Osmanlı Saray Kuyumcuları (1853-1871)” isimli çalışması, bir ömre yayılan ilgi, dikkat, merak ve özverili çalışmanın mahsulü olarak karşımızda.
Darphane-i Âmire’nin binalarının taşınması esnasında tesadüfen kurtarılan bir defterden yola çıkılarak oluşturulan bu eser, osmanlı dönemi sarraflık mesleğine dair uzun metrajlı ilk büyük metin yayını olması yönünden de ayrıca önem taşıyor. Zira osmanlı dönemi sarraflarına dair biyografik bilgi ve malumat az olduğu gibi, mesleğe dair terim, kavram ve ıstılahların da açık bir biçimde ortaya konulamadığı düşünülürse kitabın ne kadar büyük bir boşluğu doldurduğu daha da iyi anlaşılacaktır.
Kitaptan, Osmanlı Darphanesi’nde, osmanlı darphane muhasebesi sistemine uygun kayıtlarının dışında Sultân Abdülmecid (1839-1861), Sultân Abdülazîz (1861-1876), Sultân V. Murad (1876) ve Sultân II. Abdülhamid’in ilk yılları (1883)’na kadar, Ermeni harfli bazı müfredat defterlerinin de ayrıntılı ve günü gününe tutulduğu anlaşılmakta. Keza bu defter de maalesef günümüze pek çoğu ulaşamayan o defterlerden birisi, belki de yayınlanması münasebetiyle en şanslısı. Darphane’de kuyumcu odası olarak bilinen özel bir birimde görev yapan usta sanatkâr sarraflar tarafından tutulan bu kayıtlarda, padişah ve saray çevresi dışında, dönemin önde gelen pek çok devlet adamına yapılan özel tasarım ziynet ve süs eşyaları, madalya ve nişanlar, kılıçlar, bilezik, kolye, künye ve süs eşyaları; ayrıca yine altından mamul veya altınla müzeyyen dekoratif malzemelerin imaline dair detaylı bilgiler bulunmakta. ayrıca tüm bu sanat eserlerinde zaman içinde meydana gelen aşınma, tahribat ve hasarlara dair tamir kayıtları da mevcut (s.35-45).
Ayrıca kitabın 45-49. sahifeleri arasında bulunan metinden yola çıkılarak geliştirilen kuyumculuğa dair imalat defteri sözlüğü de yine mevcut literatür bilgisini bir adım daha ileri götürecek detaylı bilgileri barındırmakta. Metinde geçen sanat eserlerinin görsellerinin de kitabın içine sanatkârane bir üslupla yerleştirilmesi, klasik bir eski metin yayınında pek çok kez karşımıza çıkan ve okunurluğu zorlaştıran kuru yeknesaklığı da kırmış, metni zevkle okunacak bir hale getirmiş. Yine kitabın son bölümündeki (s. 462-267) Ermenice-Türkçe-İngilizce bağlamsal sözlük de kitabı kullanışlı bir hale getirmesinin yanında, kendinden önce bu konularda emek verenlere selâm niteliğinde olup, kendinden sonra yazılacak metinlere de ufuk açan bir görüntü sergilemekte.
İyi altının değeri nasıl ki usta sarraflarca anlaşılıyorsa, bu kitabın değeri de kısa süre içerisinde meraklı okurlar, alanın ilgilileri, tarihçiler, sanat tarihi uzmanları ve kültür sanat çevreleri tarafından anlaşılacak; kitap koleksiyonerlerin raflarının vazgeçilmez magnum-corpus eserlerinden birisi olarak yerini alacaktır. ilerleyen zamanlarda bu prestij baskının yanında daha ekonomik bir baskısının yapılmasının kitabı daha ulaşılır kılacağını belirtmek de yerinde olur.
Garo Kürkman başta olmak üzere kitapta emeği geçen herkese tebrik ve teşekkürlerimi sunuyorum.
Umut SOYSAL*
İstanbul 2020
* TC. Cumhurbaşkanlığı, Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı, Dış İlişkiler ve Tanıtım Dairesi Başkanlığı. İstanbul 2020
Garo Kürkman, Osmanlı Saray Kuyumcuları 1853-1871, Korpus Kültür Sanat Yayıncılık İstanbul 2019. Sultan Abdülmecid ve Sultan Abdülaziz dönemlerinde Darphane-i Amire kuyumcu odası imalat defteri.
