Baram and Carroll - Historical Archaeology of The Ottoman Empire, A

A Historical
Archaeology of
the Ottoman Empire
Breaking New Ground
CONTRIBUTIONS TO GLOBAL HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY
Series Editor:
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A HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE MODERN WORLD
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ARCHAEOLOGY AND CREATED MEMORY Public History in a National
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AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF MANNERS: The Polite World of the Merchant
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AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF SOCIAL SPACE: Analyzing Coffee Plantations
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A HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE: Breaking
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A Historical
Archaeology of
the Ottoman Empire
Breaking New Ground
Edited by
Uzi Baram
New College
University of South Florida
Sarasota, Florida
and
Lynda Carroll
Binghamton, University
State University of New York
Binghamton, NewYork
Kluwer Academic Publishers
New York, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow
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Contributors
UZI BARAM Division of Social Sciences, New College of the Univer-
sity of South Florida, Sarasota, Florida 34243
ALLAIRE BRUMFIELD Department of History, Towson University,
Towson, Maryland 21204
LYNDA CARROLL Department of Anthropology, Binghamton Univer-
sity, SUNY, Binghamton, New York 13902 6000
PHILIP L. KOHL Department of Anthropology, Wellesley College,
Wellesley, Massachusetts 02481
PETER IAN KUNIHOLM Aegean Dendrochronology Project, Depart-
ment of the History of Art and Archaeology, Cornell University, Ithaca,
New York 14853
YSTEIN S. LABIANCA Department of Behavioral Sciences, Andrews
University, Berrien Springs, Michigan 49104
NEIL ASHER SILBERMAN Ename Center for Public Archaeology,
Beaucarnestraat 17, B-9700 Oudenaarde, Belgium
ALISON B. SNYDER Department of Architecture, University of
Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403
CHERYL WARD Department of General Academics, Texas A&M Uni-
versity at Galveston, PO Box 1675, Galveston, Texas 77553
GHADA ZIADEH-SEELY Department of Sociology, Old Dominion Uni-
versity, Norfolk, Virginia 23529
v
Preface
Archaeology has a long and distinguished tradition in the Middle East,
but its realm has been limited to uncovering the history and social
processes of the distant past. During the late 1980s, a number of schol-
ars, following the lead of post-medieval archaeology in western Europe
and Historical Archaeology in North America and coastal Africa,
made calls for an archaeology of the recent past of the Middle East.
Those calls included improving the discipline of archaeology by testing
notions in the material record of the recent past, finding the com-
monalities in history for national groups that imagined their pasts as
separate, and countering the impact of colonialism and imperialism in
the region by exposing historical trajectories. The contemporary polit-
ical situation in the region made it increasingly clear that new bridges
to connect the distant past and the present were possible and
necessary.
Filling the gap between the contemporary eastern Mediterranean
and the archaeological past required archaeologists to confront the
history of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire, whose rule
started in Anatolia in the fourteenth century, controlled at its height
the area from Vienna to Mesopotamia and Arabia and across North
Africa, and lasted until the First World War. The legacy of this empire
for the Middle East and Southeast Europe has left a significant
imprint on the lives and relations of people living in this region.
Like others who took up the call for an archaeology of the recent
past in the Middle East, a sustained commitment to the history and
cultures of the region was the force behind our research. In Barams
case that involved an evaluation of various understandings of the
emergence of modernity in Israel, while Carrolls interest centered
around the recent past of Anatolia. Our common interests and
training in North American historical archaeology provided us with
methodological and theoretical frameworks that seemed worthwhile to
bring together and develop for the eastern Mediterranean.
We recognized that, although historical archaeology began in
North America as the study of European influence and settlement in
the post-Columbian era, a growing number of historical archaeologists
vii
viii Preface
were successfully tracing the material record of the modern world
for peoples throughout the globe. For us, an archaeology of the
Ottoman period became a logical extension of global historical archae-
ology. However, our understanding of this field was never quite the
same as it was for most archaeologists working in North America; for
us historical archaeology was never truly juxtaposed against prehis-
tory. After all, in the Middle East, history begins five thousand years
ago. More importantly, the Ottoman Empire was an independent
polity, not one of the Western European colonies which have come to
dominate discussions in global historical archaeology.
Nevertheless, it was in historical archaeology that we were both
able to develop our research interests focusing on global and local
changes in the material lives of communities in the Middle East over
the past 500 years. We are concerned with the relationships between
material culture and documentary sources, and have a commitment to
understand the lives of the people excluded or ignored in conventional
histories (specifically regional histories of ethnic groups separated
from changes brought by imperial influences, and Ottoman and global
histories which have traditionally examined large scale processes at
the expense of local formations). We appreciated the contributions that
historical archaeologists brought to our understanding of the history
and social life of the last five centuries. Most importantly, we hoped
our archaeological approaches would add complexity to the simple
caricature of the Ottoman centuries as a deleterious period in world
history or a stagnant empire capable of changing only in the presence
of Western European expansion.
As an archaeology that focuses on the global movement of
goods, power relations, and the emergence of identities, Historical
Archaeology should be able to contribute new insights into the Middle
Eastern past, particularly in terms of understanding the roots of the
present-day. Material remains could provide insights and open
avenues for locating common histories for people who have imagined
their societies as separate. By tracing the material remains of colo-
nialism and imperialism, the processes of domination and resistance,
accommodation and social change can be put into light of a common
history. Those anthropological concepts are vitally important in the
Middle East and Balkans today, since they address issues that are con-
tinually contested and confronted, all too often and sadly with very
tragic consequences. But until recently, the material remains from the
recent past in the Middle East which could have shed some light on
the recent past of this region were simply avoided, ignored, or bull-
dozed away.
Preface ix
Throughout the 1990s, mostly implicitly and without any sus-
taining scholarly organization, archaeologists began to face the chal-
lenges of an archaeology of the Ottoman Empire, and a wealth of new
archaeological materials recovered from excavations were retained for
analysis. It became clear to us that the archaeological literature on the
Ottoman period was growing, as an increasing number of scholars
from a variety of different disciplines, such as history, art history, clas-
sics, and geography expanded their examination of the Ottoman period
in terms of its material culture. The result was increasing numbers of
descriptions of Ottoman artifacts and landscapes, published archaeo-
logical reports inclusive of the Ottoman period, and discussions of the
socio-politics of archaeology in the region. Yet, the growing research
seemed disorganized, and centered mainly around regionally specific
issues. The two of us felt that the archaeology of the Ottoman past
would benefit from a more comparative approach. To coordinate some
of those endeavors, we decided to organize a conference focusing on
Ottoman archaeology.
In 1996, we invited several dozen archaeologists, historians, art
historians, and other scholars to gather at Binghamton University,
State University of New York, to participate in a conference entitled
Breaking New Grounds for an Archaeology of the Ottoman Empire:
A Prologue and a Dialogue. The conference was conceived with one
major objective in mind
to open a dialogue about archaeology of the

Ottoman Empire. The specific goals of the meeting were to uncover the
potential of, and begin to unite, the new field of study, as well as to
present and discuss the results of archaeological studies from a wide
variety of sites and regions of the former empire. Binghamton Uni-
versity is one of the centers of Ottoman Studies in the United States
and the home of The Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, His-
torical Systems and Civilizations, which has encouraged research into
the Ottoman Empires role within global world systems for over two
decades. Binghamton University, therefore, provided an opportunity
for feedback from Ottoman historians and sociologists.
We were very pleased with the response, both from the scholars
who attended the conference and the interest the gathering created.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the scholarship on archaeology
of the Ottoman Empire needs to be united, and some possible goals of
the field made more explicit. This volume is meant to present the find-
ings from a range of projects and approaches and to begin the process
of organizing that archaeological research. Our initial goal was to
improve contact between and create a dialogue for archaeologists who,
like ourselves, have focused on a relatively unexplored time period. In
x Preface
the process, we hoped to break down some of the barriers which iso-
lated scholars working in various regions throughout the former impe-
rial provinces. The feedback and responses provided results which
were far more rewarding than what we initially set out to accomplish.
Charles E. Orser, Jr. encouraged us to create this volume, and Eliot
Werner and Herman Makler at Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers
helped us carry it through to completion. We appreciate their patience
and support throughout the various phases of this project, since a
number of seasons of field work in Turkey and Israel led to delays.
We have been pleased to see interest in an archaeology of the
Ottoman Empire develop over the past decade. Yet, despite a growing
interest in archaeology of the Ottoman Empire, we still are concerned
that this field has yet to find its place in the ranks of more established
archaeological research. We hope that this volume demonstrates the
potential of archaeological investigations for understanding the recent
past of the Middle East, and introduces an archaeology of the Ottoman
Empire to a wider scholarly audience. As we discuss in the introduc-
tion, there are many avenues for an archaeology of the Ottoman
Empire. We envision the volume as an invitation to a dialogue within
the field of archaeology on the Ottoman period material record
and encourage discussions of the theoretical implications of the case
studies, If this volume encourages archaeologists to place the Ottoman
period within their preview and consider some of its material remains,
we would be satisfied with the endeavor.
UZI BARAM
LYNDACARROLL
Contents
Part I . Introduction
CHAPTER 1 . The Future of the Ottoman Past . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Uzi Baram and Lynda Carroll
Introducing an Ottoman Archaeology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
The Ottoman Legacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
The Archaeology of an Empire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Ottoman Archaeology and Global Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Uncovering the Ottoman Empire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Contexts for an Archaeology of the Ottoman Past . . . . . . . . . 5
The Many Paths Toward an Ottoman Archaeology . . . . . . . . . 15
The Prologue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Part II. From Archaeology to a History from Below
CHAPTER 2. Agriculture and Rural Settlement in Ottoman
Crete, 16691898: AModern Site Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Allaire Brumfield
37
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Agriculture in Ottoman Crete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
A Rural Settlement History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
The Recent System of Cultivation in the Vrokastro Area . . . . 54
Metochia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Agricultural Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
xi
xii Contents
CHAPTER 3 . The Archaeology of Ottoman Tiinnik: An
Interdisciplinary Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Ghada Ziadeh-Seely
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Why Ottoman Archaeology? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Political, Theoretical Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Use of a Multidisciplinary Database. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Archaeological Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Breaking New Ground, Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
82
CHAPTER 4. Dendochronologically Dated Ottoman
Monuments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Peter Ian Kuniholm
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Discussion of Structures and Their Dates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
CHAPTER 5. Entangled Objects from the Palestinian Past:
Archaeological Perspectives for the Ottoman Period,
Uzi Baram
15001900 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Charting the Terrain: Ottoman Palestine and the Palestinian
Past . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Artifacts of the Modern World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Entangled Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Uncovering the Habits of Modernity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
xiii Contents
CHAPTER 6. Toward an Archaeology of Non-elite Consumption
in Late Ottoman Anatolia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Lynda Carroll
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
The Relevance of Historical Archaeology for Ottoman
Anatolia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Consumption as Economic Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Economic Transformation in the Ottoman Empire . . . . . . . . 166
Ottoman Ceramic Traditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
164
Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Part III. Trade, Subsistence.
and Ideology in the Ottoman Empire
CHAPTER 7. The Sadana Island Shipwreck:
A Mideighteenth-Century Treasure Trove . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
The Shipwreck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Cheryl Ward
The Hull . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Daily Life in the Shadow of Empire: A Food CHAPTER 8.
Systems Approach to the Archaeology of the Ottoman
Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
ystein S. LaBianca
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
204
206
What Is Meant by a Food Systems Approach? . . . . . . . . . . . .
Can We Speak of an Imperial Ottoman Food System? . . . . . .
Interventions? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Human
-Environment Interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
The Relevance of Ottoman Archaeology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Can We Speak of Indigenous Resistance to Imperial
xiv Contents
CHAPTER 9. Transformations, Readings and Visions of the
Ottoman Mosque
Alison B. Snyder
. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Introduction . , . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Documentation and Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Mosque Forms and Lighting Types: A Vocabulary . . . . . . . . . 225
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
References . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Part IV. Prospects
CHAPTER 10. Sultans, Merchants, and Minorities:
The Challenge of Historical Archaeology in
the Modern Middle East . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Neil Asher Silberman
243
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
CHAPTER 11. Diverse Approaches to the Ottoman Past:
Toward a Globally Conceived, Regionally Specific
Historical Archaeology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Philip L. Kohl
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
Appendix A: Chronology for the Ottoman Empire: Some Key
Dates in Ottoman History, 1260-1923 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
INTRODUCTION
I
The Future of the
Ottoman Past
1
INTRODUCING AN OTTOMAN ARCHAEOLOGY
From the fourteenth century, until its demise in the early twentieth
century, the Ottoman Empire was one of the worlds great empires.
Stretching from the regions now known as Croatia and Romania, to
Iraq and Yemen, and across much of North Africa, this empire had a
significant influence on world history, and more significantly, on the
history and peoples of the Middle East and Balkans in general.
Yet, based on the narratives archaeologists tell about this region,
one would hardly notice that the Ottoman Empire ever existed. While
archaeologists tell grand and glorious stories of this regions past, few
have taken the opportunity to explore the Ottoman period. Instead,
the archaeological narratives of this region tell of prehistoric achieve-
ments of humanity and of the rise of agriculture and settlements. We
have a good understanding of the great cities of the Bronze Age and
of the empires of the Iron Age, as well as the Classical civilizations of
Greece, Rome, and Byzantium. Some archaeologists even examine the
early history of Islam in this region. But just as we begin to reach the
doorstep of the present, archaeological insights-and research-trail
off.
The fact that there has been little sustained archaeological inter-
est in the recent past of the Middle East is due, not to a lack of ma-
terial remains, but to ideological blinders to what constitutes an
archaeological past, and what its relevance could be. There are, after
all, very clear and firmly entrenched ideologies of what constitutes an
UZI BARAM Division of Social Sciences, New College of the University of South
Florida, Sarasota, Florida 33620. LYNDA CARROLL Department of Anthropology,
Binghamton University, SUNY, Binghamton, New York 13902.
A Historical Archaeology of the Ottoman Empire: Breaking New Ground, edited by Uzi
Baram and Lynda Carroll. Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers, New York, 2000.
3
4
archaeological period in the Middle East. Archaeology in this region
has a long tradition of being the search for a distant, romantic past-
a past comprised of golden ages, and heralded as the birthplace of
civilization. Few archaeologists have romanticized about the Ottoman
period. Few consider the Ottoman period to be a golden age worthy of
sustained research. This is a major boundary which has to be crossed
as we break new grounds and move toward an archaeology of the
Ottoman Empire.
Archaeologies of the recent past have proven to be quite success-
ful in other parts of the world, such as historical archaeology in North
America and post-medieval archaeology in Great Britain. Yet, the
recent past of the Middle East, North Africa, and the Balkans is still
considered irrelevant for archaeologists. The archaeological past in
this region is, after all, more often than not, separated chronologically
as well as culturally from the Middle East of today. The result has been
the construction of an artificial barrier separating the past and the
present.
In spite ofor perhaps in reaction tothese boundaries, a
growing number of archaeologists, archaeological commentators, art
historians and historians have actively argued for, advocated and
aided in the development of an Ottoman archaeology over the past two
decades (e.g., Glock 1985; Kohl 1989; Silberman 1989; Baram 1996;
Orser 1996:194198; Seeden 1990). Some scholars have called for
filling in the gap which separates the past and the present (e.g.,
Silberman 1989), since for the most part, the peoples of this region
often believe that they have separate and competing pasts. Others
challenge the notion of a stagnant, passive, unchanging Ottoman
period (Baram 1996) and envision in this archaeology a challenge to a
history of colonialism and imperialism (Kohl 1989). Others have hoped
to use the archaeology of the recent past to understand the historical
development of the modern Middle East (e.g., Davis 1991; Seeden
1990; Ziadeh-Seely 1995). Many scholars have, after uncovering
Ottoman components in multi-component sites, found the artifacts of
the Ottoman period important enough to describe and typologize (e.g.,
Aslanapa et al. 1989; Robinson 1983,1985; Hayes 1992; Baram 1995).
Some include this time period in their analyses and interpretations
of archaeological places (e.g., Foss 1976, 1979; Toombs 1985; Brown
1992). Whatever the motive, it is clear that since the 1980s, the
number of archaeological studies focusing on remains which date
from the Ottoman period has been growing, complimenting an earlier
corpus of archaeological materials (e.g., Wiegand 1925; Riis and
Poulsen 1957).
1. The Future of the Ottoman Past 5
CONTEXTS FOR AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE
OTTOMAN PAST
The boundaries isolating the Ottoman period from the archaeo-
logical past are not solely temporal, but also geographical and intel-
lectual. But what are these obstacles which have prevented the
development of the field of Ottoman archaeology? Certainly, Ottoman
period sites can be found scattered across the landscapes of the eastern
Mediterranean. Archaeologists often encounter the Ottoman period
deposits on sites, if only by necessity as they delve deeper into the
archaeological record.
The greatestand most challengingobstacle which must be
overcome in the creation of this field are the attitudes which archae-
ologists have toward the Ottoman period. In addition, archaeologies of
the Ottoman past will no doubt be influenced by the various meanings
this period has for the people who live in the empires former domin-
ions. In both cases, the Ottoman period has remained an unpopular
period for archaeological study.
The unpopularity of the Ottoman Empire stems largely from the
perception that its growth marked a deleterious period in world
history. This view is propogated both by Western scholars and by
people living in the regions once ruled by the Ottomans. The Ottoman
Empire is often considered to have been a period of decline and decay
from antiquity, as the empire began to lose much of its wealth, cen-
tralized power and prominence on a global scale (e.g., Gibb and Bowen
1962; Inalcik 1973; Kinross 1977; Palmer 1992) starting in the late
sixteenth century. European powers referred to the empire as The Sick
Man of Europe. While the meanings of this period of the Ottoman
Empire has been widely debated (e.g., Abou-el-Haj 1991, Kafadar
1995), it is not coincidental that these images of decline and decay fit
nicely into the concepts of progress and Western triumph which char-
acterize much of modern Western thought and scholarship, including
archaeology.
A broadly defined Western Tradition was built in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries on what were considered to be classical
foundations, and were based almost exclusively on the connections to
a Biblical past, or Hellenism and neo-classical revivals. Any traces
of the presentof an Ottoman presentwere considered annoying
and debasing the illustrious ancient tradition (Todorova 1996:45).
The regions touched or ruled by the Ottoman Empire located in
the margins of Europe (e.g., Herzfeld 1987:127), were considered
to be polluted by centuries of Ottoman rule. At the same time, by
6 Uzi Baram and Lynda Carroll
emphasizing the classical civilizations of deep antiquity, archaeologists
help to reinforce this ideology. Neglecting or ignoring an unpopular
Ottoman period, Ottoman landscapes are more often than not pre-
sented as devastated, empty or abandoned during the Ottoman period.
These judgements provided the ancient past with a more preferable
place in history books; perusing an archaeology of a glorious, ancient
past was a more desirable endeavor than developing the archaeology
of a despised one. This remains largely the case today.
Perhaps even more importantly, archaeology in this region
is deeply embedded within contemporary political ideologies. Today,
many of the artifacts, monuments, sites and even cultural legacies
are seen as symbols of the power politics of an unpopular Ottoman
past, and therefore evoke unpopular memories for many groups
in this region. The distant past, often examined through archaeo-
logy, is highly romanticized, and understood as a past of heroic
ancestors, existing before the time of the Ottoman Empire. Much
of the archaeological research in the Middle East and the Balkans
is supposedly aimed at tracing the development of groups of
peoples living today. However, the foundations for ethnic and national
identities in this region are presented as lying mainly in an
ancient past (e.g., Kohl and Fawcett 1995; Silberman 1989). As a
result, the more recent past is deemed separate and disconnected from
the present. In this process, geo-political boundaries and tensions of
the present obscure the many common experiences of people living
under the dominions of one empire. Those common experiences, which
negate nationalistic calls for separations, more often than not
influence a perception of the Ottoman past as a negative era for a place
or people.
At its height in the mid-sixteenth century, the Ottoman empire
stretched north from the Balkans and south to the Arabian peninsula,
encompassing much of North Africa (see Figure 1.1). The empire
brought a vast variety of people under its dominion, and was com-
prised of many different religious, linguistic and ethnic groups, which
at dif-ferent times and places lived side by side with one another, all
as Ottoman subjects. Many groups-organized mainly around and
administered through religious communities (known in the nineteenth
century as millets)enjoyed relative independence, and for centuries
retained their own languages, and religious and cultural practices
(e.g., Itzkowitz 1996:3738; Rustow 1996:250). These groups, however,
did not live in isolation of one another. Religious conversions occurred,
and linguistic boundaries were often not nearly as clearly defined as
they appear to be in modern nation-states.
Figure 1.1. The Ottoman Empire in 1800, showing its territorial losses between 1683
and 1800.
However, throughout the nineteenth century, and especially after
the fragmentation of the empire in the early twentieth century, groups
began to understand their identities differently. Ethnic, linguistic, and
religious affiliations were often collapsed, renegotiated, or redefined.
In many cases, these identities were transformed into national iden-
tities organized around the modern nation-state. Regarded as a period
of imperial rule, the Ottoman past became reconceptualized as a period
of detested alien domination (Brown 1996:5).
The creation of national identities were, for the most part, based
on the idea of common roots of people living within these locales which
were created in antiquity, and not in the recent past. The use of the
distant archaeological past is therefore a powerful tool to build nation-
alism and/or ethnic identities, and can help secure these perceptions
of the past, whether they are positive or negative. For much of the
twentieth century, this simple observation helps to understand the
lack of sustained archaeological research into the Ottoman centuries.
And in each contemporary nation-state in which these archaeologi-
cal sites can be found, the potential for an Ottoman archaeology is
8
therefore firmly entrenched within the various meanings ascribed to
the Ottoman past.
Although it is obvious that modern national borders do not nec-
essarily delineate any past landscapes, in the case of the recent past
this can not be stressed enough. This goal, however, relies on assump-
tions of primordialism. The primordial approach assumes present-day
ethnic identities and geopolitical borders have radiated from the
distant past. The antiquity of ethnicities and even nationalities are
essentialized, grounded in peoplehood, and used as a given, objective
fact to be assumed at the beginning of any analysis. This reduction-
ism removes complexity from peoples identities and creates a fixed
boundary or border between peoples. These divisions, created in the
relatively recent past, are difficult to transcend, especially considering
the unpopularity of the Ottoman past.
THE OTTOMAN LEGACY
United by a common past under Ottoman rule, all of the former
Ottoman provinces can lay claim to an Ottoman legacy. However, few
do. The one major exception is the Republic of Turkey; whether they
want to or not, Turks have inherited the legacy of a past which is
mostly unpopular, since Turkey is considered by many to be the suc-
cessor state to the Empire (Brown 1996:5).
Indeed, Western scholars, commentators, and travelers alike
often referred to the multireligious, multiethnic, and multilingual
Ottoman Empire simply as Turkey (Brown 1996:5). The Ottoman
state was established by the late thirteenth century in Anatolia as the
migrations of nomadic Turkic tribes from central Asia brought these
people to western Asia Minor. But as it expanded, the Ottoman empire
included many different groups of people. Some of them converted, and
some were conscripted into the service of the state. The resulting
mixture was a Muslim administrative and ruling elite-serving the
state and Islam, and using the Ottoman language-which was a mix
of Persian, Arabic and Turkish. These elitesand only these elites-
are considered to be Ottomans (e.g., Itzkowitz 1996:31).
However there are many, often conflicting meanings for the
Ottoman Empire in Turkey. The Republic of Turkey became a nation-
state in 1923, and its formation was based largely on state ideologies
which rejected the Ottoman past (Sterling 1993:23). Over 70 years
later, many Turks do not wish to study an Ottoman past-through
archaeology, history, or by any other means. For many, the Ottoman
1. The Future of the Ottoman Past
period symbolizes an unprogressive, stagnant period of Turkish
history, put aside and forgotten after the formation of the Republic in
1923. Many Turks do not even feel that they can trace their roots back
to the Ottomans. Many look to an Anatolian peasantryand not an
Ottoman elite cultureto find their heritage.
There are exceptions. Some Turks (and others) consider the
height of the Ottoman period to be a glorious past of a great Turkish
Empire (Brown 1996:5). Growing appreciation for the many historical
monuments in Turkey (as well as in the former Ottoman provinces)
by art and architectural historians in Turkey is a testimony to Turkish
pride in some aspects of an Ottoman past (see for example
Yenisehirlioglu 1989). Whether the Ottoman Empire is understood as
a great Islamic Empire or a great Turkish Empire, this potentially has
additional meanings for Turks participating in contemporary cultural
and religious revivals in Turkey.
While people in the Republic of Turkey often have conflicting atti-
tudes towards the Ottoman period, in another areas, perceptions of the
Ottoman centuries are more resolute. In Israel, the Ottoman years are
often described as inconsequential. Historically, Ottoman Palestine
was often described by travelers as desolate and by local historians as
suffering under the Turkish yoke. Many of these studies either state
or imply a stasis for the four centuries of Ottoman rule, and a period
of a decline from glorious ancient heights, to a period of no internal
innovation. The Ottoman centuries are contrasted with the glories of
Roman era construction and legendary stories of great kings and con-
quests. As the Holy Land for the great monotheistic religions, there
are accounts which stretch through the Ottoman period which describe
the expectations of travelers against the extant landscape (examples
include Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, among many others; for the
critique of the Orientalist literature, see Said 1979). Those views have
structured notions for the ranking of this lands history. The Ottoman
period landscape is assumed to be empty. When the Ottoman centuries
are considered within an historical light, the people of Ottoman Pales-
tine are seen, first, as passive victims of the Ottoman Turks and, later
victims of the Westor in the idiom of world-system theorists, victims
of capitalist penetration.
Even in the few attempts to include the Ottoman period within
the broad archaeological history for the region (e.g., Levy 1995),
studies of the Ottoman period sit uncomfortably with the Bronze and
Iron Ages. For several generations of archaeologists, the artifacts and
architecture of the four century long Ottoman period in that region
were often avoided, ignored, or bulldozed away. As the study of the
9
distant past, archaeology in Israel supports the agenda of a Biblical
Archaeology. Attempts to incorporate spatial and material information
from the Ottoman period face disciplinary assumptions about the char-
acter of archaeology.
The disciplinary issues intersect with the nationalist appropria-
tion of the Ottoman period landscape. Thus one of the most famous
symbols of Jerusalem is the walls around the old city, especially the
fortification known as the Tower of David. Neither the Tower of David
nor those walls are Biblical in their construction. The walls were built
in the mid-1500s by order of Sleyman the Magnificent. The most
obvious evidence of the Ottoman past in Jerusalem is appropriated
and made more ancient to satisfy the needs of the citys present
owners.
Many questions remain for archaeological research in Israel. For
example, should the archaeology of this modern period keep the
agenda of Biblical Archaeology? Can the study of a modern empire use
the tools and analyzes from the deeper past?
In other places, such as the Balkans, open hostility to the memory
of Ottoman rule is quite clear. The result has been an attempt to
separate and isolate indigenous (and therefore ancient) local tradi-
tions from foreign, Muslim, Ottoman influences (Todorova 1996:47).
This requires ethnic separation and assumes ethnic characters are
unchanging through time. A notion of stasis for the Ottoman centuries
is a useful tool for that goal, and characterizes much of the historiog-
raphy of the region. For example, in his work, Balkan Worlds: The First
and Last Europe, Stoianovich (1994:20) argues for a permanence of a
primordial Balkan culture which can be traced back to Neolithic times.
The Ottoman centuries may have separated a Balkan past from the
present, but both a Balkan past and present are assumed to be essen-
tially the same.
A prominent example of this process is Bosnia. The 1990s war in
the realm of the former Yugoslavia was predicated on ethnic primor-
dialism. The notion of primordialism assumes that identity-and
therefore associations with places-are fixed and eternal. This pro-
vided enough justification for Christian Serbian forces to remove the
last lingering remnants of Ottoman rule. The destruction of the Mostar
Bridge, the Saravejo Library, and other historical monuments was only
onealbeit symbolicomponent of a war against a multi-ethnic and
dynamic past in that region. The targeting and massacre of Muslim
populations in Bosnia during the war was an even more tragic one
(e.g., Rusinow 1996; Sells 1996).
Complex and contradicting meanings of the Ottoman past are
played out in different ways in each of the successor states to the
Ottoman Empire. The material remains of the period intersect with
local histories in similarly divergent manners; while goods and people
circulated throughout the many provinces of the Ottoman Empire,
archaeologists today are faced with different boundaries and obstacles
presented by competing nation-states, or in consideration of ethnic
conflicts and rivalries, different languages and different modes of
scholarship. In this context, a call for archaeological investigations of
the Ottoman period moves not only among theoretical concerns from
anthropology and history, and methodological issues in archaeology,
but also among ideological issues.
We want to challenge the priorities of archaeologists in the
Middle East. In worst case scenarios, Ottoman period artifacts
have been destroyed in the process of development, or other archaeo-
logical endeavors. Even when these samples are examined, however,
remains from the Ottoman period are most often treated as
afterthoughts, as the recent deposits on otherwise thoroughly
examined sites.
A re-examination of the long term historical development of the
Middle East can only be attempted by de-romanticizing the archaeo-
logical study of the past, by filling in the gap between the distant past
and the present, and by examining the Ottoman past as one would
examine other sites. However, does a call for archaeology of the
Ottoman period mean that archaeologists should simply begin to
survey and excavate Ottoman period sites, with little discussion of its
relevance? Does the inclusion of the Ottoman period on its own nec-
essarily make for better understandings of the past?
We should not assume that inclusion alone will in anyway chal-
lenge existing understandings of the Ottoman past; it is possible that
an archaeology of the Ottoman period will do little more than simply
extend the range of time periods which archaeologists study. Con-
ducted in isolation from one another in a vast variety of contemporary
nation-states, archaeologies of the Ottoman period may only help to
fuel the arsenal of identity building which already exists. After all,
archaeology can be used to support existing perceptions of the past as
easily as it can challenge them. Descriptions of local histories can
easily be explained as the fading legacies of glorious pasts character-
izing classical antiquity.
The goals of archaeology in the region must be reconceptualized
for an archaeology of the Ottoman Empire to be successful.
12
THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF AN EMPIRE
Archaeologies of the Ottoman period do exist. The extant corpus
of publications is a credit to scholars willing to excavate, analyze, and
commit to publish about these materials despite the lack of a system-
atic framework for scholarly discussions. A growing number of studies
have successfully shown the archaeological community the potential
Ottoman components of archaeological sites can have for understand-
ing long term developments of a region (see, for examples, Aslanapa
et al. [1989] for the Iznik excavations; Foss [1976], [1979] for Sardis
and Ephesus; Hayes, [1992] for Sarahane in Istanbul; Johns et al.,
[1989] for Jordan; Preziosi [1989] for Crete; Toombs [1985] and Eakins
[1993] for Tel el-Hesi). These studies have, each in their own way,
introduced the material world of the Ottoman period to archaeology,
However, what can really become of an archaeology of the
Ottoman period? Are we simply concerned with a chronological desig-
nation? We argue that this cannot be. First, and foremost, Ottoman
archaeology is not simply the archaeology of the Ottoman period, but
The difference between an Ottoman period archaeology and an
Ottoman archaeology is subtle, but essential. The first definition
implies an archaeology which examines people living during a specific
time period. These studies are mostly exclusive and limited to areas
defined by contemporary geo-political boundaries. This is not to
suggest that local histories be ignored, nor that archaeologists solely
use the empire as their unit of analysis. Instead, an archaeology of an
empire provides crucial information about the local histones and social
developments of the empire, in what Sinopoli (1994:169) calls the
material consequences of an empire. An archaeology of the Ottoman
empire is far more inclusive, since it provides a political economic
context to our studies. In this way, we can begin to understand
the workings of the empire as an integral part of the development
of local histories, and the links between localities and an Ottoman
imperial administration. But also, we can examine social action on
the local level as a part of the development of the empire, to be
compared and contrasted with other regions. An archaeology of
the Ottoman Empire links local and imperial histories in dynamic
relationships.
Reconceptualizing an Ottoman archaeology as an archaeology of
an empire at first may seem daunting. However, only by visualizing
Ottoman archaeology as an archaeology of an empire can we deal
with many of the problems which archaeologists face in this field.
an archaeology of the Ottoman Empire.
According to Sinopoli (1995:4), the challenges of conducting archae-
ologies of empires include issues of scale, internal variability, and the
need for collaborative, interdisciplinary efforts between scholars in
various fields. This, of course, also applies to the Ottoman case. In this
case, archaeologies of local histones can be transformed from nation-
alistic rhetorics professing primordial origins, to an study of an empire
and local variability. However, archaeologies disarticulated from the
context of an Ottoman Empire can be integrated within the larger
context of Middle Eastern and Ottoman studies by reconceptualizing
the Ottoman Empire as a world empire, and to appreciate the global
nature of this empire. In order to do this, we must turn to some recent
debates in Ottoman studies.
13
OTTOMAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND
GLOBAL ANALYSES
Much of the recent scholarship on the Ottoman Empires place in
the world owes its ontology to Immanuel Wallerstein and a world
systems approach. In a series of publications (Wallerstein 1974, 1980,
1989), Wallerstein unveiled the notion of spatial inequalities for con-
ceptualizing this development of the modern world system. Wallerstein
posits the development of the modern world system in the aftermath
of the Columbian voyages, with the linking of the Old and New Worlds,
and provides a framework for viewing historical events and social
processes not as unique and separate but as globally integrated. The
interactions are not simple; from the sixteenth century onward, these
interactions are driven by a powerful and ruthless core in western
Europe, acting against other regions. The peripheral regions are in the
Americas, Africa, and Asia.
One aspect of this socio-historical investigation into the modern
world system produced an agenda for the study of the Ottoman Empire
(Islamoglu and Keyder 1977). The study of the Ottoman Empire of-
fered challenges for a global framework; the Ottoman Empire was

its own world Empire, and thus cannot be conceptualized in the same
way as other regions which were part of European colonization efforts.
The Empire always maintained its political autonomy, even when eco-
nomically it became, according to world systems theorists, a semi-
peripheral region.
Kasaba (1988) provides several definitions for the use of world
systems theory in Ottoman studies. Within the world system, accord-
ing to Kasaba (1988:6):
The incorporation of the Ottoman Empire was achieved mainly through the
mediation of trading activities that linked the sites of agricultural produc-
tion in, especially, the Balkans and Western Anatolia with the process of
production and/or household consumption elsewhere in the world economy,
especially in core areas.
Incorporation, for the world system theorist, involves two stages.
First, there must be links established between local production
processes and the larger scaled capitalist world economy. Then, that
regions political structures must be integrated into the interstate
network of the world system (Kasaba 1988:4). Beginning in the mid-
eighteenth century, but then escalating throughout the early twenti-
eth century, the Ottoman Empire was positioned as subordinate to the
economic power of an industrial, Western European core. Provinces in
the Balkans and Western Anatolia, in particular, became the suppli-
ers of raw materials and cheap labor for the west. And while the
empire began to loosen its political integrity during the nineteenth
centurylosing provinces to nationalistic movements and imperial-
ismthe Empire continued to maintain its political independence.
The world system approach has allowed exploration of both the
events and processes of the last several centuries in the region within
a global framework (e.g., Marcus 1989; Masters 1988). In addition, the
world systems approach provides two contributions for an archaeology
of the Ottoman Empire. The first is an appreciation of the large scale
political economic history of the empire. The second contribution, like-
wise, is its global approach, as it examines historical spatial inequal-
ities, social interactions on a global scale, and examinations of
economic power differentials and political economic geography. This is
crucial for any understanding of the context of material events and
processes for the region. Therefore, an archaeology of the Ottoman
Empire which examines the region as a geo-political isolate would do
disservice to understandings of the social processes of the Ottoman
centuries. Some of the valuable components of this approach include
its foci on spatial networks, the perception of global power relations,
and the concern for large scale social processes which are illuminated.
However, one of the great strengths of using archaeology is its
local level focus on small portions of past landscapes. While we hope
that local regions and sites of the Ottoman past can be contextualized
within their the global processes of change that mark the modern
period, conceptualizing the Ottoman past on various scales of analy-
sis should be a priority.
There are major critiques of a world systems theory (e.g., J. Abu-
Lughod 1989; Asad 1987; Wolf 1982); for example, examining the
Ottoman Empire only on the global level does not allow us to look at
any internal dynamics involved in the processes of change. As Faroqhi
(1984:8) notes,
15
Underlying much social history relating to the Ottoman Empire we find
the assumption that the Ottoman social system changed little if at all in
the course of the centuries, except where European intervention disturbed
its functioning.
This, of course, is tied into the second critique of this approachthat
world systems analyses is plagued by an implied Eurocentrism. World
systems theory places interactions among regions in the center of
social science analysis, and then primarily examines the west and the
rest.
We take these critiques seriously. While it is tempting to simply
attribute economic transformations on a powerful global capitalist
economy, it is also essential to look at how the expansion of capitalism
interacted with individual groups or communities. Economic transfor-
mations did not affect all groups the same way. Studies should there-
fore also say something about real people or local communities, their
actions, and how they interact with different political economies; while
actions are connected to global processes and a larger world system,
we should not subsume local histories in global processes, but instead
try to examine anthropological subjects (Roseberry 1988).
Ultimately, the relationship and dialogue between a global eco-
nomic structure and specific local developments may be better under-
stood as entanglements, through which collective and individual
action led to the intertwining of local groups with global capitalism.
Archaeologists are well suited to address some issues of changes, at
the most local of levels. If successful, archaeologists can help bridge
the gap between local changes and their larger political economic
contexts.
THE MANY PATHS TOWARD
AN OTTOMAN ARCHAEOLOGY
The field we are conceptualizing is unlike any other. We find
Ottoman archaeology positioned, somewhat vaguely, between the
boundaries of Middle Eastern archaeology, broadly defined Ottoman
or Middle Eastern studies, and global historical archaeology. In North
America, many archaeologists are affiliated with anthropology depart-
ments, whereas many European archaeologists find their homes in
history departments. Archaeologists can also be found in classical
studies programs, and art history departments. Unfortunately, archae-
ological studies in the Middle East tend to reflect a tension between
these different approaches, but dependent on their training, archaeol-
ogists can approach the topic through a wide variety of disciplines. It
is still unclear whether Ottoman archaeology can help build the cross-
roads of new and innovative ways of conceptualizing the recent past
in this region, or potentially be caught in the crossfire between these
disciplinary boundaries.
We hope that a community of Ottoman archaeologists would not
be split by those disciplinary tensions. More importantly, we acknowl-
edge that there are many paths towards an archaeology of the
Ottoman Empire, along which there is much room for theoretical and
methodological maneuvering. Although these are not the only alter-
natives, an Ottoman archaeology can be envisioned as borrowing and
expanding on:
global historical archaeology

the archaeology of Islam
Middle Eastern Studies
ethnoarchaeology
critical analyses of the present
These categories are quite fluid for understanding an Ottoman archae-
ology, and we expect and encourage overlap between them.
Ottoman Archaeology as Historical Archaeology
In North America, a growing group of anthropologically trained
archaeologists continue to study the recent past through historical
archaeology. Glock (1985), for a prominent example, called for an his-
torical archaeology for the Middle East; in that case, he refereed
mainly to the methodologies for combining archaeological remains and
documentaries sources. Glock used the straight-forward definition of
historical archaeology as text-aided archaeology (i.e., the archaeologi-
cal research of periods in which documents exist). We, however, refer
to historical archaeology as it is practiced in North Americameaning
the archaeological study of the recent past. Historical archaeology as
a study of the recent past can help to separate an historical archaeol-
ogy of the Ottoman centuries from the earlier, but similarly historical
epochs of the Middle East.
Historical archaeology has primarily been a North American
endeavor and uses the advent of the modern erathe explorations
and conquests of Western Europeans starting in the 1400sas its
benchmark (e.g., Deetz 1977, Leone and Potter 1988). In Western and
Central Europe, a similar approach is post-medieval archaeology (e.g.,
Hodges and Whitehouse 1983). In all of these areas, the recent past
has been examined mainly as the archaeology of the spread of Western
European influence. As a departure, however, global historical archae-
ology is now practiced internationally, for example in Africa (e.g.,
Posnansky and DeCorse 1986; Hall 1993), eastern Asia (Junker et al.
1994), and Australia (Connah 1988).
As the archaeology of Western European spread and influence
around the world (e.g., Deetz 1977), an historical archaeology of the
Ottoman Empire might look for evidence of Westernization and mod-
ernization in the region. For the land that is today Israel, archaeolog-
ical investigations of European settlements (German Templars in Jaffa
and Haifa, the American Colonies in Jaffa and Jerusalem, and the
Jewish settlements sponsored by the Baron Rothschild) would fit
under that rubric. In Egypt, the concerns might revolve around the
archaeological evidence of Napoleons military, then the British, in that
land. Across the region, archaeologists could examine in detail the
presence of British manufactured ceramics which would indicate
Western European influences: the penetration in the markets of the
Middle East and the falling out of favor of locally produced wares.
Among the sultans treasures, a ceramic with the name of Abraham
Lincoln (Rogers 1996:190191) clearly opens up issues of the perme-
ability of national and cultural boundaries and the meanings of mate-
rial culture.
Along similar lines, an Ottoman archaeology can be understood as
an archaeology of capitalism (e.g., Johnson 1996; Leone 1995; Paynter
1988). Paynter (1988) has argued that historical archaeology needs to
broaden its focus, from studying Europeans and their influences to
employing class analytics for the study of the emergence and spread
of capitalism in the post sixteenth century world. The sixteenth
century is the benchmark for studying and understanding the pro-
duction, distribution, and consumption found in capitalist social for-
mations. Paynter (1988) focuses on the patterns of change in glass
bottles in the United States; Johnson (1996) examines changes in
architecture in England. Efforts to use those analytics to understand
patterns of change in the material world in the Ottoman Empire are
seen in the chapters by Baram (this volume) and Carroll (this volume).
Taking historical archaeology from North America can be just
another exercise in intellectual imperialism. Silberman (this volume)
sees in Ottoman archaeology the possibility of rethinking historical
archaeology (see also Orser 1996), to use the subfield to cross bound-
aries in the contemporary world, and ultimately, to rethink our con-
ceptualization of the modern world. Historical archaeology with the
inclusion of Ottoman archaeology would be a different subfield, one
more global in perspective than most current approaches.
Since the Ottoman Empire is the precursor to the nation-states of
the eastern Mediterranean, understandings of its material remains
intersect with the heritage of each of those countries. Across the
region, there are debates about the emergence of the present (and
there are plentiful scholarly debates on the rise of capitalism and
modernity). Ottoman archaeology as historical archaeology would be
involved in those cross-currents even while it provided data from the
material record.
While the focus on Western European influence on the Ottoman
Empire has potential for understanding modernization and Western-
ization in the region, there is once again a clear bias to this approach.
Historical archaeology, for the most part, examines the intersection of
Western Europeans and non-western and native peoples. More impor-
tantly, it examines the development of European colonies, the domi-
nance of Western Europe over native peoples, and the development of
western European capitalism.
A historical archaeology of the Ottoman Empire however, does not
necessarily have to place the Ottoman Empirerulers and subjects
alikeinto passive positions in the face of Western European propelled
transformations. Although Western Europe ultimately did gain global
hegemony, it was only at the end of the empire that its history was
sealed. Local and regional transformations in the Ottoman empire do
not need to be placed into the shadows of history; during the long cen-
turies of Ottoman imperial rule, the Ottoman Empire's role in history
was not simply one of a victim, but rather a major player.
Ottoman Archaeology as an Archaeology of Islam
An archaeology of the recent past in the Middle East can be exam-
ined from an alternative perspective, specifically through an archae-
ology of Islam; several archaeologists have noted the importance of an
Islamic archaeology (e.g., Grabar 1971; Insoll 1999). Islam was, and
continues to be, one of the world's major religions. A religion-based
archaeology in the eastern Mediterranean could follow the pathways
created by both Biblical and New Testament archaeologies. In addi-
tion, the Islamic world has historically and philosophically been con-
nected, (if not always united) to many regions throughout the Middle
East, Africa, and Asia, as well as other parts of the globe. The Islamic
world was (and is) a world-system in its own right, including an exten-
sive network of sociopolitical and economic connections, including his-
tories of ethnic and religious interactions.
However, Islam itself is not a culture, and therefore, it would be
inappropriate for archaeologists to examine the Islamic period as
one unified entity (Grabar 1971:197); there is great cultural variation
throughout the Islamic world, both spatially and temporally. The
Ottoman Empire was only the last of its empires, and the Ottoman
period was one regional manifestation within the Islamic world. The
archaeological study of the material culture used by a wide variety of
people during the 600 year Ottoman phase of the Islamic period can
help in the examination of the history and workings of a larger scaled
Islamic world.
Much of the archaeology of Islamic periods examines the mate-
rial culture and monuments associated with elites of the Islamic world.
The same is true for the Ottoman period. This focus is often made to
illustrate fine examples of the Ottoman tradition, in an attempt to
show its contributions to history. In this volume, Snyder explores the
material world of one type of major religious structure, specifically the
Ottoman mosque (cami) in Turkey. While others have mapped out
the religious architecture in Ottoman urban centers, such as Istanbul,
Jerusalem, and other cities of the imperial realm (e.g., Aslanapa 1986;
Yenisehirlioglu 1989), Snyder looks at the meaning behind material
world in terms of ideological understandings and time over time. Just
as an archaeologist is concerned with the use of space, she looks at
how space and light are entangled and provide meaning for the people
who used the mosque and the uses of the material world for ideologi-
cal purposes. By examining a living tradition, Snyder brings to-
gether the extant physical landscape with a concern for diachronic
transitions.
By focusing on Islam, Ottoman archaeologists can examine
the social history through ideological frameworks, belief systems,
and worldviews which come from sacred teachings of the Quran. This
will allow archaeologists to work with ideological models describing
how people were expected to live. On the other hand, archaeology
can illustrate how people really lived, and whether the material
remains fit within that model. This will allow archaeology to expand
on the relationship between ideas and the physical world (Grabar
1971:198).
One example is the presence of intoxicating stimuli in the
archaeological record. The Quran is explicit about avoiding such things
19
that muddle the mind. The presence of naghiles, tobacco pipes, and
coffee cups raises issues for the practice of the people during the
Ottoman centuries (see Baram 1996; also Rosenthal 1977; Hattox
1985). Court documents reveal the debates about the use of these
objects and commodities; the archaeology of Ottoman Islam provides
insights into the differences between ideological models of how people
should live versus their actual lives, as well as the tensions and
changes caused by entanglements of material worlds within the past
several centuries.
Ottoman Archaeology as Middle Eastern Studies
As a new endeavor in historical and social scientific inquiry, an
Ottoman archaeology must use several established disciplinary and
interdisciplinary platforms, based in Middle Eastern studies or
Ottoman studies; a vast literature exists for Ottoman archaeologists
to explore both Ottoman history and modern Middle Eastern studies
(but see Inalcik and Quataert 1996). However, major disciplinary
boundaries still separate most archaeologists from scholars in Islamic
or Middle Eastern studies departments. This is true especially in the
United States, where anthropological archaeologists are more often
than not associated with prehistoric archaeology, and classical archae-
ologists working in the Near East focus primarily on pre-Islamic sites.
However, few Ottoman archaeologists have presented their work to a
larger Ottomanist audience. On the other hand, few Ottomanists con-
sider archaeology as anything more than filling in the details of an
archival based history.
Our major goal is to create an increased awareness of historical
trends using a variety of methods, including archaeology. We hope that
Ottomanists can learn about the potential of archaeological method
and theory. We expect to find the greatest potential for Ottoman
archaeology in the intersection of the rich historical record with mate-
rial remains. In a dialogue, they can both illuminate and even con-
tradict our current understanding of this empire, time period, and
region.
We hope that archaeology will create a dialogue with these
regional studies. Evidence of daily lifeespecially non-elite, rural life
in the shadow of the empirecan come from the material world as
well as the archives. LaBianca (this volume) illustrates this by exam-
ining the changes in foodways in Transjordan. The current focus in
Ottoman studies on the political, economic, and social history of
the empire allows a good fit with archaeological interpretations of
material remains from the Ottoman period (e.g., Faroqhi 1984;
Islamoglu and Keyder 1977; Kasaba 1988; Marcus 1989; Masters 1988;
Owen 1981; Quataert 1983).

In addition, Ottoman archaeology could bring to light the people
excluded from or invisible to traditional historiographies in this region
(Carroll, this volume). Braudel called the Ottoman Empire a major
historiographical problem, a zone of formidable uncertainty (1972: 13)
Part of that uncertainty comes from being in a Mediterranean which
speaks with many voices. In the present century, many of those voices
have competed to construct histories to either claim a singular her-
itage for their ancestral land, or record the lives of only some groups
of people. Rather than focusing solely on the heritage of the Ottoman
elite, in an Ottoman archaeology we potentially can find a new method-
ology to focus on the lives of women as well as the men of the past;
the lower as well as the upper classes; ethnic and religious groups; the
urban poor; the peasantry; and the nomads. Rather than contribute to
the silencing of voices, archaeology could provide insights into the
people and social processes of the last several centuries. We follow
those archaeologists who wish to hear some of those other voices from
the past.
An Ottoman archaeology has many applications for Middle
Eastern studies in general. For example, in many anthropological
studies of the Middle East, the ethnographic present is the primary
focus for this region. In this manner, history is either peripheral, or
simply removed from the peoples of the Middle East (L. Abu-Lughod
1989). Even in anthropological works which profess to be historical,
few studies examine the development of groups prior to the twentieth
century (for an exception, see Messick 1993). An archaeology of the
Ottoman centuries should allow us to understand the historically
informed processes which accompanied the formation and develop-
ment of the modern world, as a way to reunite the present with the
past.
Ottoman Archaeology as Ethnoarchaeology
Understanding material culture from the archaeological record
can be greatly enhanced using ethnographic accounts. (Indeed, in some
nations, such as the Republic of Turkey, the material world of the
Ottoman past is classified as ethnography.) Travelers accounts, oral
histories, and other writings can also provide information about the
past which can be considered closely related to ethnographic or eth-
nohistoric accounts. The observations of the seventeenth century
Ottoman traveler, Evliy elebi provide a case in point (see von
Hammer [1834] for one translation). His descriptions of the Ottoman
realm can be to create a greater understanding of the archaeological
evidence of material culture and the landscape of that period.
Moreover, ethnographic observations of contemporary behaviors
can help provide analogues to understand the archaeological record;
understanding the relationships between behavior and material
culture in the present, ethnoarchaeologists argue that observations of
contemporary behavior can facilitate the development and refinement
of insights into past behaviors (Kramer 1979:1). The assumption is
that by using analogous inferences we can reconstruct the meaning of
material culture in the past (cf., Stahl 1993; Wylie 1985, 1988). More
importantly, many people living in this region may be significantly
more knowledgeable about the use of material culture, and can have
a greater appreciation of cultural continuity and tradition, than
archaeological experts (Seeden 1990:150, 156).
Ottoman archaeology as ethnoarchaeology uses the rationale that
some evidence of past lifeways can be (1) ethnographically documented
in living populations today and projected back in time, (2) based on
observations recorded at various point in time in the past, or (3) seen
in the material culture of folk survivals. While, these lines of evidence
hold great potential for uniting the past and the present, archaeolo-
gists must use this approach with caution. As Ziadeh-Seely (this
volume) reminds us-usingrich archival sources and ethnographic
informantsthere is nothing simple nor obvious about Ottoman-
period remains.
Over the past 500 years, every village and town of the Middle
East has undergone many types of transformations. The most notable
is the entanglement of communities within the processes of globaliza-
tion over the past several centuries. Indeed, the farther back in time
one wishes to investigate, the more problematic is becomes to
use simple analogy to connect the past directly with the present
(Stahl 1993).