Garo Kürkman bu yeni eserinde Darphane-i Amire özelinde hem Osmanlı kurumsal tarihine yeni ve önemli bir katkı yapıyor hem de Darphane tarafından üretilen pek çok eseri gün yüzüne çıkarıyor. Eser Osmanlı saray sanatının en muhteşem örneklerini sergilemekle kalmıyor bilmediğimiz pek çok yeni sanat eserini de tanıtıyor.
Eser hazin bir olayın anlatımı ile başlıyor. Kitabın önsözünden öğrendiğimize göre 1975 yılında Darphane binaları boşaltılarak darphanenin bazı bölümleri döşemelerine kadar sökülmüş ve bu binalardaki pek çok değerli evrak tarihi eser ve Osmanlı döneminden kalma aletler ve makinalar bir hurdacıya satılmış. Eserin yazarı bu hurdacıdan satın aldığı defterler vasıtasıyla bu eserin ilk hazırlıklarını yapmış. Daha doğrusu eserin hazırlık aşamaları da bu yıllardan başlamış.
Darphane defterlerinin bir kısmı Düzyanlar Darphane-i Amire idarecisi iken Ermeni alfabesi ile Türkçe olarak yazılmış ve neşredilen eser bu defterlerden 1853-1871 yılları arasındaki kayıtları ihtiva eden önemli bir kaynak. Defter, Osmanlı saray kuyumcularına padişah ve saray erkanı ile diğer devlet ricalinin yaptırdığı eşyaların isimlerinin ve fiyatlarının yazılmış olmasıyla büyük bir önem ve değer taşımaktadır.
Kitapta yer alan eserlerin büyük bir kısmı Darphane-i Amire kuyumcu odası tarafından imal edilmiş nişan ve madalya gibi eserlerden oluşmaktadır. Altın ve gümüş üzerine mücevherlerle işlenmiş objelerden oluşan bazı eserler, Osmanlı sanat eserleri içerisinde en yüksek değerdeki eserlerin bir bölümünü oluşturmaktadır. Üst düzey bir işçiliğin sergilendiği bu eserler padişahlar tarafından çeşitli devlet adamlarına, bürokratlara ve yabancı elçilere hediye edilmek üzere sipariş veriliyordu. Kitapta darphanede kullanılan kalıpların da örneklerine rastlıyoruz. Bu örnekler kitaba büyük bir zenginlik katmış.
Prof Dr. Bilgin Aydın
It is to the credit of the Suna and Inan Kırac Foundation that it has made possible the publication of Garo Kürkman’s enlightened research on the history of Kütahya and its potters. John Carswell’s pioneering work in the 1970s and several recent catalogues have shed light on the variety of these ceramics. But this volume incorporates further information on earlier Turkish ceramics, as well as early Ottoman tilework, in both Islamic and Christian buildings. An exhaustive list of inscriptions and their translations, both in Ottoman Turkish and Armenian, alongside a comprehensive survey of potters’ marks, provides an unrivalled body of information.
The colourful decoration of Kütahya tiles and ceramic objects, so unlike the ornamental beauty of Iznik design, is truly enhanced by the layout of this handsome volume. Numerous pieces from Turkish collections have been included. They underline the great variety of shapes and designs, used in particular in the eighteenth century by Kütahya potters on such items as dishes, basins, ewers, candlesticks, moneyboxes, mugs and bottles, gourds and jugs. Less famous pieces, such as the lamp from the Gulbenkian Collection in Lisbon, have also been brought to light. So has the large collection of small cups, rescued from an eighteenth-century wreck discovered in the Sea of Marmara, between the island of Büyükada and the suburb of Kartal. Since 1987 these have been stored in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art in Istanbul. The illustrations of tiles, dated 1719, in the Surp Hagop monastery in Jerusalem, take up over twenty pages.
The traditional decoration of Christian manuscripts does partly explain the biblical illustrations on both tiles and dedicated dishes, though the naivety of most designs comes closer to those found on amulet scrolls, often with seventeenth-century dates. These scrolls were decorated with scenes from the Old and New Testaments, and with figures of saints and holy men. Other designs, some quite fantastic, have not to this day been explained. Jean Soustiel, in La Céramique Islamique (Fribourg, 1985), perceived the influence of Indian chintzes, but did not engage in further research. Fortunately, this has recently been achieved with the analysis of floral designs found on eighteenth-century palampores from the Coromandel coast of India. Some of these painted cottons were used as hangings in front of church altars.
In a brief first chapter Önder Bilgi introduces the reader to the region’s earliest ceramic production, and shows it to have started in the early Bronze Age, continuing through the Hittite period and the Phrygian Iron Age, on through Hellenistic and Roman times and ending with the Byzantine era.
Besides the historical background of the town of Kütahya itself, an impressive survey of documents by Garo Kürkman has produced a fascinating list of potters, mainly working in Kütahya, from the Tabrizi fiteenth-century tile-maker Muhammed Mecnun (who signed his work in the Yesil Cami, or Green Mosque, in Bursa), to Mehmed Emin Efendi (1872–1922), a leading name in the great revival of tile-making before the First World War. He often worked in partnership with the Minasyans, as well as with David Ohannesyan, who was to move on to Aleppo, Jerusalem and eventually Cairo. Stepan Vartanyan also became famous for his designs for tiles in Ottoman foundations and Armenian churches. Ten of these are reproduced, showing a meticulous adaptation of classical Iznik motifs, which are given a new lease of life. Special mention should be made of the lists of potters, both Muslim and Christian, in local documents dated 1764 and 1766.
In the first part of the annexes, Michael Rogers surveys in nine pages seven centuries of Ottoman architecture and the tilework related to it. This dense résumé underlines the precarious balance between supply and demand in the metropolis (Istanbul) and the provinces (Iznik and Kütahya) supplying it with ceramic goods.
The Turkish–English glossary of ceramic terms which follows should be used with care. Its translations will be useful to foreign collectors, but anyone using the references to world ceramics, mainly drawn from Turkish sources, should be wary of a number of inaccuracies.
To conclude, this welcome volume truly brings forward our knowledge of Kütahya and its production of ceramics down the ages.
Review of Garo Kürkman, Ottoman Silver Marks, Istanbul: Mathusalem Publications
The government of the Ottoman sultans controlled the distribution of precious metals by testing the purity of the gold and silver used to fashion precious objects and strike coins. An official stamp (sah) guaranteeing the purity, usually 90% for silver, accompanied by the monogram signature (tughra) of the reigning sultan was stamped on all precious metalwork. The marking was done by a special assay office in the Ottoman mint. This practice is virtually unknown in other Islamic dynasties, thus, in one more respect, the Ottomans followed procedures established centuries earlier by the Byzantine imperial court. The system of silver marks begins with the reign of Mehmed the Conqueror just after the capture of Constantinople in 1453. In this remarkable book, Garo Kürkman presents readers with a luxurious volume and a dynamic manual for the study of Ottoman silverware as well as its coinage. The result is an accumulation of research begun decades ago by Kürkman whose interest and expertise in numismatics goes back to his youth. For the first time we have a systematic study of Ottoman assay marks and silver stamps, abundantly illustrated with beautiful photography of luxury metal objects, both religious and secular. Through these one can followed the history and development of Ottoman orfèverie. The works were additionally stamped with the craftsman’s hallmark and Garo Kürkman also catalogues these. They date from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century.
Taken together the study combines a history of Ottoman and Middle Eastern coin production, the history and development of the tughra from its primitive tribal form to its imperial perfection, a catalogue of assay marks (sah), a catalogue of craftsmen’s marks and town marks also at times found on objects, a sample of forged tughra marks, and a number of appendices with reproduction of important chancellery documents: list of Ottoman sultans and their reigns and lists of silversmiths, goldsmiths, and related crafts. There is also a bibliography and an index.