The major critique of ethnoarchaeology is that it creates analogies
between behaviors and their material correlates as a direct model for
the past. This assumes that behaviors are unchanging through time,
and that there are only ancient origins for traditions and behaviors.
Much like primordial conceptions of ethnicity, notions of tradition can
be problematic, especially when they evoke long-term, often mythic
time scales (see Herzfeld [1987] for a discussion on the Greek case),
and invented traditions are devalued as unauthentic. In cases where
specific historical events point to the invention of traditions, we
can accept challenges to the notion of ancient traditions. Otherwise
there is ambiguity, which in turn leaves room for notions of unchanged
traditions which have ancient roots.
But before ethnoarchaeological analyses are wholly dismissed
with this critique, we must realize that ethnoarchaeological research
does stress a connection between the recent past and present. More
importantly, ethnography and Ottoman archaeology are both united
through the concepts of continuity, tradition, and change. Ethnoar-
chaeological approaches can help us frame questions about the con-
tinued (or discontinued) use of material culture throughout the past
several centuries.
In Turkish Traditional Art Today, Glassie (1993) presents an
ethnographic study which portrays the lives and works of craftspeople
in Turkey and provides potential inspiration for unlocking the mate-
rial remains of the Ottoman period. Although he does not seek to
explore the Ottoman eraonly to understand the nature of Turkish
art and traditionthe implications of his ideas resonate with anthro-
pological goals for understanding the meanings of material culture
which are considered part of local traditions for this region. As an
example, he explains that the surahi (a long-necked, bulbous water
bottle) originated in a Chinese ceramic form, was interpreted in Ana-
tolia in metal, and then transformed once again into pottery. Today,
the form is found in earthenwares and copper. Through this example,
Glassie notes (1993:786) that Turkish art transcends its medium. The
style and the passion, not the media, are the keys to understanding
traditional Turkish art. For the archaeologist, this insight can help,
ultimately, to connect the styles and patterns in artifacts to art his-
torical studies of the Ottoman Empire, and well as bring some meaning
to the ceramic artifacts which archaeologists often encounter.
Many of the successor states to the empire, even with divergent
ideological goals and needs, employ both tradition as well as the more
physical remains found through archaeology to anchor their national
groupings to distant periods of time. As Kardulias (1994:49) notes for
the intersection of archaeology in Greece and Greek nationalism: one
does not undertake excavation of Ottoman-period sites because, in part
at least, the work would conflict with important national ideological
needs. Many Greeks base their present identities less on the changes
in daily life during their battles for independence from the Ottoman
Empire in the mid-nineteenth century, than on the distinction given
to its ancient past. The disjuncture accelerates the needs of the state
to privilege the remote past and to avoid the actual evidence for the
development of the Republic of Greece.
Ottoman Archaeology as a Critique of the Present
A final pathway for an Ottoman archaeology could be to help
rethink the use of archaeology in the presentfocusing on what
archaeologists do not, or cannot, study in the present. Some of the
earlier calls for an archaeology of this period (Glock 1985; Kohl 1989;
Silberman 1989) invoked contemporary ideologiesand contemporary
ways of knowing the presentto explain the lack of sustained schol-
arly interest in the Ottoman period.
The selective use of the past through archaeology has grave impli-
cations for peoples conceptualizations of their own heritage and iden-
tities. Identities of groups do not remain fixed through time, and
archaeologist could help to illustrate and describe these developments.
Leone (1995:253) has argued that this can lead to the formation of
alliances among groups that have been treated similarly but have
learned to see themselves as . . . different. Leone is purposefully and
actively political in his goals for an archaeology of the recent past. One
path for an Ottoman archaeology would follow these notions, critiquing
both national boundaries and ethnic identities. Local support for such
notions can be expected to be minimal.
Indeed, an Ottoman archaeology as a critique of the present will
no doubt often be unpopular, especially for those groups who benefit
from the status quo in the Middle East. At Tel el-Hesi, Eakins (1993)
examines the health of the Bedouin buried there. These Bedouin may
have been involved with the Napoleonic campaign in Palestine. The
historic and archaeological significance of this large cemetery is
straightforward, yet this study does not help nationalist projects.
However, it can illuminate the complex social dynamics of Ottoman
Palestine. Placing archaeological finds such as Tel el-Hesi into the his-
torical narrative should add to our understandings of the Ottoman
past and contribute new questions and issues for archaeological in-
vestigations. Noting the lack of interest in this excavation (there is
no major tourist installation for this Ottoman archaeology) will not
encourage archaeologists to include the Ottoman period in their exca-
vations. Most of the critiques against Middle Eastern archaeology,
against archaeology in Israel, and against corpus of archaeological
knowledge seems to have little resonance with those who practice
archaeology in the region.
The multiple pathways to an Ottoman archaeology, discussed
above, should lead to uncovering components of the Ottoman Empire.
Although finding much inspiration in the tradition of historical archae-
ology of North America and post-medieval archaeology in Europe, the
study of the material culture of the Ottoman Empire will benefit from
scholarship stemming from other disciplines, including history and
art history, historical geography, architecture, and area studies. Ulti-
mately, however, it is the archaeological community which must decide
to explore the history of the Ottoman Empire. The contributions in this
volume are meant to raise challenges as well as illustrate possibilities.
UNCOVERING THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
Archaeological remains are tactile and, potentially, provide a
sense of the cultural context for the past landscape. Since society pre-
sents itself in material culture in a non self-conscious manner, we
expect the interpretations of artifacts to provide a more representa-
tive perspective on the masses of peoples who lived and died in the
Ottoman realm.
Our concern over what is understood about the Ottoman past is
strongly influenced by the critiques against the dominant historiogra-
phy. For instance, Edward Said (1979:2) argued:
books are written and congresses held with the Orient as their main focus,
with the Orientalist in his new or old guise as their main authority. . .
[E]ven if it does not survive as it once did, Orientalism lives on academi-
cally through its doctrines and theses about the Orient and the Oriental.
From the patterns of material changes evident in all the archae-
ological studies from the Ottoman period, we find a vehicle to argue
against the assumed stasis of the empire. In locating the processes of
change for the Ottoman centuries from the material record, Ottoman
archaeology can help rethink the Western and local assumptions about
the period. We do not invoke the Ottoman age as a golden period; that
would just replicate other archaeological research done in the service
of nationalism. We seek the dynamic nature of the recent past to argue
against the primordial challenge in the region (and that sadly has been
manifested around the world). We accept the cliche that everything
changes. Ottoman archaeology can help identify the sources, patterns,
and implications of material changes for the Middle East.
THE PROLOGUE
There is still much to do in this new field of study. The chapters
in this volume are only a prologue to much needed research, analysis,
and synthesis. We are not at the point of a full set of analyses, and the
great diversity of approaches and goals are evident in this volume. The
papers in this volume attempt to break new ground for an archaeol-
ogy of the Ottoman Empire. All of the authors are moving along pro-
ductive lines to encourage the continuing attempts to incorporate the
stratigraphic layers and standing monuments from the Ottoman
period into Middle Eastern archaeology and history.
We hope that archaeologists continue the archaeological nar-
rative in the eastern Mediterranean, stretching from human origins
through agriculture and urbanism, states and empires, to the door-
step of the present. In addition, we hope to construct comparisons for
the modern sites of North America, Europe, southern and eastern
Asia, and Africa in order to fully incorporate the analysis and inter-
pretation of the material world of the Middle East into global history.
These are ambitious goals which are only outlined by the papers
in this volume.
We realize that there is a tendency in any field of study for reac-
tions to new ideas to go through three stages: at first, the new
approaches are negated or ignored; second, some say that the
approaches had been discovered before; and lastly, some say that they
have always used the approaches. We hope that soon archaeologists
working throughout this region will be including some of the ideas
laid out in this volume as regularly as they include insights from the
Bronze and Iron Ages and the Classical periods.
With the aim of encouraging an archaeology of the Ottoman
Empire, we find ourselves walking along several different, yet inter-
secting paths. We can move toward an archaeology of Islam, an his-
toric archaeology of the Middle East, and the inclusion of archaeology
in the larger field of Ottoman studies. However, each of these differ-
ent approaches-and the future success of an archaeology of the
Ottoman Empire-is dependent on a united interest in this region, and
the many cultures touched by an imperial system and structure.
The contributions presented in this volume hint at some of the
many pathways for the archaeology of the Ottoman Empire. Though
the full range of approaches are not represented in this volume, the
beginnings of an Ottoman archaeology can be found here. We mean
to encourage future research, since-just like archaeology in all
corners of the planet-the archaeological record of the Ottoman
Empire is a finite resource. With population increases, construction
projects, and various forms of development, this record needs to be pre-
served, conserved, and understood.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The editors of this volume would like to thank all those who pro-
vided support for the Breaking New Grounds for an Archaeology of
the Ottoman Empire: A Prologue and a Dialogue Conference held on
April 20, 1996 at Binghamton University, State University of New
York. We would especially like to thank the Departments of Anthro-
pology at Binghamton University, SUNY, and the University of
MassachusettsAmherst, the Middle East and North Africa Program
at Binghamton University, and The Institute of Turkish Studies, Inc.
for their financial and logistical support. The ideas in this introduc-
tory chapter were influenced by too many people for us to lay out all
of their names. However, in addition to the contributors, we would
especially like to thank Arthur S. Keene, Donald Whitcomb, Robert
Paynter, Charles Orser, Rifaat Abou-el-Haj, Donald Quataert, Susan
Pollock, and Charlie Cobb. Their advice, feedback, and support helped
to see this project through publication.
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FROM ARCHAEOLOGY
TO A HISTORY FROM
BELOW
II
The impetus for an archaeology of the Ottoman Empire is twofold.
First, the archaeology contains the potential to illuminate the history
of the last several centuries in the eastern Mediterranean. Second,
the archaeology can critique Orientalist assumptions about the
empire, the social relations of its subject people, and the impact and
nature of the change for the region as it entered the modern age.
While the potential for an Ottoman Archaeology to confront issues and
understandings is discussed in the introduction to the volume, its
success can come only from the results of excavations, surveys, and
analyses of material remains. In this section, five chapters illustrate
aspects of this endeavor. Some of the steps toward an archaeology of
the Ottoman Empire are seen in the five chapters of this section.
One of the goals for an archaeology of the Ottoman Empire is to
expose the details of past everyday life for the people of the empire.
Exposing evidence of daily life-the mundane things that constitute
social life for people-facilitates a greater understanding of social
dynamics and social change. Historical Archaeology takes as one of
its guiding assumptions that material culture is a significant record of
behaviors, actions, and choices for peoples who rarely enter the docu-
mentary record. This approach has illuminated the lives of workers,
women, minorities, and others in such regions as North America,
western Europe, and southern Africa as Historical Archaeologists have
connected artifacts to culture and history. Some archaeologists use
such data to fill in gaps in the historical record; other archaeologists
use material remains to confront dominant versions of history. For
the Ottoman Empire both tasks are necessary. There is a wide gap
between the robust views of the elite and ruling classes and the
shadows that fall on the peasants and working classes, between the
information on urban areas and the assumptions regarding the coun-
tryside, and between portraits of men and images of women. Filling
those gaps require innovative approaches to uncover the broad
33
34 From Archaeology to a History from Below
spectrum of peoples and their patterns of behaviors from the Ottoman
past. In conjunction with the new social histories for the Ottoman
Empire, material remains can aid in reconstructing change for the
empire and yield insights into the choices and actions of its people.
To build a robust archaeology of the Ottoman Empire, archae-
ological remains need to be excavated, artifacts and documents need
to be analyzed and interpreted, and frameworks need to be developed.
The richness and complexity of the Ottoman period material record
allows a variety of approaches for an Ottoman archaeology and require
a wide range of techniques for recovering information. In this section,
we include an example of excavations of a site (Ziadeh-Seely on
Tiinnik), a survey of a region (Brumfield on Crete), and analysis of
standing architecture (Kuniholm on wooden buildings) and artifact
collections (Baram on clay tobacco pipes and Carroll on ceramics).
Employing methodologies that radiate from history, Middle Eastern
archaeology, and Historical Archaeology, the chapters illustrate some
of the challenges and possibilities for archaeological research into the
Ottoman Empire.
The first level of concern in archaeology is identifying material
remains. Brumfields survey on Crete provides the local history for
agriculture and landowning patterns in rural eastern Crete. The field-
houses, grain mills, olive mills and presses, wine treading vats, and
bread ovens located by her survey indicate social strategies taken by
peasants during the centuries of Ottoman rule over Crete. Locating
archaeological sites is the first level of research. Ziadeh-Seely provides
an example of excavations focused on the Ottoman period. Ziadeh-
Seely not only provides the political and social context for the excava-
tions at Tiinnik and the techniques used to access the history of the
village, but also illustrates the range of variation for artifacts that
come from Ottoman period levels of archaeological sites.
Identifying material variation and chronological change are the
key tests for an Ottoman Archaeology, Breaking the notion of a mono-
lithic sameness for the peoples of the Middle East is a significant
contribution of excavations and surveys. In order to reach this goal,
greater chronological control is necessary, both within the archaeol-
ogical record of sites and among sites as variation across the Ottoman
Empire is sought. Chronology, ironically, is one of the challenges for
Ottoman archaeology; Middle Eastern archaeology has greater preci-
sion over the Bronze and Iron Age archaeological remains than that
of the recent past. The lack of chronological control has allowed Middle
Eastern archaeologists to dismiss the Ottoman period as undifferenti-
ated and too modern for archaeological research.
From Archaeology to aHistory from Below 35
An example of new research into chronology for the Ottoman
period comes from Kuniholms dendrochronology. The Dendrochronol-
ogy Project has extended the dating of architecture back more than a
millennium in Anatolia. As illustrated in Kuniholms chapter, den-
drochronology may prove to be an essential tool in dating structures.
That can lead to chronological typologies of artifacts associated with
buildings. Once chronological control is established for archaeological
assemblages and classes of artifacts, analysis and interpretation of
variation is possible.
Chronological control is particularly important since one of the
dominant assumptions for the Ottoman Empire after the sixteenth
century and for the peasantry of the Middle East and Southeast
Europe, in general, is of stasis. By locating chronological change in
material life, the archaeology of the Ottoman Empire can bring
forward evidence of social change. This is made explicit in Barams
examination of the material correlates for commodities and Carrolls
investigation of consumption practices. Baram presents a chronologi-
cal typology for the clay tobacco pipes uncovered during excavations
in Israel. The change in the objects over the centuries is interpreted
in terms of global processes that entangled the peoples of the Middle
East. That understanding is meant to be a model for other archae-
ological artifacts of the modern era; the ultimate goal of the exercise
revolves around locating the agency of the people of the region. A
further exploration of the social meaning of things is found in Carrolls
discussion of ceramics. Carroll raises a series of questions for archae-
ological ceramics uncovered in Anatolia, questions which are meant to
understand the lived experiences of Ottoman subjects. Together, these
chapters indicate a concern for interpreting artifacts as goods con-
sumed by the non-elite of the empire.
The artifacts and interpretations provide a history from
below which reveal the peoples of the region as fully part of historical
and social processes of change. The chapters exemplify the possibili-
ties for the archaeology of the Ottoman Empire even while ill-
ustrating the challenges faced by archaeologists. The selection
illustrates the opening of avenues for research into social life and
the uneven processes of change during the Ottoman centuries. Read
them as a prologue for an archaeology of the Ottoman Empire
which can recover the history for the peoples of the Middle East and
Southeastern Europe.
Agriculture and
Rural Settlement in
Ottoman Crete, 1669-1898
A Modern Site Survey
Allaire Brumfield
2
INTRODUCTION
Crete has been the prized possession of various imperial powers at
least since the first century BC, when the Roman general Q. Metellus
earned the honorific agnomen Creticus by subduing the island (Figure
2.1). Held variously by Saracens, Byzantine Greeks and Venetians, it
finally fell to the Ottoman Commander, the Grand Vizier Ahmed
Kprl, in 1669, at the end of a grueling twenty-four year siege of
the capital, Candia (Iraklion).
The Ottoman conquest of Crete was the beginning of the end of
Venetian power in the eastern Mediterranean, a sign as well as a cause
of the eclipse of Venice itself. Yet the victor, too, was already past its
best days. The length of time required for the conquest of the island
would seem to demonstrate that the Ottoman military machine was not
what it had been (Sugar 1977:197). Crete was the last Ottoman con-
quest of any significance. The ability of the Porte to enforce its decrees
and to prevent corruption and exploitation of the reaya, the Christian
populace, was flagging just as Crete entered the Ottoman realm.
The Ottoman settlement of the agricultural land of Crete is not
well understood, because the island has been studied only tangentially
by scholars concentrating for the most part on other topics or other
regions. A number of authorities have argued that the settlement of
ALLAIRE BRUMFIELD Department of History, Towson University, Towson, Maryland
21204.
37
38 Allaire Brumfield
Figure 2.1. The Island of Crete, showing the location of its major cities and towns.
Crete differed significantly from earlier conquests. According to the
traditional land-owning system of the Ottoman empire, all agricultural
land was technically miri, belonging to the Sultan, or the state. Its use
could be granted to a sipahi, or cavalryman, in return for his military
services. Depending on the size of his timar, or fief, he would be
expected to supply a certain number of soldiers from those working his
land. If his son merited it, he could inherit his fathers position.
However, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this
system was undergoing change. In many Ottoman lands, the timar
system was being replaced by the iftlik system, in which absentee
landlords held large estates as hereditary properties worked by tenant
farmers. (This understanding of the development of the iftlik has been
challenged in recent studies. See Inalcik [1991:1734] and Veinstein
According to one study Crete was not divided up into timars, as
had been the earlier custom, but was made a hkmet sancak, (a self-
governing province; Inalcik, cited in Sugar, [1977:42]).
1
Other studies
have led to a related conclusion, that the traditional Ottoman system
was never applied in Crete. Instead, the land was left in the free pos-
session of its inhabitants, as The explanations furnished by the laws
of Chania and Candia in 1676 following the conquest of Crete openly
reject the system of land ownership by the state as contrary to Islamic
tradition (Barkan [1983:212]. Also see Veinstein [1991:40] and
Veinstein and Triantafyllidou-Baladie [1980:200201]).
[1991:3553])
2. Agriculture and Rural Settlement in Ottoman Crete, 16691898 39
This view of Cretes landholding system as constituting a deci-
sive break with traditional Ottoman settlement patterns is strongly
contradicted by official Ottoman documents from Crete. This may be
because the studies mentioned above draw on archival sources in
Istanbul and represent the legislative policies of the imperial center,
while the Cretan documents give mundane details of the settlement
and local administration of lands in Crete as they came under the
control of the conquerors. A selection from the Ottoman Archives in
Iraklion has been published in five volumes, covering the period
16571765. These texts repeatedly refer to landholders in the tradi-
tional terminology, as timar- or zeamet-holders owing military service
and taxes, and this terminology continues into the eighteenth century
(Stavrinidis 1975:4, 12, 21, 23, 47, 66; 1985:3045).
Clearly, large estates or iftliks grew up in fertile plains areas by
the nineteenth century, as foreign visitors inform us. Yet the tradi-
tional terminology of the military landholding class continued to be
used, perhaps obscuring the new reality, that an official class who held
the right to farm taxes from smaller landowning reaya were becoming
dominant.
The incorporation of Crete into the Ottoman imperial system
resulted in the occupation of the island by a military establishment
which showed similarities to the Venetian feudal system, although the
subjects of the Sultan were never serfs. The departure of Greek and
Venetian landowners during and after the siege of Candia meant that
large estates, especially near the cities, became the property of Agas,
(officials) Janissaries, (an elite military unit) tax collectors, merchants,
and other Ottoman officials who settled in the cities of Chania,
Rethymnon, Ierapetra, Siteia and Candia. The iftlik system tended
to encourage the cultivation of specialized crops for export and the
commercialization of agriculture, even though it did not lead to the
introduction of the modern agricultural techniques that were devel-
oping in the west in these centuries. This concentration on export
crops, especially olive oil in Crete, took place regardless of the fact that
Ottoman policy generally forbade the export of any agricultural goods
or strategic minerals (Sugar 1977:218). Often the method by which the
Ottoman landowners found it most convenient to own and exploit this
land was as vakif propertyland dedicated to a religious purpose and
no longer considered miri land.
2
Much of the best land on the island came into Ottoman hands. At
the same time the rate of intermarriage and conversion to Islam, espe-
cially in the cities, produced a group of people, sometimes called
Turkocretans, who by conversion escaped the head tax ( cizye) levied
on all non-Muslims and also advanced their position in the Muslim
society of Crete.
3
Contemporary European travelers commented on the
fact that most Cretan Turks were in fact native converts to Islam.
Such conversions took place even before the end of the siege of Candia
As early as 1657, the villagers of Kato Varsameno in Rethymnon
protested that they should not be taxed as reaya, since they had con-
verted to Islam. They were therefore not liable for the taxes exacted
only on Christians (Stavrinidis 1975:23).
Despite the transfer of large properties into the hands of the
Ottoman ruling class, monasteries, considered vakif institutions under
Muslim law, held on to their lands, and much property in rural dis-
tricts remained in the hands of free smallholders. The Ottoman taxa-
tion system included numerous taxes on the sale and movement of
goods, but most important for the peasant freeholder was the hara,
one-fifth of the produce from cultivated fields and fruit trees, a tax that
was due even if the land was uncultivated. The tax on vineyards, nurs-
eries and gardens was paid in cash. In 1704 the hara was reduced to
one-seventh of the crop, and the payment for fruit trees continued to
be in cash, except for olive trees; one-seventh of their oil was paid as
tax (Triantafyllidou-Baladie 1988:47).
By the nineteenth century, the iftlik was typically worked by
tenant farmers, who received one-half of the crop after the treasury
had taken its share, and after the landowner had been repaid the seed
he had advanced. The landowner rarely resided on his property, but
gave its management to an estate manager called a subasi The subasi
did not receive a salary, but a fixed percent of the landlords one-half
share (Hitier 1848:590).
4
Crete was strategically important to Ottoman naval power in the
eastern Mediterranean, but its commercial value was not exploited as
intensely by the Porte as it had been by Venicenaturally enough,
given the differences between these two cultures. Mercantile activi-
ties, formerly a Venetian monopoly, were taken over, under Ottoman
rule, by European and Turkish merchants. The French would espe-
cially reap commercial benefit from the departure of Venice.
Somewhat of a cultural and political backwater in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, Crete did not play a central role in Ottoman
history, The islands history in this period can be reconstructed
through archives, travelers accounts, and oral histories. Archaeologi-
cal survey can also play a role in reconstructing the patterns of agri-
cultural exploitation and rural settlement, by an examination of the
physical remains of these activities.
This chapter will attempt to illuminate the historical archaeology
of Ottoman Crete by focusing on a site survey of a rural area in the
east of the island, as well as by using archives and documents relative
to Cretes agricultural history in this period, especially those that
illustrate conditions in the study area. The survey of modern field-
houses and other rural agricultural installations was done as part
of the Vrokastro Survey Project, an intensive archaeological survey
of all periods from the Final Neolithic to the present, carried out in
a 40 square kilometer area centering around the Iron Age site of
Vrokastro, south of the Bay of Mirabello, in eastern Crete.
5
This
rural area appears rarely in historical sources or archives. Foreign
travelers, geographers and diplomats did not spend much time
investigating the conditions of these small villages. Thus, the physical
evidence uncovered by the archaeological survey will be especially
useful as a means of reconstructing an agricultural and demographic
picture of Ottoman rural life, far from the commercial and political
centers.
Three types of evidence will be intertwined: historical sources for
the island as a whole, archival and historical sources (including oral
histories) relating to the survey region, and the physical evidence
documented by the survey. These enable us to understand how the
agricultural policies of the imperial center, tempered by the various
motives and desires of the Ottoman official class in Crete, interacted
with the constraints of the Cretan environment and its peasant
cultivators to produce a specific pattern of rural settlement and
exploitation.
AGRICULTURE IN OTTOMAN CRETE
Through the centuries, the Cretan peasant has lived by subsis-
tence agriculture, making use of a soil that, although it may appear
thin and rocky to Northern Europeans, yields bountiful supplies of
grain and provides a superior environment for the cultivation of wine
and olive oil. The obscurity of the agricultural enterprise has some-
times given it a lowly place in historical studies, but recently the
importance of topography and agriculture in the economic history of
the Mediterranean has been reemphasized (Braudel 1972, 1973).
The evidence indicates that the climate and landscape of Crete
have been stable at least since the end of the Bronze Age.
6
Therefore
one might assume that the same agricultural rgime would have per-
sisted over milennia, if the decisions as to which crops to grow were
determined by environmental factors alone. In fact, other considera-
tions have played a large role in the agriculture of the island, so that
the face of Crete has been altered many times, changing from fields of
grain to vast vineyards, or to olive groves. Why do we find such great
variation?
The primary agent of change in the agricultural landscape
has been the ruling lite, whose political or economic goals have a pow-
erful, even if sometimes unintentional, effect on the agriculture of
the island. One goal might be adherence to a commercial master plan,
designed to benefit a distant capital, such as Venice. Another could
be the support of a military settlement on the island, which was a
primary concern of the Porte. Agricultural planning supported the pro-
vision of staples for export, either to the imperial capital or to the mil-
itary, as well as the effective denial of such staples to hostile states.
Throughout history, Cretes three major crops have been grain,
olives, and vines. Although grain, especially barley, has been the main-
stay of the peasant family, wine and olive oil have played important
roles, both in the diet of the population and in commerce. Venice began
encouraging Cretes production of sweet wine for export as early as the
fourteenth century. (Francis 1973:16) This growth in viticulture led to
unforeseen consequences, however. By the sixteenth century, wine pro-
duction had expanded to such an extent that there was not enough
grain to feed the population or, equally vital, to supply the Venetian
galleys with biscuit (Spanakis 1958: 158).
Venetian attempts to persuade the Cretan population to increase
grain growing at the expense of the lucrative production of wine for
export, and to plow under vineyards that had taken decades to mature,
were not very successful. Only after the Ottoman conquest of the
island did the grain yield begin to increase. Many factors contributed
to the collapse of the Venetian wine trade, among them economic con-
ditions in western Europe, the invention of the glass bottle and cork,
and the destruction of Cretan vineyards wrought by the long Veneto-
Turkish war. Despite the Qurans condemnation of the use of alcohol
by believers, wine continued to be produced for local use even by
Muslims. After 1669, monasteries took the opportunity to buy up vine-
yards owned by the new overlords, to ensure a supply of wine for the
Christian liturgy (Stavrinidis 1976:21).
Even before the end of the siege of Candia, the Ottoman com-
mander issued decrees to prevent the supply of grain or oil to enemy
ships and to secure its provision for the defenders of Islam. Export of
grain was forbidden, except with a special permit and a guarantee as
to the grains destination. The maintenance of the grain supply and
control of the price of bread were to become important issues for
the Ottoman rulers; numerous documents in the Turkish Archives of
Iraklion testify to the Ottoman concern with providing bread for the
2. Agriculture and Rural Settlement in Ottoman Crete, 1669-1898 43
Janissaries and the peaceful reaya (Stavrinidis 1975:103; 1976:170,
2601, 285, 356; 1979:146, 151, 164, 170, 230; Triantafyllidou-Baladie
Venetians and Ottomans in turn attempted to manage the grain
supply so as to support the population and the military. Poor land
transportation, administrative inefficiency, corruption and piracy
made success difficult. The Ottoman rulers did, however, increase the
production of grain so that, at the end of the seventeenth century, there
was a surplus for the first time in decades. Contemporary with this
increase in grain production and the decline in vineyards was a great
increase in olive orchards. Venetian rule was the era of the wine trade;
the Ottoman period was characterized by olive oil export.
The massive increase in olive oil production was stimulated by
demand from Europe. Because of disastrous olive harvests in France
at the end of the seventeenth century, French merchants came to Crete
seeking olive oil to supply the soap factories of Marseilles. During the
eighteenth century the amount of oil exported from Crete increased by
50%. (Triantafyllidou-Baladie 1988:137) Olive oil became Cretes dom-
inant agricultural product. Visitors describe the islands forests of
olive trees, as earlier they had remarked on the number of vines
(Lithgow 1814:73; Sonnini 1800:1.406).
Another cause of the switch from wine to olive oil production was
demographic change in the midseventeenth century. During the dev-
astating Veneto-Turkish war of 1645 to 1669, much agricultural land
was destroyed or went out of cultivation, and the population dropped
drastically. Many refugees left the island with the Venetians, and
skilled agricultural workers, particularly essential for labor-intensive
viticulture, were no longer available. Such conditions suited the
growing of olives far better than any other crop. Olives can endure
neglect more easily than vines, and require labor only at the harvest;
labor, furthermore, which has traditionally been performed by women
and children.
Although the Porte controlled the price of soap (made from olive
oil), and regulated the soap-makers to prevent shameful profit being
made (Stavrinidis 1985:289), the quality of the oil was unregulated.
Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, European
observers remarked on the low quality of Cretan olive oil and char-
acterized it as uneatable, suitable only for soap, even though it was
consumed in quantity by the Cretan peasant. The quantity and quality
of the oil would have been improved by better refining techniques and
better administration, but since it was largely destined only for soap,
even crude manufacturing techniques were considered adequate. The
1988:169175).
silting up of the harbors from which oil had formerly been exported
was a more serious problem for commerce, but it enabled the admin-
istrative center at Iraklion to control the trade and reap its profits
(Tournefort 1718:1.23; Randolph 1687:91; Sonnini 1800:1.406, 421;
Savary 1781:298, 309; Raulin 1869:244; Hitier 1881:603).
The increase in olive oil production so characteristic of Ottoman
Crete seems to have been an unintended byproduct of increased grain
production, as well as a result of French commercial interest. As a
non-intensive use of the land and its labor resources, olive oil pro-
duction was well suited to the social conditions of the Ottoman period.
The Ottoman rulers of Crete, unlike the Venetians, were not commer-
cially oriented; they did succeed in increasing the grain supply,
however, by the simple expedient (often violated) of forbidding grain
export.
The erratic nature of the grain supply meant that the situation
had to be constantly monitored by local authorities. A famine in 1670
resulted in a ban on exporting grain, but in 1674 the harvest was excel-
lent, and the ban was lifted so that producers might sell their excess
crops (Stavrinidis 1976:170).
The vagaries of grain production and supply are not easy to
explain. The fertility or productive capacity of the land does not
present itself as a static quantity. How could the famine of 1693, result-
ing in deaths from hunger in the city of Chania, have been followed so
quickly, in 1699, by massive surpluses that made possible the export
of 30,000 mouzouria (562,500 kg.) of wheat (Stavrinidis 1979:151;
Triantafyllidou-Baladie 1988: 169)? The drastic fluctuations in the
grain supply cannot be explained in terms of agricultural policy alone.
The Ottoman authorities clearly intended to ensure a regular supply
of grain for administrative and military units, and for the city popu-
lations, and this was a reasonable goal, given the fertility of Crete.
That they had difficulty doing so is the result of two factors whose
importance has often been underestimated: the natural irregularities
of agricultural yield, and the lack of transportation for agricultural
goods in this era.
Shortages were caused as much by poor transportation and
administrative meddling as by crop failure. Even between one
province and another, the sale of grain required a government permit
(Stavrinidis 1984:227). Ships putting into Cretan ports were obliged
by law to sell any grain on board, unless grain is abundant and the
price is low, in which case a payment to the Pasha (the local gover-
nor) and the customs allowed the captain to elude this requirement
(Olivier 1801:2.365).
That the population were suspicious of their local officials, who
could be bribed by commercial interests, is attested by the French
consul Magys description of the departure of the French fleet for Mar-
seilles in 1746:
The mob has got up a petition to the Pasha saying that the French have
come to gather up the little food there is here, in a time of hunger, and that
the French boats should be driven from Souda (Triantafyllidou-Baladie
1988:184).
As population rose in the second quarter of the eighteenth century, the
Ottoman authorities in Candia attempted to guard against local short-
ages by building underground silos for grain storage (Stavrinidis
By the end of the eighteenth century, grain shortages were becom-
ing more common, because of the increase in the population of con-
sumers in the cities, and perhaps also because of increased olive oil
production. The governments attempts to set the price and control the
distribution of flour to the bakeries of the cities would only encourage
hoarding by the agricultural population and make grain production
less attractive to the agricultural entrepreneur. (Triantafyllidou-
Baladie 1988:172 )
Meanwhile, outside the cities, what was the situation of the rural
population, such as the farmers of the Vrokastro survey area? Clearly
the Ottoman authorities were most concerned with the city popula-
tion, and although they kept track of the rural population for purposes
of forced labor and taxes, their interest in the peasantry largely ended
with these exactions.
Travelers who passed through the countryside described the living
conditions of tenant farmers and smallholders. By the end of the eigh-
teenth century, the island was no longer self-sufficient in grain, which
had to be imported, yet large areas of land were uncultivated because
of a lack of farmers. Olivier, who traveled in 1799, noted:
1984:178, 21819, 2245, 233, 251, 263; 1985:8, 1345).
. . . the cultivators live on barley bread; the wheat is reserved for the agas
and the wealthy of the city. . . Greek cultivators are reduced to living on
salted olives, barley bread and wild greens. They rarely enjoy anything
better, but sell good food to meet tax obligations.. . (Olivier 1801:2.341,
350; Sonnini 1800:1.352, 405; Savary 1781:415417).
Barley continued to be the mainstay of the peasantry until well into
the nineteenth century. (Chourmouzis 1842:35; Raulin 1869:233)
Hitier, French consul at Chania in the 1840s, left a detailed
account of the life of the peasant cultivator. His description of the
iftlik includes not only a harem and various slave-quarters but also
the condition of the Greek farm laborers:
Their nourishment is composed of barley bread, badly baked, raw or cooked
vegetables, olives in salt or oil, water to drink. The use of meat is almost
unknown to them. This is the food of all the peasantry, even the well-off
proprietors. . . (Hitier 1881:589)
The farm servant was paid a salary, but the tenant farmer got one-
half of the crop at harvest time, after the proprietor had taken the seed
which he furnished, and the state had taken its tenth.
7
Hitier adds
that Cretan farmers rarely used fertilizer; they did not rotate their
crops but planted one cereal after another until the soil was worn out,
at which time they let it lie fallow and then restored it by burning or
by planting cotton or sesame. Barley was the most common grain and
the usual food of the peasant and his animals (Hitier 1881:5947).
By 1894, the Cretan wheat crop sufficed for only two thirds of the
year. Barley, however, from which the agricultural population made
its bread, was plentiful (Kalomenopoulos 1894:61). This situation con-
tinued even into the twentieth century; in 1914, the provinces
of Mirabello and Ierapetra planted twice as much barley as wheat
(Annual Statistics of Agricultural Production, 1914).
During the Ottoman period, influences from the West, where agri-
cultural technology was developing rapidly, no longer reached Crete.
The aletri, or wooden plow, continued in use in the survey area until
the end of the nineteenth century.
8
The four-field system of crop rota-
tion, invented in England in the late eighteenth century, was unknown
in Crete, where dry fallowing was the latest word in soil treatment.
Western inventions which increased farming efficiency, such as the
seed drill (invented in England in the early eighteenth century), the
horse-drawn harvester and thresher (invented by Cyrus McCormick
in 1834), or the steel plow (developed a few years later), did not make
their way to Crete before the end of the century. The tools of the
peasant were limited to the wooden plow, the sickle, the harrow and
the threshing sled, some of which can still be seen in use today in the
villages of the survey area (Figures 2.22.4).
A RURAL SETTLEMENT HISTORY
The second thread of this discourse, following the overview of the
agricultural and landowning patterns of Ottoman Crete, is to examine
the Ottoman history of a rural microcosm in eastern Crete, which may
Figure 2.2. Examples of winnowing tools from the village of Prina.
Figure 2.3. Man from the village of Meseleroi, using a threshing sled.
Figure 2.4. A woman winnowing in the village of Prina.
exhibit similarities or differences from the larger pattern associated
with the more populated centers of central and western Crete.
The area covered by the Vrokastro survey (Figure 2.5), some 40
square kilometers on the southern coast of the bay of Mirabello in
eastern Crete, is largely rural today, as in the past.
9
In antiquity the
city-states of Oleros and Istron were minor centers, tied to their more
powerful neighbors by cultic and diplomatic bonds. Today the region
supports three villages, Kalo Chorio, Prina, and Meseleroi. Kalo
Chorio, made up of two settlements, located about 1.5km. south of the
coast, is the largest of the three villages, exploiting a fertile valley in
the flood plain of the Istron river. The earliest mention of a village in
this location is from the late seventeenth century, but the valley was
undoubtedly cultivated in earlier periods. A Polish traveler passing
through in 1583 writes that he visited the estates of noble Venetians
along the coast, including that of Istona (Istron). (Hemmerdinger-
Iliadou 1967:581). The existence of numerous watermills, some pos-
sibly dating from the Venetian period, indicates that the plentiful
waterpower of the Istron river was made use of for milling grain. The
olive trees in the valley are called Frangoelies (Frankish olives)
because of their great age and size.
Figure 2.5. The Vrokastro Study Area, showing locations of metochia, watermills and
monasteries mentioned in the text.
The two remoter villages of Prina and Meseleroi, located in the
mountains about 5 kilometers south of the coast, already existed in
the Venetian period. A Venetian census of 1583 gave the population of
Meseleroi as 155; Prina was surprisingly large, at 329 (Castrofilaca
1583:179). Average village size in sixteenth century Venetian Crete
hovered around 165 (Giannopoulos 1978:38). These two villages seem
to have accounted for most of the population of the area in the period
when there was no village in the Istron valley. Prina, whose name
derives from the extensive evergreen forests stretching above it to the
Lasithi plateau, is in the southwest corner of the survey area, and
Meseleroi, whose name derives from the ancient site of Oleros, is to
the southeast. Traditional subsistence agriculture still plays a large
role in the economies of these two villages, more so than in the tourist
and garden-market oriented economy of Kalo Chorio.
In 1671, two years after the end of the siege of Candia, the
Ottoman authorities made a census of those liable for the head tax
(cizye) required of all adult Christian males. In Meseleroi there were
29 adult male Christians, and the same number in Prina (Stavrinidis
1976:113, 1345). Demographic data on family size suggests a total
population of about 115 for each village, a considerable drop from the
total of 484 persons in both villages at the end of the sixteenth century,
perhaps due to the depredations of the war which had just ended.
Although the siege was centered on Candia, eastern Crete suffered
drastically from piratical raids throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries.
10
In 1686 a corps of 50 armatoles, Christian militiamen, was formed
in the Mirabello region, at the request of the Ottoman authorities,
to defend the population from bandits. A contemporary document
from the Ottoman archives describes a defensive system of towers
manned by villagers, to defend the Muslims from the infidel out-
lawsGreek and Venetian guerrillas who carried out raids on the
population from the fortress of Spina Longa, still in Venetian hands.
Towers were located in Meseleroi, in Prina and in Kako Chorio (bad
village). Meseleroi had one tower, Kako Chorio also one, while the
entry for Prina is incomplete. In contrast, the larger village of Kritsa,
ten kilometers to the northwest, had four towers (Stavrinidis
1976:297, 340).
The mention of Kako Chorio is the earliest evidence of a settle-
ment in the Istron valley; Kako Chorio is clearly the earlier name of
Kalo Chorio (good village), which, local legend says, was originally
called bad because of its malarial situation, but was euphemistically
renamed to encourage settlement. The west bank of the Istron river is
still called Pyrgos, tower in Greek, and legend situates a defensive
tower here in earlier times. The census of 1671 does not mention a
village of Kako Chorio; perhaps it was only a fortified outpost, guard-
ing the coast and the cultivators who used the grainmills of the valley.
In 1689 certain citizens of Meseleroi and Prina, in declaring
loyalty to Mehmed Pasha, the governor in Candia, promised to protect
the Muslims from harm, and to reimburse, from their own property,
anyone robbed by the outlaws. A similar oath was extracted from vil-
lagers in every part of Crete, and was surely not made voluntarily; fre-
quent references to the guerrillas depredations appear in the Turkish
archives, such as a description of the capture of a certain Michalis of
Prina, a Christian rebel who had taken refuge in the fortress of Spina
Longa. Early eighteenth-century tax documents list the villagers of
Prina and Meseleroi who were responsible for signing off on the totals
of their villages, indicating that these villages were certainly not so
remote as to be beyond the reach of the Ottoman administrative
system (Stavrinidis 1975:29, 97; 1976:7880, 211, 2934, 3278;
1978:259, 304).
An Italian map published in 1706 labels Meseleroi as Castel
Messelerus (Coronelli 1706:71). The name probably derived from its
defensive tower, strategically positioned on the mountain pass
between Kritsa and Ierapetra.
11
One of the earliest preserved struc-
tures in Meseleroi belongs to this century, with an inscribed date of
1731.
When the Greek War of Independence began in Greece in 1821,
Crete also rose against its Ottoman rulers. Local traditions are still
current about rebels, such as the band of Captain Perantonis of
Meseleroi and his five sons, who won fame for their nighttime raids
against Muslim villages. In his efforts to subdue the eastern part of
the island, the Ottoman commander Hassan Pasha made Kalo Chorio
his headquarters, as it was on the main route from Ierapetra to Kritsa
(Kozyris 1973:16, 4146). The name Perantonis is still extant in
Meseleroi. The rebellion in Crete, although it decimated the popula-
tion, did not result in independence for the island, as it did for parts
of the mainland; Crete had to wait almost another century before the
European powers would help to release the Ottoman grip.
Kalo Chorio is not mentioned in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-
century Ottoman tax documents that mention Meseleroi, Prina,
Krousta, Kritsa, and other villages of the area. Not until the 1834
census does the village appear in an official document. In that year
Kalo-Khorio, in Mirabello province, had 10 families, and Istronas, in
Ierapetra province (across the river), had 20 families. Meseleroi had
40 Christian families, no Muslims, and Prina the same. This produced
a total of 440 for the survey area. By 1834 the population of Crete was
half what it was in 1821; such was the depopulation wrought by the
rebellion (Pashley 1837:2.321, 32325). Another study supports this
drop in population as well as the destruction of villages and olive mills;
the authorities forbade the latter to be rebuilt (Chourmouzis 1842:37).
Pottery found near the village supports an eighteenth-century foun-
dation date for Kalo Chorio, as does a local tradition that the village
was settled about 200 years ago. The settlers were said to be shep-
herds from Prina and Meseleroi, and this is borne out by the appear-
ance in the village register of names that derive from these mountain
villages, as well as from Kritsa and Krousta.
The village office of Meseleroi preserves a register of males begin-
ning in 1838, which perhaps served military and tax purposes. Oral
tradition, which insists that Muslims never lived in this village or in
Prina, is confirmed both by the census of 1834, and by this document,
which preserves no Islamic names. (In this era, ethnic identity was
determined by religion; converts changed their names, for example, to
Ibrahim or Fatima). The village registers, which go back to the mid-
nineteenth century, also contain no characteristically Muslim names.
One Ottoman official was present in Kalo Chorio, at any rate; in 1845
Allaire Brumfield
the French geographer Raulin stayed with the blkbsai, the regimen-
tal commander, of Kalo Chorio (Raulin 1869:163). The large village of
Kritsa, home to the Kadi, or Muslim judge, in 1700 (Tournefort
1718:2.48), had only two Muslim families in 1834; Ierapetra, an
Ottoman administrative center, had a larger Muslim population. By
1881 the total population of the three villages was 772, of which only
one person, in Kalo Chorio, was Muslim. By 1894 the three villages
totaled about 850 Christians, and by 1903, 1130 (Stavrakis 1890:134,
136; Kalomenopoulos 1894:68; Nouchakis 1903:55).
There are also two monasteries in the survey area. The oldest, the
monastery of the Virgin of Vryomenou, is located about two hours walk
east of the village of Meseleroi. Epigraphical and architectural evi-
dence indicates that it was built in the fourteenth century, and was
still in use in the sixteenth century, but by 1845, it was abandoned
(Gerola 1932:4.581; Xanthoudidis 1912:7576; Raulin 1869:163). The
fine stonework and isolated location of this church make it something
of a puzzle. After the abandonment of Vryomenou, its land became part
of the property of the nearby monastery of the Virgin of Phaneromeni.
Local legend attributes the founding of Phaneromeni to a shep-
herd employed by Vryomenou, who found an icon of the Virgin in a
cave above where the church of Phaneromeni is today. When he
removed it, it returned by itself to the cave. This mysterious event sig-
nified the Virgins desire for a monastery on the spot, and the shep-
herd therefore persuaded the monks of Vryomenou to build it (Psilakis
1988:194). The monastery of Phaneromeni thus originated as a depen-
dancy of Vryomenou.
Although it has been argued that Phaneromeni was founded
before the Venetian conquest, this date is unsupported by the archi-
tecture presently visible, which is eighteenth century or later (P.
Trimandili-McGann, architect, Directorate of Byzantine and Post-
Byzantine Antiquities of Crete, personal communication). Local tradi-
tions maintain that Phaneromeni harbored a secret school, where
Orthodox children could learn to read and write under the tutelage of
the monks, since local Ottoman officials did not permit Christian
priests to teach.
Little remains of the monastic archive, but a few documents attest
to the existence of a school here by the eighteenth century. The earli-
est published excerpt from this archive is dated 1732, written by
a student in the flyleaf of a book: Good my hand, write the letters
well and do not make mistakes that will bring punishment, a com-
mon exhortation in eighteenth-century exercise books (Pappadakis
1981: 10). The most famous graduate of Phaneromenis secret school
was Rodanthi, a local heroine of the rebellion of 1821.
12
52
During the nineteenth century, the monastery became one of the
largest landholders in the area. The scattered monastic holdings were
built up over many years, and were considerable, both within the
survey area and in eastern Crete generally. Three surviving dedica-
tory deeds, dating from 1836, 1841 and 1851, give an idea of the piece-
meal way in which the monasterys land was built up, and the
consequent widespread geographical distribution of these dedications.
They range from the area north of Agios Nikolaos to Siteia in the east
and the Ierapetra area to the south (Pappadakis 1974:5259, 7678,
107110). The land was worked by monastic personnel or rented in
order to secure an income for the monastery. Such dedications of prop-
erty were made to Christian monasteries, not only for pious purposes,
but also to protect land or houses from illegal seizure (although monas-
tic institutions were not exempt from oppression, as we see below). The
dedicator continued to occupy the property for his life, and rendered a
token rent to the monastery, reckoned at 0.04% of the yield.
Another text from the monastic archive describes a lengthy strug-
gle between the monastery and its Muslim neighbor Ali Aga
Tagkalakis, and his son Hussein Aga, from the village of Kentri, north
of Ierapetra. The eastern part of the monasterys lands bordered the
lands of this family, who disputed the ownership of some twelve and a
half acres of grazing land. The monastery produced the monastic codex
as proof, while Tagkalakis produced a deed of sale dated 1834. The
matter was heard by the Muslim court without resolution, pursued by
Tagkalakiss son after his death, and finally resolved in 1863 by the
intervention of Dionysios, the Metropolitan of Crete. At this point the
Ottoman administration in Ierapetra decided to distribute the disputed
property equally between the monastery and Tagkalakis, putting an
end to a thirty year dispute (Pappadakis 1979:40517).
13
The land-holdings of the monastery are given in a codex dated
1893: properties extending north to the seashore totalled 10,000 strem-
mata (2,500 acres). The monastery also owned four nearby metochia.
The word metochi, derived from the Greek metecho, share, denotes a
monastic dependency, as well as the seasonal residence of a farmer.
Venetian documents of the seventeenth century describe metocharoi,
monks who did not live in the main monastery but in a metochi, a sub-
sidiary settlement (Xanthoudidis 1913:338). The monastery also held
properties scattered in 239 different localities in the provinces of Ier-
apetra, Mirabello, and Siteia. Various government edicts diminished
the monasterys land earlier in the twentieth century; some 10,000
stremmata were sold off in 1933 (Pappadakis 1936:157; Pappadakis
1974:53). Today the monastery rents its diminished land to a local
shepherd for grazing.
Asari, now deserted, was founded as a monastic metochi. Its exis-
tence is first attested in the Ottoman census of 1671, when it had 13
adult Christian males, about half the size of Meseleroi and Prina
(Stavrinidis 1976:1345). Its church, dedicated to St. George, is older,
and dates from about 1500 (G. Peers, University of Texas at Austin,
personal communication).
Asari contains the ruins of some ten solidly built stone houses.
Their carved stone mantelpieces and interior stone archways indicate
that these were year-round residences. The settlement formerly had
an olive mill and a prolific spring, as well as a number of threshing
floors, which also support the view that it was not a seasonal encamp-
ment but a subsidiary farming settlement of the monastery, as local
tradition maintains.
The chapel of St. George seems to be contemporary with, or a little
later than, most of the frescoed churches in the area that can be dated.
Asari continued in existence through the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, but by 1903 the population had dropped to five, and today
it is deserted (Stavrinidis 1979:253, 304; Chourmouzis 1842:37;
Nouchakis 1903:61).
THE RECENT SYSTEM OF
CULTUVATION IN THE VROKASTRO AREA
The extremely dissected mountainous landscape of the survey
area is cut through by three mountain torrents, the Korakas,
Xeropotamos and Istron, and is divided into numerous micro-
environments by differences of elevation, aspect, and soil quality. The
area is largely underlain by miocene limestone conglomerates, with
significant alluvial deposits only in the flood plain of the Istron river.
The soil outside the valley bottoms of Kalo Chorio, Meseleroi, and Kato
Prina is thin and sometimes exceedingly rocky. Approximately 50% of
the surface is classified as arable by the ministry of agriculture.
During the Ottoman period and until about 1970, subsistence
agriculture, based on wheat, barley, olives, vines, carobs, and pulses,
supported the villagers. Stone-built terraces used for sowing grain,
legumes, and fodder are still easily distinguished girdling the moun-
tain slopes, of which the highest is Mt. Schinavria, at 698 m. above sea
level. Until the early part of the twentieth century, grain was culti-
vated on these high fields, some so rocky that today they are only con-
sidered suitable for rough grazing. On the valley floor olives and vines
would be found, and, near water sources, vegetable gardens. Carobs,
2. Agriculture and Rural Settlement in Ottoman Crete, 16691898
growing wild in the driest areas, yielded plentifully in this area of
eastern Crete.
The ethnoarchaeological reconstruction of agricultural exploita-
tion in the earlier twentieth century is also revealing for the Ottoman
period. The results of the archaeological survey and of the gathering
of histories for each of the fieldhouses or metochia make it evident
that the settlement and land use patterns, especially the use of
metochia, were well established by the seventeenth century, and did
not alter until after the Second World War. The climate, the crops, and
the technological means at the peasants disposal changed little during
the two and a half centuries of Ottoman rule. Generally we can say,
in terms of agricultural techniques, the Vrokastro area lagged behind
not only western Europe but even western Crete.
The system of land ownership and inheritance which prevailed in
the area over the last centuries, by its insistence on the near-equal
inheritance of land by all family members, guaranteed the present
system of land-holding in which each farmer has numerous plots of
land at varying distances from his village and from each other. While
this system has been criticized for its irrationality and the inconve-
nience inevitably attendant on the exploitation of so many parcels, the
advantages have not been so obvious. Defenders of the system see it
as a practical means for the farmer to reduce his risk of crop failure;
a variety of crops planted in different micro-environments means that
in a year when some might not yield so well, others could succeed
(Forbes 1982:324359; Gallant 1991:44). Fragmentation of holdings in
the traditional system is aimed at minimizing risk, exactly the oppo-
site of commercial agriculture, which aims to consolidate plots and
reduce labor costs, so as to maximize yield.
The increasingly intractable problem of plant disease, in a DDT-
less era (since pesticides and fertilizer were generally unavailable
before 1945), is also avoided in a system where plots are scattered.