The study of Byzantine silver marks and their arrangement by emperors has allowed art historians to develop clear ideas of dating, especially in the pre-iconoclastic period. The ability to compare stylistic and iconographic changes in motifs on metalwork dated within the narrow confines of the ruler’s reign has served to help date art in other media, miniature painting, ivory, mosaic, textiles. So too the stylized tughra-stamps of the Ottoman sultans as well as the hallmarks of the silversmiths and the monograms of the Anatolian cities allows us to date rather precisely the enormous quantities of precious metal objects which have survived from the Ottoman period. The great mass of this metal work is from the later centuries, seventeenth and after. A dramatic silver crisis in the Islamic east, dominated by the Ottoman Empire, resulted in the seizure and the melting down of tens of thousands of objects by the Sublime Porte to provide silver bullion for the striking of coins during this period of shortage, thus explain the scarcity of silver work prior to the eighteenth century.
With its many close up photos of the marks, Kürkman’s Ottoman Silver Stamps will serve as the indispensable guide to collectors, museum curators, and scholars. Surely it is the first group for whom the layout and organization is intended. Thus, far, however, its use by experts in the world of auction sales has been limited. Few recent sale catalogues from Paris or London bother looking up the silver marks and noting them in the description of Ottoman silver, even though the bidding for Ottoman metalwork is very brisk, with a avid and a aggressive group of Turkish collectors buying up everything that comes on the market. In time this will certainly change because most specialists are quite familiar with Kürkman’s volume.
Like any good manual there are a number of step by step charts and drawings, for instance those devoted to the development of the tughra and the identification of each sultan’s unique official signature. Kürkman has pioneered the gathering of town marks, usually supplementary marks to those of the makers. He points out that most of the silversmiths were from ethnic minorities, in the first place Armenians followed by Greeks and Levantine. Thus far he has identified Aleppo, Bitlis, Damascus, Diyarbakir, Egypt, Erzincan, Harput, Istanbul, Izmir, Izmit, Kula, Malatya, Sahili, Sivas, Trabizon, Van and Yozgat. Of these the ones for Izmir (Smyrna), Kula and Salihli are written in Greek letters, while Van is written in Armenian, Ottoman-Arabic, Russian, and Latin characters. The rest are all written in Arabic letters. By far the largest number of craftsmen’s marks are from Van and these, whether written with Arabic or Armenian alphabets, are virtually all Armenian craftsmen. Some sixty different names are identified from Van, whereas the next highest in number are from Izmir, (25 names, of which seven are Armenian and thirteen Greek and the rest Italian or European) and Istanbul (15, 13 Armenian and two probably Turkish). A further sign of the dominance of Armenians among the silversmith is the list of 103 gold and silversmiths who submitted works to the authorities for assay in 1790 (p. 287, Documents 12/1-10 in the appendix), 66 are clearly identifiable Armenian names. It is no coincidence that there are so many Kouyoumdjians (Kuyumcu=goldsmith, silversmith) among the Armenians.
On the other hand, in the special category of makers of penholders with attached inkpot, the divit, all the craftsmen bear Muslim names, at least for the silver divits. Yet in the latter half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries one finds many divits made of yellow brass stamped with Armenian makers marks, these, however, being of base metal are not discussed in the book.
The juxtaposition in the catalogue of religious and domestic objects (page 122-255, some 150 items) from the Islamic, Greek, and Armenian traditions underlines how difficult it is to determine the stylistic and even the iconographic origins of motifs in Ottoman Art. Is there any different between the gold plated silver mosque lamps (pp. 165 and 175 both in the Turk ve Islam Eserleri Muzesi, Istanbul) or the incense burner (p. 188, private collection) and virtually identical pieces in the liturgical museums of Etchmiadzin and Antelias?
This vast compendium far transcends the pioneering study by Armenak Sakisian, “K. Polsoy hay oskerch’ut’iwne (Armenian Goldsmiths of Constantinople),” Anahit, vol I, no. 5 (1930) and his “L’orfèvrerie arménienne à influence occidentale de Constantinople aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles,” Pages d’Arts Arménien, Paris, 1940, pp. 87-95. It should serve as an inspiration for younger scholars to delve deeper into the various rich domains exposed by Kürkman.
A final note, in this age of deregulation, the Turkish government no longer makes it binding on gold and silversmiths to submit their works to the assay office to guarantee the purity of the metal used. Nevertheless, the bureau still functions and may be used on a voluntary basis by all precious metal craftsmen.
Dickran Kouymjian
California State University, Fresno