Small fields, planted now in cereals, next in legumes, here in vines,
there in olives, are less prone to the invasion of a pest, whether new
or old. Monocropping almost invites the multiplication of specialized
pests or diseases, as farmers in the American Midwest have been dis-
covering. The devastation wrought in French vineyards in the mid-
nineteenth century by the vine aphid Phylloxera (perhaps brought
from the New World) was accomplished like wildfire in the wine dis-
tricts where one vineyard lay next to another (Unwin 1991:284296).
Phylloxera arrived in Crete only in recent decades, and established
itself in the large commercial vineyards near Iraklion, but has not
spread through eastern Cretes small and noncontiguous vineyards.
55
The dacus fly is also a rather new pest which grows inside the
olive fruit and makes it drop early so that it is either unusable, or if
used, produces olive oil with an undesirable acidity level. In a study
done in 1948, this pest was given responsibility for destruction of up
to 50% of the crop, but earlier observers of the Cretan olive oil indus-
try say nothing of it (Allbaugh 1953:548). Could the spread of the dacus
fly have been assisted by the immense increase in olive planting during
the last seventy years?
The exploitation of scattered plots is made easier by the existence
of metochia, seasonal residences near the fields. Each village is sur-
rounded by a halo of metochia belonging to its citizens, which provides
a visual image of the area exploited by that village. It is interesting to
note, for example, how far into the periphery of Meseleroi the metochia
(and fields) of Kalo Chorio penetrate, showing the growth of the more
recently founded but larger village. The map of metochi locations in
the survey area shows that the walking distance from village to
metochi varied from a half hour to four hours at most; on average, a
villager needed one and a half hours to reach his metochi. When asked,
villagers name one hour as the normal maximum distance from village
to metochi and answer that a field three hours away on foot is not
worth keeping. Nevertheless, selling inherited land is not such an easy
decision. An established olive grove, which does not require frequent
visits, might be worth keeping, even up to four hours away. Such
distant properties, in the days before motorized transport, required
planning to be properly exploited. However, most fields and metochia
were reached in under one and a half hours on foot.
METOCHIA
Fifty-one sites of the Ottoman period have been identified in the
Vrokastro survey area, and on them, eighty-one metochia, where
farmers lived for weeks or months, to cultivate grain, olives, or grapes.
A metochi (Figure 2.6) is a fieldhouse of dry stone construction
with a flat roof of twigs, rushes, and roofing clay built on a wooden
frame, of one, two, or three rooms. Interviews with elderly villagers
who lived in these metochia revealed that one or more rooms often
served as straw barns, storage rooms or animal stables. The presence
of a hearth indicated the room where the family lived, ate and slept.
Visits with villagers still residing in their fieldhouses reveal that the
presence or absence of windows, plaster, or flooring are not necessar-
ily firm clues as to whether previous inhabitants were human or
Figure 2.6. An example of a two-room metochi at Sfakolaggada.
animal. The number of rooms is not a good indicator of the population
either, unless the rooms use is known.
Many of these metochia are still in good repair, often with an
intact roof, repaired with roofing clay, plastic sheeting or metal, or even
re-roofed with concrete. Some of these metochia were still lived in as
recently as ten years ago. Aside from shepherds, only a few eccentric
individuals still live in metochia, now that trucks are ubiquitous. Some
metochia continue in use as animal shelters or storehouses. Many owe
their well preserved state to the German occupation, since during the
Second World War villagers fled to their metochia to escape, first the
Italians and then the Nazis. During that period, remote areas were
populated year round, not only seasonally. At least one metochi was
said to have been repaired for use as a hideout by Italian soldiers
escaping their erstwhile allies.
Most metochia are on sites that were also occupied in the Venet-
ian period, as is clear from pottery recovered by the archaeological
survey. Thus the recent pattern of land exploitation and the use of
metochia as seasonal dwellings has roots far back in the past. Liter-
ary references to metochia and their various uses from the fifteenth to
the seventeenth centuries corroborate their age (Xanthoudidis
1912:243244; Pappadakis 1976:3132).
The seasonal nature of the metochia has important methodologi-
cal consequences for the interpretation of the archaeological record.
The metochia indicate that the appearance of a large number of sites
in the countryside does not necessarily mean an increase in popula-
tion. Rather they may reveal patterns of landholding and agricultural
exploitation. In the Vrokastro survey area, the nucleated settlement
pattern, combined with the use of metochia near the fields, is associ-
ated with an extensive system of agricultural exploitation, in which
scattered plots are cultivated in many different crops, rather than an
intensive system, under which the exploitation of contiguous plots in
more labor-intensive crops requires year round residence in a farm-
house on the property.
To give an example, in the prewar period a family residing in a
house in the village also might own a metochi close to their grain fields
where family members stayed up to a month in the summer for the
harvest and processing of grain, fodder, and other field crops. The
metochi might have a well and garden crops, perhaps salsa, a vine-
yard, which would necessitate visits at other times of the year for
vintage, digging and pruning. There might be a bread oven or a
chicken coop or even a wine treading vat, which would make it diffi-
cult to distinguish the metochis material remains from those of a per-
manent residence. Over years of use, this metochi would produce very
much the same pottery remains, faunal and vegetal remains, and other
artifacts, as a year-round residence. If we were to find only the phys-
ical remains, we would surely interpret each site as a farmstead.
The elderly villagers who have lived in and used metochia are able
in many cases to provide a genealogy of use and ownership for them
that reaches back to the midnineteenth century. They insist, however,
that no matter how many months of the year one lived in a metochi,
it was not a house, a family residence. Each family belonged to a
certain village; metochia in each locality belonged to, and were used
by, a particular village.
The stone metochia are fairly uniform in their design. Their geo-
graphical orientation shows no preference with regard to the points of
the compass. The structures are built in conformity with the topogra-
phy of the site, and frequently use preexisting landscape features
such as slopes and bedrock outcrops to support their walls. The most
common house plan is tandem: rooms are laid out in a line, but usually
without connecting doors. This plan is the most flexible, since the
rooms function, for storage, animals, or human habitation, could be
altered, new rooms could easily be added, and windows and doors
created or blocked up.
The rooms in the metochia vary from the smallest, at about two
meters square, to the largest, some thirty meters square. The average
room size is a modest three by four meters. The number of rooms varies
from one to thirteen. Thirty-one of the metochia have two rooms, while
twenty of them consist of only one room. Three houses were plastered
on the outside and six show traces of interior plaster, although the
weather-beaten condition of many of the roofless metochia makes this
a statistic without much significance.
Bread ovens (Figure 2.7) have been identified in association with
eight of the metochia, and wine treading vats, harder to identify, with
only two. At thirty sites, one or more threshing floors have been iden-
tified. Sixteen have animal pens, one has a chicken coop, two are asso-
ciated with walled vineyards; near one metochi a large weight stone
for an olive press was found. Thirty-one sites have cisterns, wells or
springs identified nearby. It is probably safe to assume that all of them
had some source of water near, even if changes in the water table over
the last 100 years have obscured this fact.
Figure 2.7. A bread oven in a metochi from Meseleroi.
The interior furnishings of the metochia are simple, with a hearth
for cooking and warmth, windows (although some have no windows at
all, and some have only slits in the wall, perhaps for security), sleep-
ing platforms built of rubble and stone, and wall niches, for storage
and lighting. The dry stone walls were built without mortar, but the
construction method produced well-balanced walls. The metochia show
evidence of remodeling, with doors blocked up or made into windows,
windows filled in or turned into niches, rooms added or their functions
changed; a modular house plan. Access to storage rooms or animal
pens is sometimes through an interior door or a window, which is
perhaps a security feature.
The majority of metochia are single, although not necessarily iso-
lated. Sixteen sites have more than one metochi. There are four large
groups of six metochia or more: Sfakolaggada, Asari, Kavousanida, and
Tzamaki. The origin of these hamlets differs in each case. Kavou-
sanida was settled by five brothers. Sfakolaggada was farmed cooper-
atively by seven unrelated families. Tzamakhi was used by unrelated
shepherds from Kritsa as well as residents of Kalo Chorio and
Meseleroi. Finally, Asari was originally a dependency of the Monastery
Phaneromeni.
The memories of elderly villagers about the histories of these
metochia explain much about their location and arrangement.
Metochia were not built for monocropping, but show evidence of other
activities besides grain production, which was always paramount.
Eleven metochi sites still have olives nearby, thirteen have vines, eight
have gardens, eighteen have carobs, six have almonds, and three have
figs. In twenty-one cases, sheep or goats, whether 50 or 500, were kept
at the site for part of the year.
AGRICULTURAL INFRASTRUCTURE
A map of settlement patterns and movement in the countryside
would not be complete without the locations of the agricultural instal-
lations that still remain in and around the villages. Grainmills, olive
mills and presses, wine treading vats, and bread ovens are all deteri-
orating rapidly. A reconstruction of how these machines worked and
what population they served is revealing of the agriculture of the
Ottoman period. Fortunately, the villagers who formerly operated them
can reveal their function, since the water-driven grain mills were still
working into the 1960s and the olive mills until the 1950s.
The location of water mills, whether recently abandoned or out of
use for centuries, is informative of the hydrology of the area. The
recent installation of deep machine-dug wells in this part of Crete
seems to have had a negative impact on the flow of many springs. This
is, at any rate, the impression of villagers, who describe many of their
local springs as having provided more water before the deeper wells
were dug. A look at the location of watermills on the map shows us
where waterpower was to be found in recent centuries. In Kalo Chorio,
three mills in a row were powered by the spring at Platania and the
spring at Katovrysi. Two mills were powered by the spring at Pyrgos,
which still provides irrigation to the valley. Other mills on the flood
plain, some of them disused for centuries, show that water power was
plentiful here. The villagers claim that there were once twelve water-
mills in Kalo Chorio; the archaeological survey has located the remains
of nine of these.
The watermills which were used by the residents of Prina and
Meseleroi are to the south, on the other side of the watershed. North-
ernmost is the ruined mill of Koutsoura, in the valley of Kato Prina,
which was abandoned about 100 years ago, when the water supply
from the Prina spring became insufficient for the mill. Still in use until
1960 was the mill on the Petritsi River, south of Prina. Meseleroi res-
idents carried their grain to Braiminia or the Atsali mill, on the lower
Korakas river, a walk of some one and a half hours. The use of a
villages mill was not restricted to its residents, and people from moun-
tain villages came down to use the mills at Kalo Chorio when their
mills were not running. Likewise, the farmers whose metochia were
located in the easternmost part of the survey area took their grain to
Monastiraki to be ground (Figure 2.8), where two large watermills
made use of the stream coming out of the Ha gorge to the east.
How old are these mills? At least two in Kalo Chorio have been
abandoned for over a hundred years, judging from the deposition of
soil over the mill house and the size of the trees growing in that soil.
Literary evidence indicates that watermills existed in the plain of Kalo
Chorio in the early fifteenth century, even though there was no village
here at that time. Buondelmonti saw four mills in constant operation
in 1415 (Legrand 1897:149). Similar mills in the Mesara have been
dated to the seventeenth century (Vallianos 1985: 11; Clutton
1977:148). Dating these structures is difficult because of the fact that
they have been remodeled over the centuries.
Millers are generally described as having been archontes, wealthy
men, employers of others, on good terms with the local ruler, whether
Ottoman or Venetian. The mills at Monastiraki were owned by
Muslims until 1912, when they were sold to local residents. The mills
of Meseleroi were owned by Muslims until local men bought them in
the early part of this century. The mill used by Prina was locally
Figure 2.8. The grain mill at Monastiraki.
owned, however. The mills of Kalo Chorio are not remembered as ever
having been owned by Muslims, and the toponyms and names of the
mills are Greek, many named for nearby chapels. The Modatsou mill
in Kalo Chorio, the only one whose name does not derive from a
toponym, may betray a Venetian origin for its owner (Modazzo). Local
tradition holds that Modatsos was the secretary of the Aga who held
Kritsa and Krousta (perhaps this Aga was the mltezim, or holder of
the tax farm).
It has been suggested that grain-mills were located in inaccessi-
ble mountainous spots to enable their owners to avoid paying the tax
in kind to the government (Vallianos 1985:1012). This theory loses
credibility in view of the fact that the hara tax was collected in the
form of grain, not flour, and therefore at the threshing floor, not at the
mill.
14
Especially in arid eastern Crete, the location of grain mills must
have been determined by the availability of water power more than
anything else. The mills of Kalo Chorio, for example, served the
populations of other villages as far away as Pachyammos, Prina, and
Meseleroi, at times when their water power was inadequate. The
rotary handmill continued in use, in domestic situations, for the prepa-
ration of less finely ground grain products used in soups and porridges.
This saved the long trip to the mill and back, as well as the millers
fee, normally ten percent.
The mills, all vertical-axled, were technologically simple. They
employed the power of a stream of water, which could be magnified by
being gathered in a reservoir, carried in an aqueduct, and shot down
a vertical chimney, which became progressively narrower, increasing
its power, until the water shot out under the mill and drove a hori-
zontal wheel, powering a vertical axle that turned the horizontal
Figure 2.9. One-stone olive crusher from Monastiraki. Olive crushers like this were
used in some villages of the Vrokastro study area until the early twentieth century,
millstones which ground the grain. These mills were not able to control
the water pressure, but a switch could be used to raise the upper grind-
stone to prevent it from spinning too fast and burning the flour. The
preferred grindstones for these mills were of volcanic rock imported
from the island of Melos, which has been a source of millstones in
ancient and modern times (Runnels and Murray 1983:6263).
The olive crushers and presses that formerly served each village
were also simple, employing a technology not much altered since anti-
quity. The olive mill was usually located in a village, near a water
source, since oil pressing demanded a large supply of hot water.
Remains of mills and presses have been found in Prina and Meseleroi,
and in Vasiliki and Monastiraki, villages whose mills were used by
metochia in the eastern part of the survey area. In Kalo Chorio,
although there were formerly eight mills, not one remains. Population
growth here has resulted in re-use of the press-houses and destruction
of the old machinery.
The mechanical means of producing olive oil evolved slowly in
Crete, as it has in Greece generally (Sordinas 1971). The earliest olive-
mill, with one crushing stone (Figure 2.9), was simple to construct;
except for a few metal nails, it was fashioned entirely of stone and
wood (Pitykakis 1983:1.68). It required a number of people to operate
it, to guide or assist the mule or ox to pull the horizontal bar which
propelled the large vertical millstone around in the circular stone
basin, to pour the olives into the basin, and to shovel the olives into
the path of the slowly turning millstone. This simple, locally con-
structed kind of mill seems to have existed relatively unchanged since
antiquity, and continued to be used in some villages of the Vrokastro
survey area into the 1930s and 40s.
In the midnineteenth century the one-stone crusher and the
wooden screw press were still used even in western Crete, although
in Greece they were being replaced by a more efficient multistone
crusher and by a screw press made entirely of metal (Raulin 1869:243;
Hitier 1881:601; Sordinas 1971:12). This new olive mill, the fabrika,
(from the Italian fabrica, factory) was introduced to eastern Crete
from Milan, Italy, around 1870, thanks to the efforts of K. Adosidis,
the Greek governor of Lasithi, who lived in Mirabello (Pitykakis
1983:2.1143; Psilakis 1988:212).
The fabrika was more complex than the old mill (Figure 2.10). It
had three or four millstones, of different sizes, spaced at different
intervals from the central vertical axle. An arm attached to this axle
scooped the olives back into the path of the millstones, eliminating one
worker. The rods which connected the millstones, and the horizontal
Figure 2.10. A fabrika (olive crusher).
axles which connected them to the center pole, were of iron; the fact
that these parts could not be manufactured out of locally available
materials restricted the spread of this more efficient machine.
Even if the fabrika was introduced in eastern Crete in about 1870,
it took longer to reach the small villages of the Vrokastro survey area.
In 1911 and 1912 two fabrikes were built in Meseleroi, while Prina
acquired the new machinery between 1910 and 1920, and Vasiliki built
its first fabrika in 1910. The fabrika arrived in Monastiraki only in
1950, when a larger village built a hydraulic press and sold the now-
obsolete fabrika parts.
The fabrika had many advantages over the one-stone crusher. It
ground the olives into paste at about twice the speed of the older
machine, it worked more smoothly and with less effort from the animal
who provided traction power, and it required fewer workers. Yet it
could not be constructed without skilled iron-smiths and a source of
Figure 2.11. A one-screw olive press.
iron, both of which were unavailable in many areas of Crete. For these
reasons, the fabrika did not everywhere replace the one-stone crusher;
both continued in use side by side. In three villages, in Vasiliki, in
Monastiraki and in Meseleroi, remains of the two different types are
in houses close to each other on the village street.
The second part of the olive oil production process, after the crush-
ing of the olives into paste, was the pressing (Figure 2.11). The olive
paste was put in goat hair sacks, which were stacked up on the bed of
the wooden screw press. The earliest hardwood screw press consisted
of two vertical wooden screws, on which the press head ascended and
descended (Pitykakis 1983:1.68). The press head was lowered by hand
until movement became difficult. Then the pressure was increased,
either by the use of levers inserted into the press head or by the use
of a massive vertical wooden windlass fixed to the floor and ceiling of
the press house (Figure 2.12). Around this windlass was wound a rope
Figure 2.12. Botzargati (windlass) in olive press house in Monastiraki.
attached to the handles under the press head. A number of men turned
the windlass by means of vertical rods inserted in it, pulling on the
rope and lowering the press head. The oil ran into a settling tank sunk
into the floor, from where it could be ladled out, or the oil ran into jars
above ground equipped with bungholes at their bases to let out the
vegetable water at the bottom. The millers ten percent fee was paid
in kind. Since the hara tax on olive oil was taken at the mill, it was
also the millers responsibility to see that it was collected.
The screw press is a fairly recent invention, a result of the redis-
covery and publication, in the sixteenth century, of Hero of Alexan-
drias Mechanics. Venice first popularized this more efficient method
of extracting olive oil, and in her colonies the ancient beam press began
to be replaced by the wooden screw press. The one-screw press, more
complex to manufacture than the two-screw press, probably arrived in
Crete sometime in the eighteenth century (Sordinas 1971:14).
Figure 2.13. Wine treading vat in Prina. Vats such as this are still used today for
making wine for home consumption.
Complex as it was, the wooden screw press could be manufactured
locally, but the all-metal screw press could not. It was first imported
into the Vrokastro area at the end of the last century from Italy, some
decades after it came into use in mainland Greece (Sordinas 1971:17).
The metal screw presses found in derelict press houses in the survey
area are all of similar Italian manufacture. The metal press operated
in the same way as the single-screw wooden press; the press head was
lowered by manpower, using handles inserted in the vertical wooden
windlass. The metal screw press was more efficient than its wooden
forerunner; since it was stronger, more pressure could be exerted, and
more oil extracted, without cracking the screw or the press head.
In addition to the village olive mills, there is also evidence for
small scale olive oil production by hand, which involved beating or
crushing the olives with a big stone in a basin, or rolling a cylindrical
stone on the olives spread on a flat stone surface. The pulp was
wrapped in cloths, stacked up in a basin, and heavy stones were piled
on top to press out the oil. Sometimes men would add their weight to
the stones, or even more simply, the paste could be immersed in hot
water which would draw out the oil, which, rising to the top, could
then be ladled out. Such exhausting and inefficient methods were used,
according to elderly villagers, during the Ottoman period. Homemade
olive oil could escape tax payments in kind and the millers fee These
methods were observed in the late 19th century in Crete (Sarakomenos
1930:70), and continued as late as 1936 (Vickery 1936:52; see also
Forbes & Foxhall 1978:3941).
The third member of the nutritional trinity, wine, has always been
produced for domestic consumption in the Vrokastro area. The most
common vine cultivated in the area, the Iliatiko, produces a sweetish
golden wine. This same variety was encountered as early as 1609 by
a Scottish traveler, who pronounced Cretes Leatic wine to be the best
(Lithgow 1814:68).
Wine for home consumption is still produced in traditional
fashion. The grapes are trodden in a stone vat lined with water-proof
cement, usually in the courtyard or somewhere near the house (Figure
2.13). The resulting must is stored in barrels and can be drunk as soon
as it has stopped fermenting. The grapeskins and pulp are saved for
the distillation of raki, which takes place in October, after the vintage.
How ancient is the distillation of wine into alcohol, and how long
have the Cretans been making raki? Brandy became a drink used for
other than medicinal purposes only in the sixteenth century in France,
but the distillation of alcohol seems to have been invented in the
Islamic world (Unwin 1991:236). In 1700, the French traveler Tourne-
fort found Cretan raki to be an inferior brandy with . . . no strength,
which smells of burning, and presently goes bad. . . (Tournefort
1718:2.9597).
CONCLUSIONS
The first part of this chapter presented a brief recital of the agri-
cultural history of Ottoman Crete. Longer succeeding sections pre-
sented a more detailed look at a specific rural area in eastern Crete,
its villages, monasteries, and landholding customs. This concluding
section must try to weave the threads convincingly together.
The primary question of interest regards the system of land own-
ership. All the different types of evidence that we have for the Vrokas-
tro area seems to show that the iftlik system did not take hold here,
as it did in the larger plains areas of central and western Crete. The
Vrokastro area, perhaps less of a prize, whose lands were less easily
exploited on a large scale, does not seem to have been greatly effected
by the change in imperial rulers.
The large estates near the cities of Chania and Iraklion that had
been held by the Venetian nobility and worked by their serfs (villani)
passed into the hands of the new Ottoman and military official class
when their former owners left the island with the Venetian comman-
der Morosini in 1669. Such estates do not seem to have existed in the
Vrokastro area.
Venetian eastern Crete seems to have had fewer feudal properties
than the rest of the island. In the earlier period, the nobility of Siteia,
unlike their counterparts in the rest of the island, were said to dwell
in their villages, not in the city of Siteia, because of the danger posed
by the sea-going corsairs. By the late sixteenth century the coastal area
from Cape Sidero to Ierapetra was described as deserted on account of
piracy; the need to increase grain production caused Venetian officials
to search for ways to bring the land back into cultivation. One method
by which the Serene Republic encouraged the contadini (peasants) to
reclaim and cultivate unused land was to give them the status of goni-
cari (inheritors). Such farmers truly owned their houses and lands, and
could pass them on to their heirs. Even though they still owed certain
feudal duties to the lord, they could not be put off the land or forced to
cultivate elsewhere (Giannopoulos 1978:40, 63, 73).
Thus it seems that the Venetian feudarchs rule over the peasants
of the Vrokastro area may have been lighter than in the more fertile
and profitable areas to the west, such as in the extensive vineyards
surrounding the city of Candia. The Ottoman Agas (as local landown-
ers are generically called in the sources) who stepped into the depart-
ing Venetian nobles shoes also did not take much interest in this rural
upland area.
For the Vrokastro area we have no evidence of the iftlik system
described as typical of the lands around the cities by the nineteenth
century (Raulin 1869:221, 233; Hitier 1881:58991). The physical
remains of these large farmhouses and outbuildings, with their agri-
cultural machinery for processing olives or grain, have not been found
in the survey area.
15
Instead, the numerous metochia dotted around
the countryside over these centuries argue for the exploitation of this
land by smallholders with scattered plots. The archival and statistical
evidence seems to indicate that there were few Muslims in the survey
area, either converts or Ottoman landowners and officials.
One consequence of the iftlik system, the production of special-
ized crops for a market, also does not seem to have occurred on a sig-
nificant scale in the survey area. Olive oil, the most important export
of the Ottoman period, was not produced on a large scale in this area.
The number of trees that appear to be more than one hundred years
old are few compared to western Crete or even the plain of Ierapetra.
The statistics from the agricultural censuses of 1914 and 1929 show a
low number of olive trees compared to today. In 1914, Mirabello pro-
duced more honey than olive oil! (Annual Statistics of Agricultural
Production 1914; Agricultural and Pastoral Census 1929).
The number of olive mills in the villages, their size and relatively
low technological level also would seem to argue that there was no
landlord class involved in promoting the production of olive oil in quan-
tity for export. The villages each seem to have had, at best, only one
of the primitive one-stone crushers ( aletrouvidia) in the early 19th
century. No massive installations, such as can be seen, for example,
in Corfu, or in monasteries such as Agia Triada Tsangarolou, near
Chania, have been found in the survey area. Even the monastery of
Phaneromeni, apparently the largest single landowner in the area
by the 19th century, preserves no olive milling equipment within its
labyrinthine buildings.
The production of grain for subsistence, and for sale to those from
poorer mountain villages, seems to have been the dominant concern.
One has only to look at the extensive stone terraces, now abandoned,
covering every inch of potentially arable soil, even to the heights of
Mt Schinavria, to understand that grain for humans and fodder for
animals was paramount. The large number of grainmills still extant,
especially in Kalo Chorio, underscores the importance of grain, con-
sidering the expense of building such installations.
In the survey area, the large landowners, besides the monastery
of Phaneromeni, were local Greek families who had aquired privileges
from the Venetians and held their position in the Ottoman period as
wellthe Modatsoi, Frangiodoulides (meaning, slave of the Frank),
and Skouloudides, whose landholdings and local political clout in the
Ottoman period are still remembered. The vast majority of landown-
ers seem to have been smallholders, however, whose systems of labor
could involve the employment of harvesters or olive-gatherers, paid in
kind, but not on the scale of a share-cropping system.
The lack of a iftlik system and its absentee landlords does not
mean that the farmers of Vrokastro avoided the oversight or the tax
demands of the Ottoman authorities. Taxes were collected efficiently
by the villagers deputized to do so, and the labor and defense require-
ments of the authorities were met and organized by these same local
worthies, as the Turkish Archives of Iraklion make clear. Yet the rel-
ative difficulty involved in exploiting their land, and its historic expo-
sure to piracy and danger from the sea, seem to have spared the
smallholders of Vrokastro some of the chaos and oppression that char-
acterized the rule of officials and Janissaries in other provinces in the
last two centuries of Ottoman rule.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Arguments put forward in this paper will be more fully docu-
mented in the forthcoming Vrokastro survey volumes. The Vrokastro
Survey Project is directed by Dr. Jennifer Moody of Baylor University
and Dr. Barbara Hayden of the University of Pennsylvania, for whose
support I am grateful. I am especially grateful to Dr. Hayden for her
reading of drafts of this paper and other works in progress. The dates
for the fieldhouses were provided by Dr. Margrete Hahn of Odense Uni-
versity, Denmark, who examined the pottery of the Venetian and
Turkish periods. Dr. Toula Trimandili-McGann, architect, Directorate
of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Antiquities of Crete, and Dr. Glenn
Peers, of the University of Texas at Austin, examined and dated eccle-
siastical monuments in the survey area.
I would like to thank Professor Dimitris Pappadakis of Iraklion
for explaining the documents of the Phaneromeni monastery to me,
Dr. Margaret Mook of Iowa University and Dr. Donald Haggis of
UNCChapel Hill for sharing their thoughts about metochia, and Dr.
Harold Koster of Binghamton Community College for his insights into
pastoral life. This study was partially supported by the Institute for
Aegean Prehistory. The maps and drawings were made by Jaime
Alvarez, of Towson University, and the photos were taken by the
author.
The people of the survey area were warm and helpful (as
Cretans always are) and enthusiastically assisted my research. I want
to thank especially Iannis Pappadakis of Pachyammos; Mayor
Michalis Maniadakis, the Miaris family and Michalis Gerontis of Kalo
Chorio; the Gerontis family and Mayor Michalis Vidakis of Prina;
Kostas Skouloudis, Pappas Nikolaos Zacharakis, Manolis Skouloudis,
Despina Skouloudi and Mayor Elefterios Kontopodis of Meseleroi.
Finally, thanks to my children, Sarah, Michael, James, and Betsy, who
held measuring tapes, got their legs scratched by brambles, and
submitted to having their cheeks pinched, all in the interests of
ethnography.
NOTES
1.
2.
Inalcik (1973:106) does not actually mention Crete.
An early (1657) example is the vakif of Hatzi Ibrahim Aga of Rethymnon, which
consisted of property seized from departed Venetian landowners. Ibrahim collected
the income of the villages and rented out the use of various olive mills and gardens
(Stavrinidis 1975:12).
In modern Greek usage, Muslims (even the modern Muslims of Bosnia!) are gen-
erally called Turks, whether their ethnic origin be in fact Albanian or Greek, while
all Greeks are assumed to be Christian.
4. The subasi was originally a commander of sipahis and holder of a zeamet, a large
military fief (Inalcik 1973:113). The word seems to acquire a less lofty significance
in Crete (Stavrinidis 1975:42).
The Vrokastro Survey Project is directed by B. J. Hayden of the University Museum
of the U of Penna and J. A. Moody of Baylor U, Texas. (see Hayden et al. 1992).
Rackham (1990) has argued that the Cretan climate became more arid about
3,000 years ago and Sarpaki (1990) has compared prehistoric and contemporary
crops.
7. The hara changed from 1/7 to 1/10 under the Egyptian administration of the mid-
nineteenth century.
8. The metal plowshare was introduced by the Venetians (Pappadakis 1977:10). The
first all-metal plows were imported into Crete from Thessaly at the end of the nine-
teenth century ( Catalog, Voroi Museum of Cretan Ethnology 5).
9. The ethnoarchaeological study of the Vrokastro area began in the summer of 1991,
included a winter season in 1992-93, and concluded in the summer of 1995. The
project involved a reconstruction of the state of agricultural exploitation in the
earlier part of this century, before the advent of irrigation, artificial fertilizers, and
agricultural machinery. The agricultural technology available in the prewar period
clearly had altered little for centuries.
10. For example, in 1538 the famous corsair Khaireddin Barbarossa descended on the
northern coast of Crete, destroying crops and carrying off slaves by the thousands
(Smith 1965:63). By the end of the 16th century, areas of eastern Crete were
deserted to such an extent that the Venetian government was considering how to
encourage the reclamation of its agricultural land (Giannopoulos 1978:73 on piracy;
see also Braudel 197273 and McNeill 1974:136140).
The French traveler Tournefort (1718:1.489) traveled by this route in 1700; he did
not take the easier way along the north coast and across the isthmus to Ierapetra,
which was too exposed to pirates.
The daughter of a priest of Kritsa, Rodanthi was sent to be secretly educated
by the monks of Phaneromeni, according to the Cretan poet Manolis Dialynas,
who tells this traditional story in his epic Kritsotopoula (the maid of Kritsa). Forced
into a Cretan marriage by the Janissary captain of a nearby village, she slit his
3.
5.
6.
11.
12.
throat and escaped into the hills disguised as a man, to join the rebels. Fatally
wounded in the battle of Kritsa in 1823, she was revealed as a heroine to her
comrades (see Pappadakis 1981:1422; Dialynas 1912; Kozyris 1973:4148;
Constantinides 1983).
13. A local tradition, current ca. 1875, appears to be a folk version of the Tagkalakis
incident. It tells of a wealthy and quarrelsome Aga from Kentri named Dangalis,
truly a Janissary, who attempted to extort money from the monastery, on the
grounds that its goats had damaged his olives. While the monks went out to gather
the money, the wicked Aga returned home to find his only daughter dead. The story
concludes, with satisfaction, God, who is great, had done this miracle.
In 1658, in response to complaints from the Christian peasants of the village of
Gerani in Rethymnon, the timar-holder (military landlord) Hussein Aga, promised
to collect no more than the amount stipulated by law and to do so at harvest time,
collecting cereals at the threshing floor, olive oil at the olive-mill, and wine at the
pressing vat (Stavrinidis 1975:47).
Such complexes have been found elsewhere; for example, the Hotel Oasis outside
Chania is a restored iftlik, with its huge olive mill transformed into a restaurant.
14.
15.
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The Archaeology of
Ottoman Tiinnik
An Interdisciplinary Approach
Ghada Ziadeh-Seely
3
INTRODUCTION
Tiinnik is a small village located along the northern border of the
West Bank (Palestine grid 170/214, see Figure 3.1). The present village
is situated on the east slopes of tell Taanach. The tell has attracted
archaeologists since the turn of the century, mainly because of its
biblical connections (Glock 1978: 1138). The site, referred to several
times in the Bible (e.g., Joshua 12:21, 17:11 and Judges 1:27) was
the target of two archaeological expeditions prior to our 198587
excavation.
The first excavation which took place between the years 1902 and
1904 was directed by Earnest Sellin (Sellin 1904, 1905). The site was
excavated for the second time during 1960s, with Paul Lapp as the
director (Lapp 1964, 1967, 1969). So far, materials from that excava-
tion are only partly published (Rast 1978). The subject of this paper is
the last excavation, 198587, which was directed by Albert Glock. This
excavation was aimed at locating and studying the remains of the
Ottoman settlement(s), which was a complete departure from the orig-
inal biblical interest in the site (Ziadeh 1991). The excavation was also
a landmark in the history of Palestinian archaeology not only because
it was the first excavation to be totally staffed by Palestinians but also
because the aims of the excavation were unrelated to traditional bib-
lical archaeology.
GHADA ZIADEH-SEELY Department of Sociology, Old Dominion University, Norfolk,
Virginia 23529.
79
80 Ghada Ziadeh-Seely
Figure 3.1. The region around Tiinnik.
WHY OTTOMAN ARCHAEOLOGY?
My involvement with Tiinnik began in 1982 when I was asked to
carry out an ethnoarchaeological study of the village (Ziadeh 1984).
The study was conducted in order to reach a better interpretation and
understanding of the unpublished material from the 1960s excavation.
3. The Archaeology of Ottoman Tiinnik 81
Ethnoarchaeology was a relatively recent trend, at the time, that
developed from the realization that the main task of the archaeologist
is to reconstruct past societies from the material remains (Watson
1979: 110). Studying non-industrial societies was believed to provide
an ethnographic foundation on which to develop inferences and to base
interpretations (Hodder 1982:28). No direct relationship, however, can
generally be assumed between ethnoarchaeological and archaeological
contexts (Stark 1993:94). Frequently, the ethnographic data and the
archaeological evidence are separated either by millennia or by conti-
nents (Binford 1972; Gould 1980; Kramer 1982). Despite the measures
taken to achieve scientifically controlled interpretations, the use of
ethnographic data carried the risk of erroneous interpretation espe-
cially if it had no direct link to that past. Our interest in the archae-
ology of the Ottoman period emerged out of the desire to evaluate the
relevance of ethnographic data to the archaeological context. Because
the present is the product of its immediate past, ethnographic data is
best tested in relation to its directly related archaeological context. In
the case of Palestine this context is the Ottoman period, which lasted
from December 1516 until the end of the First World War in 1917.
Tracing historically or ethnographically observed relations back
through time within the same or historically related cultural tradi-
tions is not new (South 1979:17; Trigger 1989:395). The direct histor-
ical approach has been employed in interpreting the native American
cultures since last century. For the most part, the direct historical
approach is based on the assumption that ethnographic native cultures
are not significantly different from their prehistoric counterpart
(Trigger 1989:69, 1245). In the case of Tiinnik, however, we started
with the following premises. First, that the present is by definition dif-
ferent from its past and the question is why, and by how much. Second,
the present is a direct product of its immediate past. In this context
the Ottoman period represents a first step of a long research program
of studying the cultural history of the site and the region which can
be achieved only by moving systematically and gradually from the
present into the past.
POLITICAL, THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS
Researching the Ottoman period on the part of the author, was an
expression of discontent not only with ethnoarchaeology but also with
the locally dominant tradition of Biblical archaeology. In Palestine
(Israel) archaeological research has been predominantly motivated by
nationalistic and religious politics (Silberman 1989:237136). For years,
the upper strata of archaeological sites had been systematically
bulldozed in order to reach earlier strata, the strata assumed to
be related to the history of modern Israel. Conveniently, the upper
layers happen to contain the archaeological remains of the
Arab Muslim era (Glock 1987; Bar-Yosef & Mazar 1982). In effect, this
practice lead to negating the history and heritage of the Palestinian
Arabs who lived on that soil for generations. Despite the fact that
the archaeology of the Ottoman period can be classified under that
wider heading of religious archaeology, it should not be allowed to slide
into the game of national and religious rivalry. We can overcome
the limitation of nationalistic and biblical traditions by calling for
an archaeology that investigates issues of cultural history rather
than focusing on isolated cultural episodes and periods. I believe that
adopting the reverse chronology approach encourages archaeologists
to give equal attention to the entire sequence of the cultural history
(Ziadeh 1995b).
My researching of the Ottoman period was motivated by theoret-
ical more than nationalistic considerations. Having said that I do not
mean that the archaeology of the Ottoman period is totally apolitical.
Within the framework of Israeli occupation Ottoman research becomes
a symbol of asserting a segment of the history and heritage of the
Palestinian Arabs which has been systematically ignored and erased
by both Western Biblical and Israeli archaeologists.
USE OF A MULTIDISCIPLINARY DATABASE
Any archaeological research of the Ottoman period is bound to
incorporate several types of data, particularly historical and ethno-
graphic. Archaeologists cannot ignore the wealth of information avail-
able in written sources. Historical sources used in this research can be
divided into three categories: (1) official government records, (2)
Islamic court records, and (3) travel accounts.
Among others, government records concerning Ottoman Palestine
include sixteenth century detailed tax records, dafter mfassal. The
detailed records, mfassal, list not only the amount of taxes but also
the names of the head of each household in every village, making it
possible to estimate the population size, ethnicity and their mode of
production. By listing the types of produce that were subject to taxa-
tion and the amount of taxes levied either in kind or cash, the regis-
ters help in reconstructing the economy of Palestine in the sixteenth
century. Unfortunately the practice of keeping detailed tax records for
the provinces was abandoned by the seventeenth century. The only
two registers available for the area that included Tiinnik date to
AD 1538/AH 945 and AD 1596/1005 AH (Bakhit & al-Hmud 1989a,
1989b).
Islamic court records, sijillat al-mahkama al-shariyya, is a dif-
ferent source of information that reflects the daily life in the villages
and towns. The records cover a broad spectrum ranging from moni-
toring the local markets and guilds to much more personal matters
such as inheritance, marriage and divorce (Doumani 1986:329). No
records concerning the early Ottoman Tiinnik were found. They were
probably lost with the rest of the shariyya court records of el-Lajjn
(Bakhit 1982: 123). For the late Ottoman period, information concern-
ing the village is found in the first twelve volumes of Jenins Islamic
court, dating between 1883 and 1914.
Travel accounts, which were abundant during the nineteenth
century have limited value in describing life in the countryside. Mainly
written by Christian pilgrims, only a few were written by trained
observers and scholars such as Burckhardt (1822), Robinson (1843,
1874), and Tristram (1880, 1876). Even those accounts were written
through the heavily biased eyes of the Christian West which limited
their reliability and objectivity. Occasionally, one finds an account that
portray the local population positively such as dArvieux (Lewis 1963),
and Rogers (1862).
Written history provides a framework within which the archaeo-
logical evidence can be understood and interpreted. The relationship
between history and archaeology, however, does not flow in a single
direction, with archaeology on the receiving end. Because most his-
torical texts are not concerned with the daily life of peasants, archae-
ology has much to contribute. Archaeological evidence from Ottoman
Tiinnik, for example, seems to contradict the common belief regard-
ing the prosperity of the sixteenth century (Inalcik 1985:6996). At
Tiinnik, all the strata dating to the Early Ottoman period show a
sharp increase in the amount of crude handmade ceramics. Until very
recently hand-made ceramics were produced by individual women for
their own household use primarily because people could not afford
buying wheel-manufactured pots. This phenomenon implies that the
bulk of the ceramic industry that produced the fine glazed wheel-man-
ufactured ceramics up to the end of the Mamluk period had collapsed.
In addition to the collapse of ceramic production, related sectors of the
economy also collapsed. The livelihood of people who transported and
sold ceramics and imported materials used for glazing must have been
affected too. In any case one can detect economic deterioration rather
than prosperity contrary to historians' claims (for discussion see
Ziadeh 1995a).
Due to the proximity of the Ottoman period to the present, oral
history is another valuable source of data to archeologists. One can
still talk with elderly people who were born and grew up at the tail
end of the Ottoman period. Those people are able to provide us with
insights particularly with regard to interpreting the functions of arti-
facts and spaces at least for the later part of the Ottoman period.
Taking oral information into account transforms interpreting the
archaeological evidence from mere speculation to interpretation with
higher degree of probability.
Ethnographic observations also help verify both oral and written
history, Although the inherited life style of the nineteenth century is
changing at a fast pace, one can still observe remnants of old practices.
For example, throughout the Ottoman period house floors were divided
into two levels with the lower level used to shelter animals. Although
many of the Late Ottoman houses were still functioning as dwellings,
the use of spaces has been modified. During my ethnographic study I
observed only one incident in which an animal was kept in the lower
part of the house while people were socializing on the raised floor. The
use of ethnographic data in conjunction with the archaeological evi-
dence provides a unique opportunity to determine which elements of
the archaeological record change over time and the magnitude of that
change. This exercise helps redefine the method and degree to which
ethnographic data can be used by archaeologists. Although many fea-
tures of the domestic architecture remain unchanged throughout the
Ottoman period, the area of the lower floor gradually declined from
half of the roofed space, in the sixteenth century, to one third of the
space in the late nineteenth century, until it diminished in houses built
after 1950's.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH
Evidence from the 198587 excavation of Tiinnik indicates that
the early Ottoman village, Strata 6, 7, and 8, was built over parts of
the Mamluk, thirteenth through fifteenth centuries, and the Late
Byzantine settlement, sixth and seventh centuries. The early
sixteenth-century village must have been established some time
between 15211538. Those were the years in which the first and the
second detailed tax records were compiled. According to the second
register, dafter mfassal marj bani 'amir, the status of Tiinnik was
changed form a mazraa
1
as in the previous mfassal register, to a
village. The village population grew from nine Khna
2
in 1538 (Bakhit
& al-Hmud 1989a), to 13 khna in 1596, the date of the last mfassal
record of the sixteenth century (Htteroth & Abdulfattah 1977; Bakhit
& al-Hmud 1989b). The end of that settlement is believed to be the
middle of the eighteenth century. A coin dating to the reign of Sultan
Murad IV (173140) is the latest archaeological evidence available at
this stage. The end of settlement was part of a massive abandonment
of villages in Greater Syria during the 17th and 18th centuries, attrib-
uted to economic and political instability (Htteroth 1975). Both oral
and written sources seem to suggest that modern Tiinnik was reestab-
lished around the middle of the 19th century (Conder and Kitchener
1882: Vol. II, 46; Guerin 1874: Vol. II, 2267) following the Ottoman
land reform act of 1858.
3
This occupation corresponds with Stratum
10 of the 19857 excavation.
The old domestic architecture found at Tiinnik today remains a
witness to a lifestyle that prevailed during the Ottoman period. Until
the 1950s people of Tiinnik and most of the Near East lived in clus-
ters of single room houses built around an open courtyard which they
called ahawsh. Each cluster (singular is h awsh ), which is both an
architectural and residential unit, was occupied by members of an
extended family (See Ziadeh 1984). Close residence maintained the
close ties of family members which are essential in societies that
depended on collective labor in cultivating the land. Sharing common
walls is another feature that remained constant throughout the
Ottoman period. A new single room house was constructed by simply
adding three walls and a roof to the side of a preexisting structure.
Although common walls saved energy and materials, they also pro-
vided security by turning a hawsh into a fortress like building. The
division of the floor into a lower and upper level is a third feature that
remained constant in principle, although the ratio differed over time.
The area of the lower floor which housed the families livestock
decreased over time corresponding inversely with peoples dependence
on animals. Finally, although the architecture and the social patterns
seem to carry some degree of continuity artifacts, particularly ceram-
ics, had been totally replaced by modern glass, aluminum, and plastic.
BREAKING NEW GROUNDS, PROBLEMS
Researching the Ottoman period evokes several difficulties that
rise from exploring an unknown territory. One of the first difficul-
ties encountered was identifying the location of Ottoman Tiinnik.
Usually, the location of a settlement can be identified by the surface
distribution of ceramics dating to a specific period. To locate the
Ottoman village of Tiinnik, we carried out a surface survey in the hope
of finding ceramics that could be characterized as Ottoman. The task
proved difficult due to the absence of comparative material. Identify-
ing ceramics from the late Islamic periods remains controversial and
until recently, the handmade geometrically painted ceramics were
considered by most archaeologists to be Mamluk, from the twelfth to
fifteenth centuries (Ben-Tor 1978:79; Pringle 1981:45; Sauer 1973;
Johns n.d.). Eventually, it was decided that the area which yielded
most of the handmade ceramics common ethnographically was the
likely location of the Ottoman village (Glock 1983).
Obtaining absolute dates, for the strata considered by us as
Ottoman, was essential. Because C
14
dating is ineffective in dating
relatively recent material, and due to the lack of preserved timber that
can be used for dendrochronology, we resorted to using Termolumi-
nescence dating
4
. Three samples from strata 6, 7, 8 were sent to the
British Museum for processing. Due to technical difficulties the results
were inaccurate and contradictory to the relative chronology. One of
the problem was our inability to measure the level of radiation at the
site. The other has to do with the particular nature of the strata. The
amount of emitted radiation corresponds proportionately to
the depth at which the shard was buried. It just happened that the
samples of stratum 8 came from pits dug into and through the remains
of stratum 6 thus were physically lower from the surface than the
sample of stratum 6. At this stage dating the strata is based the
presence of tobacco pipes in strata 7 through 13 which according
to Robinson (1985) and Simpson (1990) have to post date the six-
teenth century. We also based our dates on the presence of fourteenth-
century white slipped green glazed pottery in stratum 5 (McQuitty
& Falkner 1993:59) as well as relative chronology and historical
evidence.
Following the excavation, we were left with a massive amount of
ceramic shards and only a handful of intact or reconstructable vessels.
5
Out of an estimated 1067 vessels nearly twenty were reconstructable
or almost complete the rest remained fragmentary. The lack of
complete vessels resulted from the fact that almost none of our ceram-
ics were found in their primary context. The bulk of the Ottoman
ceramics come from abandoned houses turned into dump areas, and
garbage pits. The practice of turning abandoned houses into dump
area remains common in the village at present (Ziadeh 1984). Creat-
ing a preliminary typology was very important in order to make
meaningful remarks concerning the ceramics of this neglected period.
The typology of forms was based on assembling shards into groups
according to the form, fabric, firing, finish and size. The preliminary
typology resulted in 31 hand-made and 49 wheel-manufactured forms.
Those include more recent forms found in the early twentieth-century
strata. Clearly, it will take some time before the chronology and a
typology of the late ceramics are refined. The increasing number of
studies focusing on the late Islamic periods is an encouraging sign
(Johns et al. 1989; Pringle 1986; Baram 1996).
CONCLUSION
The multidisciplinary research of the Ottoman period sets it aside
from the trappings of the period oriented archaeological research that
dominate Mediterranean archaeology. Although this period in inter-
esting in its own right its fundamental attraction lies in the fact that
it bridges disciplines in order to achieve a more realistic understand-
ing of the nature and limitations of the archaeological record. The loss
of cultural information over the short period of time that lapsed
between the present and the Ottoman period forces one to question
the extent to which archaeologists are able to fully reconstruct the
past. Therefore the research of Ottoman Tiinnik is not going to stop
at the perimeters of this period rather, the research will systematically
and gradually move back in time to cover the entire cultural history
of the site.
NOTES
1. Mazraa can be translated loosely as farm. It was a cultivated stretch of land that
was either uninhabited or inhabited on a seasonal basis.
2. Khna is believed to refer to a taxable households unit. Ottoman scholars estimate
the population sizes by multiplying the number of khna by a factor of 5, consid-
ered to be the average size of a nuclear family. The author of this paper argues else-
where that the khna actually refers to an extended rather than a nuclear family
(see Ziadeh 1991:102104).
3. In an attempt to control the process of tax collection the Ottomans introduced this
land reform act which aimed at registering cultivated land as private property.
Under the Muslims all conquered land was considered state property that was given
to peasants to cultivate but never to inherit or sell. The right to the land can be
negated if the peasants failed to cultivate it for several consecutive years. The
Ottomans hoped to hold the peasants accountable for their taxes. Needless to say
this policy failed, because peasants were afraid of military drafting and inability to
pay the taxes; most of the cultivated land we registered in the name of a few wealthy
landlords. Those same reasons were behind the resettlement of Tiinnik in the nine-
teenth century. At the time the land known as Tiinnik in the Ottoman records was
being cultivated by peasants from the nearby village of Silat al-Harthia. Few land-
less peasants from that village offered to resettle the site and take the blame if
things went wrong in return for one third of the total cultivated property. The oral
history of the village can be substantiated by the fact that to this day property
owners of Silat al-Harthia require the signature of the appointed head of Tiinnik
for any property transaction.
4. Thermoluminescence dating depends on measuring the amount of radiation shards
emit through heating. That amount accumulates during the life time of a shared
subsequent to its original firing. To determine the age other considerations has to
be taken into account. The first is the level of radioactive level of the site. Second
the depth at which the shard was found. Both factors are used count the radiation
level and thus the dating process. Because of technical difficulties that require cap-
sules to be buried at the site for a period of one year in order estimate the sites
radiation level we were unable to obtain accurate TL dates.
5. The amount of ceramics found in stratum 613, that were processed by the author
for this research was between 480 and 500 kilograms.
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1989 A History of Archaeological Thought. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Tristram, H. B.
1880 Esdraelon and Nazareth. In The Land of Galilee & the North. Sir Charles ( ed.).
pp. 2548.
1979 Archaeological Ethnography in Western Iran. Viking Fund Publications in
Anthropology 57. University of Arizona Press. Tucson.
1984 Site Formation in Context. Unpublished A.M. thesis, Department of Anthro-
pology, Washington University, St. Louis.
Robinson, E., ( ed.)
Robinson, R.
Rogers, M. E.
Silberman, N.
Simpson, St. J.
Watson, P. J.
Ziadeh, M. G.
1991 Change and Continuity in a Palestinian Village. Unpublished Ph. D. disserta-
tion, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge.
1995a Ottoman Ceramics from Tiinnik, Palestine. Levant XXVII:209245.
1995b Ethno-history and reverse chronology at Tiinnik, a Palestinian village. Antiq-
uity 69:9991008.
Dendrochronologically Dated
Ottoman Monuments
Peter Ian Kuniholm
4
INTRODUCTION
Dendrochronology or tree-ring dating has been carried out by the
author in former Ottoman lands since 1973. The method is, at its sim-
plest, to compare the alternately small and large annual growth-rings
from trees from a given climate regionin this case as far west as
Bosnia and as far east as Erzurumand to match them so that a
unique year-by-year growth profile may be developed. By means of this
a precise date determination, accurate even to the year in which the
wood was cut, is possible. See Kuniholm (1995) for a fuller discussion
of the method; and then see Kuniholm and Striker (1983; 1987) and
Kuniholm (1996) for earlier date-lists of Ottoman, post-Byzantine, and
Byzantine buildings, including brief notices of dates for a dozen more
dated Ottoman buildings, principally in Greece, and additional notices
of sampled but not yet dated buildings which are not repeated here.
What follows is a compilation, in reverse chronological order, of
over fifty dated buildings or sites (more if one counts their constituent
parts) from the nineteenth century back to the twelfth (Figure 4.1).
Some are major monuments (imperial mosques, sarays, sifayes)
clearly deserving of more comprehensive treatment than can be pro-
vided here; others (turbes, mescits, obscure medreses, and private
houses) are little-known, perhaps even unheard of except to special-
ists; but all help to form part of the tree-ring sequence which begins
with the rings of trees still standing in Turkish forests and extends in
an unbroken chain to A.D.360 for oak, A.D.743 for pine, and A.D.1037
for juniper. All these buildings are part of Ottoman history, no matter
PETER IAN KUNIHOLM Aegean Dendrochronology Project, Department of the History
of Art and Archaeology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853
93
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94
Peter Ina Kunihlom
4. Dendrochronologically Dated Ottoman Monuments 95
how big or how small they may be. Indeed, some of the lesser monu-
ments have the most important tree-rings in this long chain and there-
fore merit inclusion in this tabulation for that reason alone. Omission
of one or two of them might break the single chain of connected tree-
rings into undated parts. Obscure monuments are deliberately given
fuller treatment than monuments that are well-known. In other words,
the length of any discussion below is not at all governed by the archi-
tectural or historical importance or the beauty of the monument. In
this list I use the word Ottoman in the broadest possible sense to
include monuments which are more properly Beylik or Seljuk but
which are part of the same architectural tradition. For a compendium
of plans, photographs, and other documentation see the five volumes
by Ayverdi (1982, 1989ad), three by Ayverdi et al. (1980, 1981a & b),
and one by Yksel(1983). For a set of drawings and photographs under
a single cover see Yetkin (1965). For medreses see Kuran (1969).
Note 1: Some of these monuments are dated by inscription or are
mentioned in the texts; others are not. In some cases the
dendrochronological evidence is the only means for securing a
date. It is instructive to compare the similarities and dissimilari-
ties between the two types of evidence when both are available.
Generally, Ottoman building practice was to use wood as soon as
it was cut (Kuniholm and Striker, 1987, 387391). The exceptions
to this rule stand out for that very reason.
Note 2: The following terms are used to explain the quality of the date:
There is some subjective reason for believing that the last
preserved ring is within a few rings of the terminal ring
(= last ring formed before the tree was cut down).
vv There is no way of estimating how far the last preserved
ring is from the original terminal ring.
+ The specimens last preserved ring can be counted but not
measured ( e.g., a partial ring is preserved).
++ Several outer rings can be counted but not measured.
B Bark is present (therefore the terminal ring is present).
WK Waney Edge (English English, no satisfactory American
English equivalent) = Waldkante (German) = the ring imme-
diately under the bark.
Beetle Galleries (terminal ring probably present).
Outermost ring is continuous around the full circumference
of the sample.
Outermost ring is continuous for a good portion of the
circumference.
v
BG
c
r
96 Peter Ian Kuniholm
The symbols B, WK, BG, and c indicate terminal rings and therefore
cutting dates in decreasing order of confidence, unless a + or ++ is also
present.
Note 3: Average sapwood in Aegean oaks has been calculated to be 26
9 years. The importance of this observation is that despite the
absence of bark on the exterior of a trimmed sample it is never-
theless possible to arrive at a reasonably close estimate for the
felling date. For details on how this sapwood calculation was per-
formed see Kuniholm and Striker (1987, 387391).
Note 4: Monuments #5, 18, 20, 24, 2830, 33, and 35 were inves-
tigated between 1982 and 1987 in a collaboration with C. L.
Striker. We trust that he will have some useful architectural
comment to add some day, but he is not responsible for the dates
given below,
DISCUSSION OF STRUCTURES
AND THEIR DATES
1. Small Late Wooden Mosques above Trabzon
Various Nineteenth-Century Dates
Of a number of small, late Ottoman mosques near Trabzon visited
in 1991, seven can be dendrochronologically dated, all in the nine-
teenth century. They are little, box-like wooden buildings, sometimes
provided with a porch ( revak ), sometimes not. The wood is usually
chestnut (not an optimum species for dendrochronology) or fir. Dates
of the last-preserved rings are as follows:
a. Trabzon, Boztepe, Ahi Evren Dede Camii 1855++vv
(chestnut)
1854+vv (fir)
1880+vv
(chestnut)
b. aykara, Dernek, Guney Mahallesi Camii
c. aykara, Dernek, Kondu Mahallesi
Merkez Camii, porch 1894+vv
(chestnut)
Comment on the Merkez Camii: The inscription to right of the door
reads H.1224 (A.D.1809/1810). On the basis of the one datable sample,
it appears that the porch has nothing to do with the part of the build-
ing to which the 1809 inscription refers.
d. Of, Blml, Mithatpasa Camii
e. Srmene, Karacakaya Camii
f. Of, Uzungl, Filak Mahallesi Camii 1897+vv (fir)
Comment on Filak Mahallesi Camii: The inscription reads H. 1228
(A.D.18131814), so the dated wood samples must be repairs.
1843+vv
(chestnut)
1874+v
(chestnut)
1863+vv (beech)
g. Of, Sugeldi Ky Camii
For a recent discussion of this set of buildings with map, bibliog-
raphy, and some plans see Karpuz (1990).
2. Samsun, Bekdemir Camii (Two Phases) 1585ff. and
1876B
The small village of Bekdemir is 10 kms east of Kavak, about
45kms south of Samsun at an altitude of 575m. above the Black Sea.
Next to the village square ( meydan) is a small, unpretentious wooden
mosque which holds about 45 people comfortably. The mosque is an
almost square box, made of large adzed, undecorated (with two excep-
tions), oak planks ( pelit in the local idiom), averaging 5cm. thick and
ranging from 20cm. to 44cm. high. The average height of a plank is
38cm., although the planks nearer the ground are generally larger
than the planks nearer the roof. The first and second story are sepa-
rated by two extra-wide horizontal planks decorated with a moulding
and a row of palmettes carved in relief, painted green and yellow.
These wider planks also mark the transition from the mosque proper
to the gallery (kadinlar mahfili). The floorboards and joists of the latter
do not project outside the shell of the building. All exterior planks are
lap-joined to one another so that the ends project about 25cm. from
the corners. We also saw evidence of vertical dowelling. The mosque
is divided halfway down both east and west walls by vertical struts.
Only the two decorated timbers span the entire building. The rest of
the mosque, punctuated as it is by windows and the vertical struts, is
made up of rather short (two to three meter) lengths of planking. To
the naked eye all the exterior planking seems to be about equally
weathered, and the preparation of the woodwork seems identical
except for the two ornamented courses. There are no obvious signs that
this might represent more than one building phase.
Not much is known about the mosques date. An inscription over
the mihrab dates from about 120 years ago. Nobody in the village
knows whether the inscription refers to the date of the decoration
Figure 4.2. Samsun, Kavak, Bekdemirky, Camii. Boards below the moulding were cut
after 1585. Boards above the moulding were cut in 1876. (P. I. Kuniholm, ADP)
(ssleme) of the mosque, or to the installation of the mihrab and
minber, or to the mosques rebuilding. The timbers of the mosque are
said (local folk memory) to have been brought from the former village
of Ortaky near the river below Bekdemir. A 92-year-old informant
said his 110-year-old grandmother told him the mosque was in its
present form during all of her lifetime.
At the request of the Samsun Vakiflar Blge Mdrlg in less
than a day and a half we collected 42 samples. Most planks had 100+
rings; some had 200+; others had 300+. At least two timbers had the
bark preserved, and we estimated that we should be able to build a
chronology at least 400 years long. We finished with a chronology of
398 years for the first floor and 395 for the second floor. Since the two
chronologies overlapped, although just barely, the final total for the
mosque is 789 years from 1088 to 1876. Of considerable interest is that
both the local folk memory and the tentative inscriptional interpreta-
tion of the history of the mosque seem to be correct. The oldest timbers,
those nearest the ground and below the ornamental moulding, were cut
from trees which were born as early as the 11th century and were felled
near the beginning of the 16th century. There are no signs of reuse on
any of these timbers, so, if the story of a rebuilt mosque is true, the
form and dimensions must have been the same for both the old and the
new building. Above the ornamental palmette moulding which runs
across the building about two meters above the porch floor are timbers
which were cut in 1876. The bark is present on two of them.
Several questions remain unanswered. If a mosque was well-
enough preserved so that it could be moved to Bekdemir and re-erected,
why were there just enough timbers for the lower half of the building?
Did Building #1 burn at the old location, thereby rendering half the
timbers unusable? If so, there are no signs of burning or other damage
on any of the older timbers at Bekdemir. If the whole mosque was
moved intact to Bekdemir and then fire or some catastrophe occurred,
thereby destroying the upper half, there is neither any folk recollection
of it nor signs indicating an incendiary reason for the rebuilding. It is
also curious that there is no intermixture of old and new timbers.
Downstairs is 100% earlier wood, and upstairs is 100% later wood.
The tree-ring chronology from the Bekdemir mosque serves as a
cross-check or a time-control on the correct chronological placement
of some 65 buildings or chronologies ranging in date from the 12th
century to the 20th, and ranging as far afield as 1,300 kilometers or
over 800 miles. The monuments include Islamic structures, Orthodox
(both Greek and Serbian) churches and monasteries, civil buildings,
and military fortifications. Combining Bekdemir with the forest
chronology from Zonguldak Yenice, we now have a Black Sea Oak
chronology extending back to 1058. Several distant sea-side monu-
ments whose tree-ring profiles closely match Bekdemir may have
been built with oak imported from the Black Sea coast. They include
Istanbul Hg. Sophia Northwest Buttress, parts of the Thessaloniki
Octagonal Tower (Frourio Vardari), anakkale Cezayirli Hasan Paga
Ksk, and Istanbul Karaky Vapur Iskelesi (see below).
The little mosque at Bekdemir is therefore the most important
single monument (dendrochronologically speaking) we have visited in
25 years. A non-chronological observation may be made here for the
one timber whose pith rings at either end may be dated. The tree from
which it came took 22 years to grow 6.90 meters or 227".
3. Karaky Vapur Iskelesi 1858B
In 1997 at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum we were given
18 oak logs from a spiked-together grid-section extracted from an
enormous harbor construction (apparently a revetment of some sort)
of utterly unknown date. They appeared when foundations for a bank
were dug behind the ferryboat landing in Karaky in Galata. Another
100 timbers were saved for us in the bank's storage rooms in the event
.
that the first 18 proved interesting. The inch-thick hand-wrought
spikes could have been from any pre-industrial-age period. Indeed, in
the absence of any pottery, we were told that the date could be any-
thing from the 6th century to the present, and we all rather hoped the
wood might be early Byzantine.
Most of the wood was cut in 1858. The long timbers match the Black
Sea forest profile from near Samsun, and the short cross-pieces match
the Thrace profile. None are from the Belgrade Forest, Istanbuls chief
local supply of oak. So what we imagine is a huge Ottoman harbor-works
project (the plans and photographs we have been given by the Istanbul
Museum curators show at least 220 timbers), with ships bringing in
wood to the capital from both east and west. There they were spiked
together, buried in a clay and gravel fill next to what is today the Yolcu
Salonu and the bustling harbor of Istanbul, and-bynow-quite for-
gotten. It will be interesting, now that we have a fixed date, to see
whether any of the researchers working in the Ottoman archives can
find a reference to construction activities in Karaky in 1858.
4. Aksaray, Ihlara, Bezirhane 1842v
In 1997 at the request of the museum director we investigated
the so-called Bezirhane, also known as the Yag Fabrikasi, in Ihlara,
Aksaray, a multi-roomed, subterranean factory dug out of the tuff in
the usual Cappadocian fashion. The guard reports that older villagers
remember when the oil press was functioning in the late 1920s.
Two parallel, horizontal logs anchored to the rock form the support
for a wooden crosspiece which is threaded to receive a vertical threaded
tree-trunk, approximately 0.35m. in diameter, which is turned by a
cross-bar near the bottom (virtually a capstan arrangement) so that
the bottom end of the wooden screw presses into a cut stone basin. Sec-
tions of old screws lying about the cavern attest to the fact that these
hand-cut timbers must have snapped fairly regularly during use.
As an experiment to see whether the remaining wood pieces
could be dendrochronologically dated, a sample was collected as a test
from one of three horizontal members supporting the linseed oil press.
The last existing ring was 1842, but clearly the operation could have
gone on for centuries with replacement parts being inserted as needed.
5. Istanbul, Altunizade Ksk 1834B
The Altunizade Kgk, a handsome villa of the nineteenth century
and thought to date from the 1830s, stands just beyond the exit of the
.
Bosphorus bridge. During renovations in 1983 we were able, thanks
to help from J. Cramer of the German Archaeological Institute, to
sample some of the exposed timbers. An oak wall stud to the west of
the sofa odasi with the bark still preserved, which may have been
imported from as far away as western or central Greece, was cut in
1834. Another timber, a floor joist on the second floor, was stamped
with the Latin letters DK inside a circle, obviously some kind of
foresters stamp, and therefore from outside either the Ottoman
Empire (which would have used Arabic letters at that time) or the
Greek-speaking world (which would have used a or delta instead of
the Latin D). We have so far been unable to find a cross date for this
timber anywhere in the Mediterranean.
6, Konya, Karatay Medresesi, Repairs 1832vv
In the north and south flank walls of the Karatay Medresesi (see
plan in Kuran, 1969, 51), are two ranges (each) of stretchers scarfed
together, the upper range serving as a continuous lintel for multiple
windows.
On both walls where we sampled there are joints between the
new masonry and the masonry of the primary building. Aptullah
Kurans plan shows them as later additions. The wood of both pairs of
stretchers is all cedar, in all likelihood brought from the forest near
Elmali, although C. Lightfoot reports memories on the part of local
foresters of a remnant cedar forest near Amorium (Emirdag) which
would have been a lot closer than Elmali for import to Konya (Light-
foot, personal communication). We are not able to estimate precisely
how much wood has been trimmed from these squared timbers. On the
north flank wall two long stretchers, both of which were left rounded
and not squared, and another which was partially squared, have the
most recent rings, 1832, 1821, and 1829 respectively. Our best guess is
that their time of cutting is not much later than 1832. The end dates
for the timbers from the south flank wall are somewhat earlier, but since
both the masonry and woodwork on these two walls are so similar, we
think it is incorrect to posit two different repairs. We have not explored
the upper story of this building nor sampled beams near the roof where
possibly timbers from the primary construction are still preserved.
7. Sivas, Gk Medrese, Late ___? and 1820vv
Repairs were made to the medrese in 1824 (Rogers, 1965). From
the south side, in the middle room of three, directly to the west of the

Figure 4.3. Foa, Kaleburnu, slipway for boats (?). Last-preserved rings range in date
from 1516 to 1807. (P. I. Kuniholm, ADP)
central iwan, the juniper door lintel has a last-preserved ring of 1820.
In the same room, a stretcher in the west wall, also of juniper, has a
last ring from 1815. Both timbers, therefore, appear to belong to the
1824 repairs. Other timbers in the medrese, not yet dated, may be from
an earlier time in the life of this building (Kuran, 1969, 92ff., includ-
ing plan, elevation, and references for the 1271 foundation date).
8. Foa, Kaleburnu Castle 1516vv to 1807vv
Kaleburnu Castle on the peninsula south of Foa is thought vari-
ously to be as early as Genoese or as late as Late Ottoman (Professor
mer zyigt, the excavator of Phokaia, personal communication). At
the tip of the point on the west, the rock of the promontory was trimmed

Figure 4.4. Foa, Kaleburnu. The Turkish Navy helps Laura Steele collect a den-
drochronological sample. Last-preserved rings range in date from 15161807. (P. I.
Kuniholm, ADP)
down to make an almost vertical face north-south. Along and against
this face is a north-south wall about two meters thick with a series of
blind arches which end at the jagged, untrimmed rock. Projecting west
from all of this are two east-west walls, about four meters thick which
extend west about ten meters before angling toward each other. The
extreme west part of the construction is now gone, but a hexagonal or
pentagonal plan seems reasonable. Almost at water-level are a series
of irregularly sized and irregularly spaced arches (three and a half pre-
served on the north and two and a half preserved on the south) of irreg-
ular width (approx. 2 to 4.5 meters wide) and about 4 meters high. They
could have been gun-ports, which does not make much sense since the
guns would have been at sea-level and could not have been trained with
much latitude. A much better position for siting the guns would have
been the top of the promontory. The arches make more sense as slip-
ways through which small boats could have been dragged or winched
as at some of the Mt. Athos monasteries. The floor of this area is made
of large flat stone slabs, many of which appear to have come from the
classical constructions of Phokaia. About a third of the floor on the east
is preserved, the rest having been taken away by stone robbers.
We have now a series of fifteen timbers with a variety of end-dates
ranging from 1516 to 1807. Many of the gun-embrasures and/or boat-
slips appear to have been added piecemeal over a period of centuries
from the sixteenth century onward. If this had been the first medieval
structure we had visited for dendrochronological sampling, we would
have been very puzzled indeed.
9. anakkale, Cezayirli Hasan Pasa Ksk
Spring
1783B
For a recent, well-illustrated, and well-documented discussion of
this square, turreted tower on the Trojan plain see Ayda Arel (1993).
Her conclusions (pp. 183 and 186) illustrate the problem of trying to fit
the absolute dendrochronological date of the felling (spring of 1783 with
Figure 4.5. anakkale Cezayirli Hasan Pasa Ksk, exterior. (P. I. Kuniholm, ADP)
4. Dendrochronologically Dated Ottoman Monuments
Figure 4.6. anakkale Cezayirli Hasan Paga Ksk, interior. All the stretchers were
cut in Spring 1783. (P. I. Kuniholm, ADP)
the bark still preserved) of the oak timbers, which form the second and
third story string-courses that serve as chain-beams around the inte-
rior, with the accounts of a traveler (Lechevalier in 1785 who observed
that the Grand Admiral was having his kiosk repaired). We cannot move
the cutting date earlier than 1783 as Arel proposes we do, but the Grand
Admirals carpenters could very possibly have been using wood in 1785
that had been cut only two years previously.
10. Iznik, Seyh Kutbeddin Mosque & Trbe 1382vv,
1470vv, 1710++vv, etc.
West of the Yesil Cami and immediately south of the Nilufer
Imareti (Otto-Dorn, 1941, 3335) is a small trbe and ruins of a
105
.
Peter Ian Kuniholm
mosque, 8.50m. square (#6 on her map XVI and see her Taf. 18 and
Taf. 19). The structure is square in plan, and perpendicular to it
toward the northwest is an adjacent square-planned mausoleum,
northeast of which is the minaret. The inscription is lacking, but
Kutbeddin is thought to have died in H.821 (A.D.1418). Otto-Dorn
therefore says the trbe dates from the early fifteenth century, prob-
ably close to 1418. The mosque and minaret are believed to have been
a gift of Halil andarli Zade (d.1453), but Otto-Dorn does not go
beyond saying that they (the mosque and minaret) are later than 1418,
noting the differing masonry styles between trbe and mosque/
minaret. See tken, Durukan, Acun, and Pekak (1986, #108#109,
250253) for another description of the building and a discussion of
the building's 15th century founding and history. There seems to be
agreement that the mosque was built the same year that Mehmed
Muhyiddin Kutbeddin died. There is disagreement on whether the
mosque and mausoleum were built simultaneously or consecutively.
The eighteenth-century repairs noted below are not relevant to this
argument.
In the trbe, south window lintel, the last-preserved ring is 1382vv,
but as many as approximately 20 rings may be missing from the exte-
rior. This is the one timber that appears to be certifiably primary.
In the north-south wall, a fallen oak timber from the header and
stretcher system has a last-preserved ring of 1470+vv but no bark. The
wall has a joint with the turbe and was suspected to be a later modi-
fication even before we started measuring.
In the north-south wall about 15 m. south of the trbe, aligned with
its east side is a north-south oak stretcher. Several rings appear to have
suffered from frost damage (A.D.1655,1656, and 1672). The last exist-
ing ring is 1710++vv. We suspect, but cannot yet prove, that there are
other late (eighteenth-century) timbers in the ruined walls of the trbe.
What we have, in summary, is one or more interventions (to the
turbe itself), or additions (the porch and adjacent rooms), as late as
the 18th century to a building that was already three centuries old.
11. orum, Eski Yapar, Hseyin Dede Trbesi 1781v
Above the Bronze Age archaeological excavation site of Eski Yapar,
investigated by the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara and
its then director Raci Temizer, stood the small trbe of one Hseyin
Dede. In 1982, prior to the trbes removal to adjacent ground to facil-
itate the work of the excavators, we cored several of its pine posts. The
cutting date was either in or very shortly after 1781. I do not believe
106
the trbe is published and have been unable to find out anything about
Hseyin Dede.
12. Sivas, Divrigi, Ulu Cami, Hnkr Mahfili 1240v,
1665v, 1766WK
This construction is a real curiosity. In a corner of the Divrigi Camii
and Darssifasi, a majestic building famous for its ornate stonework
(nge, Ates, and Bayram, 1978), is an improbably crude wooden plat-
form, or mahfil, about four meters high, bearing little or no relation to
the intricately carved stonework around it (see photographs in nge,
et al., pp. 153154). Modern restoration of the roof at Divrigi was in
progress when we arrivedwith quantities of new (machine-cut) and
old (hand-adzed) timbers heaped on every sidewhich should have
warned us of the possible dangers in interpretation of reused wood from
other centuries. Of the five datable timbers in the mahfil, two are from
the thirteenth century (1240 or shortly after the time of the building's
construction); two are from 1665; and one is from 1766. Several timbers
show cuttings which serve no current purpose, indicating prior use.
Our best interpretation is that the so-called Hnkr Mahfili is a
Figure 4.7. Divrigi, Ulu Cami, current roof repairs. (P. I. Kuniholm, ADP)

Figure 4.8. Sivas, Divrigi, Ulu Cami, current roof repairs. Some of the tumbled timbers
show signs of 20th century machine-cutting. Others are adzed beams from the 13th
century. (P. I. Kuniholm, ADP)
construction of the eighteenth century or later, incorporating timbers
from the thirteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. The mahfil
at Divrigi is a rare instance of a single construction where the wooden
members date from a span of over five centuries. If only the two pieces
from the thirteenth century had been sampled, an entirely erroneous
conclusion about the date of the mahfil might have been reached.
13. Konya, Mevlana Mzesi, Sernahane 1571B and
1732+v
Four samples from under the northwest pier ( fil ayagi ) of the
dance floor were collected during 1997 renovations by the Konya

Museum staff. The samples are thought by the excavator Mr. Naci
Bakirci to be from the sixteenth century from a grid system under-
neath the pier. There are records of renovations in 1816 under II.
Mahmut, and later in 1954 and 1983.
A half section of pine from on top of the grid, possibly (accord-
ing to Mr. Bakirci) from renovations of 1816 (II. Mahmut) or from
even later ones, has a last ring of 1732, and we estimate that few, if
any, rings are missing. Three oak sections from lower down in the grid
with 286 rings preserved had so many fire scarsand therefore erratic
ring-growththat they were extraordinarily difficult to date. They
were cut in the spring of 1571.
14. Erzurum, ifte Minareli Medrese, Repairs 1306vv,
1717vv
We have one squared juniper lintel beam from the upper story,
northeast corner room, north-south lintel between this room and the
room immediately to the west. The context is clearly not original, and
the last ring is 1717vv.
An east-west pine plank (southern of two) forms a door lintel at
the head of the northwest stairs to the second story. The doorway is to
the second room from the northwest corner, also probably not an orig-
inal context. The last ring is 1306vv, or almost half a century after
the supposed primary construction (inscription 1271). See drawing in
Kuran (1969, 119, Fig. 65; also Rogers, 1965, 6385, particularly the
appendix in the latter in which the arguments about its date are set
forth).
15. Iznik, andarli Kara Ali Trbesi, Wall
(an Afterthought?) 1718++vv
This is a small trbe (opposite todays fire-station) on the north
side of the main street leading from the Sea-Gate to the Lefke Gate
(#11 on K. Otto-Dorns 1941 map XVI [where it is called the Halil
Pasa Turbesi], and see her text pp. 8688). The inscription reads
H.857 (A.D. 1453) according to Otto-Dorn who inadvertently records
A.D.1435. tken et al., (1986, #91, p. 218) cite this as yaklasik
H.834/A.D.1430. Somebody needs to go back and check the arithmetic.
Six oak headers and stretchers at various heights from 1.64m. to
2.86m. above grade, forming a framing in the mudbrick ( kerpi) wall
surrounding the tombs, have a last-preserved ring at 1718vv. The sur-
rounding wall could be either a pious afterthought or a replacement
.
for some kind of wall that presumably was erected in the fifteenth
century (tken, Durukan, Acun, and Pekak, 1986, #91, 218219).
16. Burdur, Koca Oda, Various Phases 1654B, 1712vv
(repair?)
The Koca Oda, also known as the Baki Bey Konagi or the elik-
bag Konagi, is a handsome Anadolu Evi recently restored by the
Burdur Municipality and the Vakiflar. The house has pine porch joists,
north side of building, supporting an eyvan above. All are likely to be
primary. They are not dated as of March 1998.
In the ground floor Konferans Salonu, three large north-south
juniper joists (est. diam. 0.37m.) support 38 east-west floor joists.
Beam #2 from the south has a terminal ring at 1654B. The eastern-
most joist has a last ring from 1712vv (a repair?).
The pine samples from this site do not crossdate well with each
other or externally with any of our forest master chronologies. It is
thus impossible to determine whether the joists and posts they were
taken from were cut at the time of building, were reused wood, or were
repairs put in at various later dates. These samples are a puzzle, and
we need more pine samples from the immediate area to solve it.
17. Kizilcahamam, Hidirlar Camii 1704v
In the winter of 19961997, colleagues in the Vakiflar ( Abide
Subesi) sent us photocopies of wood from an inscriptionless mosque in
Hidirlar Village near Kizilcahamam north of Ankara. Photocopies are
problematical because one cannot sand them to improve their appear-
ance before measuring. However, the architects in the Department of
Monuments had done a fine job of polishing the wood before putting
the timbers on the copy machine, and we were able measure the pho-
tocopies directly and from them to report a date of 1704 for both a foun-
dation beam and an upstairs window lintel. In the summer of 1997,
we were given the wood and measured it just to be on the safe side.
The date is still 1704.
18. Ohrid, Sv. Sofija, Ottoman Modifications
to the Naos 1673B
This three-aisled eleventh-century Byzantine church, visited in
1987, yielded 30 tie-beams from the naos which are clear evidence of
Ottoman use of the building (Fethiye Camii in Ayverdi EIII:3, 1981,

136). The mihrab and minber are still preserved, and the pointed arches
were a signal, even before we started drilling, that we were dealing with
Ottoman modifications. The 1673 cutting date is only four years after a
severe earthquake damaged much of the Dalmatian coast according to
the Director of the Zavod za Zatitu Spomeniku Kulturu in Pritina.
19. Bilecik, Vezirhan (Kprl Mehmet Pasa) 1657B
This kervansaray on one of the old silk roads, largely destroyed
by fire in H.1331 (A.D.1912/1913), was a foundation of Kprl
Mehmet Pasa. The building is divided in halves with the remains of
cubicles along both the long sides, each equipped with fireplaces, chim-
neys, and storage niches, and each large enough to accommodate a
party of travelers and their animals. The framing timbers in the
window niches of the south end of the building were cut in 1657. I am
told by colleagues (but have not seen the text myself) that Ktip elebi
in the Cihannuma gives the date as H.1070 (A.D.1659/1660), a year
or two after he died(?!) This apparent discrepancy will have to remain
a curiosity until I can track down the reference.
Figure 4.9. Bilecik, Vezirhan (Kprl Mehmet Pasa), exterior, from the old caravan
road. (P. I. Kuniholm, ADP)
Figure 4.10. Bilecik, Vezirhan (Kprl Mehmet Pasa), central courtyard, with timbers
cut in 1657. The function of the timber above and to the left of the doorway is
inexplicable. (P. I. Kuniholm, ADP)
Figure 4.11. Bilecik, Vezirhan (Kprl Mehmet Pasa), south end, with timbers cut in
1657. Each bay has a chimney, a slit window, and a storage niche for food and valuables.
The bandstand is modern. (P. I. Kuniholm, ADP)
20. Thessaloniki, Frourio Vardari
(Octagonal Tower) Spring 1597B
On the west side of the harbor in Thessaloniki is a three-story
octagonal tower which is the analogue to the Leukos Pyrgos de-
fending the harbor on the east. From this monument a set of chain-
beams was collected. They run horizontally around the inside of the
octagon and are cut both to fit one another as well as to be held in
place by enormous iron spikes driven vertically into the masonry of
the walls. The last existing ring just under the bark has springwood
cells from late April or early May, 1597. There is a good possibility that
some of the wood in the tower is imported from the Black Sea coast.
There is also unpublished documentation for the building which has
reportedly been found by Machiel Kiel in the Ottoman archives in
Istanbul.
21. Yassiada (Bodrum), Ottoman Shipwreck 1572vv
This shipwreck just off Bodrum, excavated by Cemal Pulak, has
a sixteenth-century 4-real silver coin from Seville (Philip II,
1566-1589) to help date it (Pulak 19841985:1015). The cargo has its
best parallels in the North Aegean and Black Sea. Similarly, our best
dendrochronological fits for the best-preserved oak timber are from
northern sites (see also Pulak 1983, 1984).
22. Burdur, Tas Oda 1342vv, 1479vv, 1546vv,
1566WK, 1569vv
From this handsome konak or Anadolu Evi in downtown Burdur,
not far from the Koca Oda (above), and also recently restored by
the Burdur Municipality and the Vakiflar, a 464-year juniper
chronology was developed which provided more dendrochronological
than architectural information because it pushed our absolutely-
dated ring-sequence back to 1103. A check with the Burdur Kltr
Mdrlg and the Vakiflar for information on historical sources,
if any, for this building and the Koca Oda has not yet turned up
anything useful.
Pine and juniper cores were drilled from the three squared beams
of the door lintel in the north-south wall at the north end of building,
the original exit to the west (but which now opens into a blank wall).
The context suggests that it is not necessarily from the primary phase
of building. The last existing ring is 1569.
From the ground floor, in the old stable (now the porch) at the
north end of the building, a north-south beam projects into the store
room. It performs no structural function. Our best guess is that it
might have supported a lantern. It is not necessarily from the primary
phase. This sawn juniper cross-section was cut in 1566.
Also from the ground floor, in a store room immediately south of
the stable/porch, we drilled two juniper cores. The cores with last-
preserved rings at 1546 (north end of the room) and 1342 (south end
of the room) should be primary. We do not have a ready explanation
for the difference in dates except that one of the timbers could have
been reused. A juniper section from a squared header in the east wall
above and north of the door could be from any time (either primary or
a repair). Its last ring is 1479.
Afyon, Emirdag, Amorium, Step Trench 1564vv
Junipers from a mixed (but late) context in a step-trench on the
north side of the acropolis at Amorium have a last preserved ring of
1564. How many rings are missing due to the fire which carbonized
them we do not know. The excavator, Dr. Christopher Lightfoot, has
found Ottoman material of various kinds in this step-trench (Lightfoot
1994).
24. Iznik, Elbeyli, [so-called] Mara Camii 1555+vv
This roofless ruin, to which we were conducted by archaeologists
Bedri Yalman and Isik Soyturk, stands in the fields near the village
of Elbeyli. They say that the building is of unknown date and sus-
pect the name. tken et al., (1986:269) merely call it Cami and note
there is a plaque from a soldier of Sultan Abdlhamids in one wall.
The overgrowth of vines and fruit trees made examination difficult
and the making of even a sketch plan almost impossible. A set of oak
stretchers was collected from the inner walls, and they form a
homogeneous group with the last ring in 1555. Sapwood starts in 1538,
so not much wood is missing from the exteriors (1538 + 26 9 =
15551573).
25. Aksaray, anli Kilise, Coffin Lid 1532vv
At anli Kilise near Aksaray an old cedar door was reused as a
coffin-lid at some unspecified time between the eleventh century and
the twentieth centuries and buried in the narthex. Recently tomb-
23 .
.
robbers in search of treasure disturbed the grave, flinging the coffin-
lid aside. Since the wood was in fine shape, we borrowed a piece of it
from the Aksaray Museum in 1997, and the last-preserved ring is 1532.
One has to allow for the passage of some years in which it was used as
a door, after which it became a coffin lid. Then there was the burial.
Now the dated door/lid is on display in the Aksaray Museum for the
edification of the public.
26. Ordu, nye, Ikizce, Eski Cami 1522vv and earlier
The Old Mosque at Ikizce is an oaken box, surrounded on three
sides by a wide porch, altogether humble in appearance. We noted at
the time of collection that a number of timbers were reused, some prob-
ably more than once, and we were prepared for a discrepancy in end
dates. A 52-year-old informant said that his 112-year-old grandmother
had told him the mosque was in its present form in her time. (The
longevity of Black Sea grandmothers seems to be remarkable.) No
sapwood was present on any of the samples. The end-dates for the
mosque timbers are spread out over 127 years as follows: 1522, 1495,
Figure 4.12. Ordu, nye, Ikizce, Eski Cami, exterior. Timbers have last preserved rings
dating from 1395 to 1522. (P. I. Kuniholm, ADP)
.
Figure 4.13. Ordu, nye, Ikizce, Eski Cami, detail of northeast corner. Reused timbers
with end dates spread out over 127 years from 1395 to 1522. (P. I. Kuniholm, ADP)
1487, 1478, 1462, 1454, 1453, 1437, 1427, 1416, 1395 (almost as bewil-
dering as Foa, Kaleburnu, above). With a full sapwood allowance a
mid-16th century or slightly later date is reasonable. The mosque is
indeed Eski, and Grandmother was right.
27. Corinth, Acrocorinth, Unnamed Mosque 1508vv
In 1995 a whirlwind visit to Medieval Acrocorinth with its exca-
vators Richard Rothaus and Tim Gregory yielded a bag of samples,
some of which are definitely Ottoman and therefore relevant to this
chapter. From oak stretchers within the walls of an unnamed and hith-
erto undated mosque we have 1508vv. The fundamental publication is
Carpenter and Bon (1932) where their estimate for the date of the
mosque is simply Post-Venetian. Perhaps the researchers in the
Ottoman Archives can point us toward a name for it.
28. anakkale, Kilid ul-Bahir Kalesi
1462B
In the center of a huge trilobe fortification at the narrows of
the Dardanelles is a seven-story triangular keep (Ayverdi IV, 1974:
790804), the oaken joists of which have in large part been cut away,
leaving the stumps immured where they are pinned into the masonry.
A set of samples was chainsawed from the two lower registers. All were
cut in 1462, the same year cited by Ayverdi (IV, 1974:790) who says
Kapudan-i Dery Yakub Bey caused it to be built in H.866867.
29. Trikala, Kursun Camii 1453vv (many
rings lost to rot)
The Kursun Camii, also known as Hg. Konstandinos, is Sinans
westernmost building and is dated 1550 by inscription. From the west
porch we collected a number of badly rotted stretchers and for years
tried in vain to fit them in with oak ring-sequences collected nearby
from the monasteries at Meteora or the Metropolitan Church at
Kalambaka. By contrast, the fits with wood from Serres are splendid.
Even though the ring-sequence from the Kursun Camii is short, I am
confident that we have a last-preserved ring at 1453. A good question
is why Sinans carpenters felt the need to bring wood all the way to
Trikala from Thrace.
30. Didymoteichon, I. Mehmet Camii 1419v (primary)
and 1439B (repair)
This imperial mosque in Didymoteichon (Dimetoka), known
locally as the Vayazit Dzami because the name Beyazit appears in the
inscription, was built in H.824 (A.D. 1420/1421) by Sultan Mehmet I.
From niches in the west wall of the building we collected timbers with
a last-preserved ring of 1419 and therefore primary. The pyramidal
lead roof, clearly not the original which collapsed (Ayverdi II, 1972,
Figs. 219 and 225 for a reconstruction of the original two-domed
layout), is supported on enormous oak beams (some as large as 0.97
m. 0.67m.), all of which were cut in 1439 and are not to be confused
with the 17th-century veneer of planking which hides them from the
viewer below (plans and sections in Ayverdi 11, 1972:136ff.).
31. Aksehir, Nasreddin Hoca Trbesi 1438vv and ????
In Aksehir six oak tie-beams surrounding the mausoleum (trbe)
of Nasreddin Hoca and connecting six plain columns, which support a
conical cap to the trbe, form an inner hexagonal peristyle around the
tomb of the Hoca (etinor 1987). In the opinion of the Aksehir Museum
Director, Mr. Ali Meri, the tie-beams are from an intermediate repair
or renovation after a destruction of the tomb some time between the
Hocas death in the late thirteenth century (1284?) and 1905 when a
drastic restoration was made to the trbe-including the addition of
a marble veneer which removed much of the charm still visible in
nineteenth-century photographsand from which the trbe takes
much of its present shape. An inscription on one side of the trbe reads
H. 1324 (A.D. 1906.)
When the flooring around the catafalque was pulled up during the
1905 renovations, two unexpected additional tombs appeared: one of
a daughter of Sultan II. Mehmet the Conqueror from the midfifteenth
century or slightly later, and one other. These have been restored and
are in place to the south and east of the Hocas tomb inside the inner
peristyle. Neither the shafts of the columns, which are simple cylin-
ders, nor the caps, which are undecorated tetrahedrons, are diagnos-
tic of any architectural style or period. The columns could be as old as
Roman, and at least one had a previous use in which a door or window
was inserted in a long vertical cut running the length of the column.
The inner peristyle does, however, look older than the rest of the
adornment, and there is a graffito on one column, says Mr. Meri,
dated A.D.1394.
No sapwood is present on any timber. The trees show an extraor-
dinary amount of stress (average ring-width is around 30/100 to 40/100
mm.), and no two pieces crossdate with one another, even though all
but one have over 100 annual rings preserved, and all ought to be part
of the same constructional program. Since the columns are only 1.81
m. apart, measuring from center to center, it is reasonable to suppose
that two or more of these rather short tie-beams could have come from
the same tree, but given the lack of resemblance from core to core this
seems highly unlikely. Given an almost perfect dendrochronological
situation, i.e., six oak timbers with well over 100 rings each, it is irri-
tating that only one piece can be crossdatedand that at 1438vv (plus
an allowance for missing sapwood on the exterior)with any compo-
nents of the Aegean oak master chronology which runs from A.D.360
to present. The midfifteenth-century date might mean that the trbe
was refurbished at the time of the death of Sultan Mehmets daugh-
ter. As usual, the Hoca has had the last laugh.
32. Afyon, Demirtaspasazade Umur Bey Camii 1434vv
Four column sections, all Pinus sp., with stalactite caps, said to
be from the Demirtaspasazade Umur Bey Camii located in what is
now the Youth Park [near the Alaca Hamam?] and which burned down
in 1934, are to be found in the courtyard of the Archaeological Museum
in Afyon. The inscriptional dates are three-two stone vakfiyeler and
a kadi sicili in Bursaso that one may choose H.843 (A.D.1440) or
H.859 (A.D.1454) or H.865 (A.D.1461) (Ayverdi III, 1973, 211ff., and
see his plan on p. 212). Two full cross-sections were sawn from these
columns (Ayverdi III, p. 17, Fig. 29, and p. 18, Fig. 30, for photographs).
The remaining two samples were not collected because of large, com-
placent rings and rot. Some shaping has removed a number of rings
which accounts for the discrepancy of 6 to 27 years between the last
preserved ring on AFD-4 and the inscriptional date(s).
33. Bursa, Yesil Cami 1413v
This imperial monument was completed in 1419-1420 (Ayverdi II ,
1972, 4694; Kuran, 1968, 114119; Restle, 1976, 459466; Gabriel,
1958; Yetkin, 1965, 225ff., and for comment on the inscription: Mayer,
1956, 75).
Oak samples were cored from tie-beams in two bays immediately
flanking the entrance bay where they support spolia columns with
Figure 4.14. Bursa, Yesil Camii, alcove next to the front door. The beams have a last-
preserved ring from 1413. (P. I. Kuniholm, ADP)
Corinthian capitals. Although the last preserved ring is 1413vv,
sapwood begins as early as 1398, and our usual allowance for sapwood
of 26 years 9 makes the estimated dendrochronological date of
A.D.14151433 fit in well with the inscriptional construction date of
H.822 (A.D. 1419/1420).
34. Bursa, I. Yildirim Beyazit Darssifasi 1400B
This hospital/asylum built and endowed by Sultan Yildirim
Beyazit was ruined in the earthquake of 1855, was later used for a
powder magazine, and is now undergoing an unhappy restoration. The
ensemble covers an area of 30 53 meters. Along the faades of the
courtyard on three sides is a portico giving access to rooms about 3
4 meters each, each provided with a chimney, presumably for the
patients and inmates. On the south and north larger spaces were pre-
sumably for dining, cooking, and for the work of the medical staff.
Toilets were installed in the northeast corner (running water a century
Figure 4.16. Bursa, I. Yildirim Beyazit Darssifasi, with timbers cut in 1400. Cubicles
for the patients are ranged left and right. The foundations of the interior arcade carried
pipes for running water. (P. I. Kuniholm, ADP)
Figure 4.16. Bursa, I. Yildinm Beyazit Darssifasi, detail of south end with timbers
cut in 1400. (P. I. Kuniholm, ADP)
before Columbus!). These latrines were supplied with water by an
underground canal which passed under the eastern wing of the
construction.
According to the unpublished foundation document or vakfiye
of H.802 (A.D.1399/1400), three doctors and two pharmacists were
attached to the establishment. The text fixes their daily pay as well
as the salary of the service personnel including a cook, a baker, and a
dozen serbeti (literally sherbet-sellers, but probably male nurses). It
indicates as well how the sick were to be fed and notes how the build-
ing is to be maintained and provided with the necessary revenues or
donations for operation. See nsal(1959, 40 and Figs. 1517) where
he writes, The earliest medrese at Bursa is that of Yildirim (1394): its
Sifaiye is also the first Ottoman mental hospital. (His source for this
date is unclear to me.)
Further comment is in Godfrey Goodwin (1971, 4751, and his
refs. 7882). See Fig. 42 for a plan of the complex. See also Albert
Gabriel (1958, 7677, Fig. 32). Pages 7677 provide a combination
recapitulation of the foundation documents text and a description of
a long-lost bucolic Bursa (and see Gabriels photographs). For readers
wishing further discussion on the vakfiye, see Ayverdi I (1966, 454) and
Kuran (1968, 1718).
Although Gabriel gives the building date as between 1391 and
1395, the oak timbers in this hospital were cut in 1400, the same year
as the date of the vakfiye. Although, no doubt, later repairs were made
to the monument, none can be attested dendrochronologically. Inter-
estingly, the dendrochronological profile for this building is so similar
to that of the Yesil Cami, also a foundation of Yildirim Beyazit, that I
believe the trees must have been cut from the same part of the same
forest.
35. Bursa, I. Murat Hdavendigr Camii 1385v
In the gallery over the porch of this imperial mosque, tie-beams
were drilled from five arched bays from east to west along the north
facade and their responds to the north exterior wall of the mosque.
Ayverdi (I, 1966, 232) discusses some of the complexities of interpret-
ing the vakfiye. The mosques building was authorized as early as
A.D.1364/1365 upon the occasion of the circumcision of Sultan Murats
son, but work was not completed until 1385. The wood of the gallery
tie-beams and elsewhere in the second story was not cut until 1385,
suggesting that work on this mosque really did not begin until 1385.
36. Kastamonu, Kasabaky, Mahmut Bey Camii 1366v
Shortly before our visit to Kasabaky in 1990, the floor of this
wooden mosque with ornate all-wooden interior decoration was taken
up and replaced. We did not wish to interfere with any of the decorated
parts of the monument, so our sampling was confined to the floor sub-
structure. Under the planking were large parallel pine logs lying
directly on the soil and adzed on only the top side where they were in
contact with the boards. The imam had saved a couple of these timbers
and planks from which he kindly permitted us to take sections. He also
read out the inscription as H.768 (A.D.1366/1367) which is the same
as our dendrochronological date (see also Bilici 1988:89 and n. 36). This
handsome building (not in Ayverdi) was recently illustrated by Faruk
Pekin (July 1997) and there given, without explanation, a date of 1374.
37. Tokat, Gk Medrese 1303vv
An oak tie-beam collected from the inner arcade of the Gk
Medrese, now the Archaeological Museum, has a last-preserved ring
at 1303. Kuran (1969:96ff.) suggests a date slightly later than Gabriels
proposed near 1275.
38. Afyon, Ulu Cami 1273v
Three column sections with stalactite caps, said to be from the
Ulu Cami and replaced during earlier activities of the Vakiflar
Anitlar Subesi, are to be found in the courtyard of the Archaeological
Museum in Afyon. One was too rotten to try cutting, but two full
cross-sections were sawn from the others. All are Pinus sp. AFY-2 has
a terminal ring in 1273. The inscriptional date of the mosque (actu-
ally, on the minber) is H.671 (A.D.1272/73) according to nsal
(1959:16). The building is thought to have been rebuilt in 1341. See
also Sabih Erken (1983:94100). The remaining section, AFY-1, is too
erratic to be dated, and looks good neither anywhere near 1273 nor
1341 (photographs of these caps in Ayverdi III:17, Fig. 29, and III:18,
Fig. 30).
39. Afyon, Cay, Yusuf bin Yakub Medresesi 1268B
The modern sign on the front door of the medrese, today a func-
tioning mosque (although also called locally the Tas Medrese), says
A.D.1258. Aptullah Kuran (1969:5759) gives the date as H.677
(A.D.1278). He does not provide documentation for the inscription or
its reading. The dendrochronological date of A.D.1268 or H.667 (see
below) suggests that a 6 in the decades column might have been read
as a 7. Our file photographs of the inscription do not help because a
tree is in the way, and the photograph in tken et al., (1983:159) is
not much better.
The building is reminiscent of the Ince Minareli Medrese and
Karatay Medrese in Konya, among others, both in general form
and in the tile decoration, only a portion of which remains. Fourteen
bays surround the central domed hall, originally provided with a
reflecting pool. The iwan on the southeast is equipped with a
prayer niche, leaving no doubt as to its original intended pur-
pose. Small cubicles on northeast and southwest were probably
student rooms. As Kurans plan shows, six of the partition walls have
been removed, thereby giving the visitor the illusion that the central
hall, now the prayer hall, was always flanked by two barrel-vaulted
aisles.
We examined 14 bays running around the interior of the
entire building as well as an additional space to the northwest, a
Figure 4.17. Afyon, ay, Yusuf bin Yakub Medresesi, portal. Neither the date nor the
name on the modern sign is to be believed. The dendrochronological date is 1268. (P. I.
Kuniholm, ADP)
two-windowed room with elegant stone lintels, possibly the hocas
room in the middle ages as well as now (also called the guest-room
or misafir odasi ), at the top of a flight of steps to the base of the
minaret.
Of the fourteen openings to the central hall eleven have oak lintel
systems preserved. Each lintel had an average of five beams, most of
them adzed flat on top and bottom, thereby enabling us to drill along
radii where few, if any, rings were missing. In only one bay has the
lintel been completely removed. The iwan and the entrance hall were
never thus equipped, although there is a lintel beam above the front
door to the entrance hall. A final lintel is over the door at the head of
the stairs. A total of 51 surviving lintel beams were counted, and incre-
ment cores were taken from 46. The lintels are all at a height of about
two meters above the floor and form a chain around most of the central
hall. They must have been integral to the original construction of the
building. All were cut in 1268 or have last-preserved rings just before
1268.
A summary of the epigraphical history of the building seems to be
as follows:
1. The earliest western visitors noted the lack of a date on the
inscription above the medreses door.
2. They did notice a date of 1278 on the kervansaray or han
across the street.
3. Somewhere along the line the inscriptional date for the han
appears to have gotten copied into somebodys notebook as the
date for the medrese.
This has been dutifully repeated by everybody ever since
except by the current staff of the medrese who have put 1258
on a plywood sign next to the front door and renamed the
building the Sultan Aladdin Camii.
4.
40a. Konya, Ince Minareli Medrese, Primary 1259vv
Cores taken from the top of the unbonded east-west wall of poorly
dressed masonry between medrese proper and minaret, shown in
Kurans plan as primary, but which at the time of our visit we thought
could have been a later insertion, crossdate well with other thirteenth-
century junipers with the last preserved ring at 1259. The date of the
vakfiye is H.679 (A.D.1280), but the medrese is supposed to have been
built under the Vezier Fahreddin Ali Sahibata between 12581279
(Kuran 1969:5455).
40b. Konya, Ince Minareli Medrese, Secondary
Substructure 1549vv
Just under the south wall of the medrese is an east-west barrel-
vaulted, subterranean chamber about 3 meters below grade. Six ver-
tical shafts on the north side are now exposed about a meter south of
the medreses south wall. The chambers existence was unsuspected
until early in 1994, when it was broken into on the east end of the
.
.
vault. Only then were the steps up on the south side discovered
and most of the lintel beams discarded and replaced. We sawed an
end off the one remaining northernmost juniper lintel beam. The
last preserved ring (no sapwood) is 1548 with an unknown number of
rings missing from the exterior. The subterranean chamber, then,
has nothing to do with the primary construction of the medrese
although the north wall does line up with the south wall of the
medrese.
41a. Aksehir, Tas Medrese Camii, Kadinlar Mahfili 1251v
Nine oak samples were taken from a chain-beam system running
around the interior of the mosque at about waist height, half-
way between the gallery and an ornamental tile band at the base of
the dome. On each wall two or three stretchers, scarf-joined to each
other, are supported by four notched headers at regular intervals
which run through the thickness of each wall. The inscription over the
front gate to the medrese proper says it was repaired in H.648
Figure 4.18. Aksehir, Tas Medrese. Tie-beams are from the 1251 repairs to the
medrese. (P. I. Kuniholm, ADP)
(A.D.1250/1251). The last preserved oak ring in the kadinlar mahfili
is also 1251, so it would appear that this part of the mosque is part of
the renovations.
41b. Ground Floor, Door to Minaret, Lintel: 1251v
This is part of the same construction as the kadinlar mahfili.
41c. Medrese Colonnade and Student Cubicles
(Unknown Number of Rings Missing) 1197vv
The sample, a squared juniper tie-beam from the arcade, has a
last-preserved ring at 1197, but we are unable to determine how many
rings were removed in the process of squaring it. Two fingers thick-
ness of wood missing from the exterior of the timber would add up to
about 50 rings and therefore would enable us to link this to the 1251
renovations, but this is only guesswork on our part.
42. Konya, Sahipata Mescidi =
Konya, Tahir ile Zhre Mescidi 1233vv
Two fragmented samples collected from the north entrance door
to the main room by the ODT Architectural Facultys restoration
team were given to us with an estimated date of 1250, although their
source of information was not specified. The date for the mescid in
Kuran (1969:63) is A.H.678 (A.D.1279).
43. Beysehir, Kubadabad Sarayi
(Sultan Alaeddin Keykubad) 1231B
Thirteen juniper pilings from the north end of this building, next
to the sandy gravel of the shore of Beysehir Lake, excavated by Pro-
fessor Dr. Rhan Arik (1986), and earlier investigated by Katharina
Otto-Dorn and Mehmet nder (1966, 1967), were all cut in 1231
during the lifetime of Sultan Alaeddin Keykubad (12201236) whose
summer palace the Kubadabad Sarayi is supposed to have been.
44. Sivas, Sifaiye Medresesi
(I. Izzeddine Keykvus) 1215v
The inscriptional date is H.614 (A.D.1217), so a dendrochronolog-
ical date of 1215 from the courtyard wall next to the entrance suggests
we have part of the primary construction (Kuran, 1969:67, 99-104,
plan p. 103, section p. 109).
46. Samsun, arsamba,
Yaycilar Camii 1204B, 1205B, 1211vv (repair?)
This is an oak box-like structure, smaller than almost anything
on this list except perhaps for some of the small Black Sea mosques
in #1 above. I am not aware of any published report on this building.
None of the four imams (the mosque serves four villages) knows of any
record that might shed light on its history. On the east door of the son
cemaat yeri is written in pencil Miladi [A.D.] 1243 in Latin script
(therefore since the Turkish Revolution) by an unknown writer. There
is no Hicri or Rumi date.
Two of the primary timbers were cut in 1204 and 1205
respectively, thereby preceding the traditional advent of the Turks
to the area by one or two years. The 1211vv timber (plus an al-
lowance for missing sapwood) ought to have been cut around 1237
(or a few years later), some 31 years after the Turks arrived. The
question is: does this last timber date from a later building phase, or
is it a repair, or is the pencilled date for some improbable reason
correct?
46. Afyon, Sincanli, Boyaliky Medresesi 1206B
The medrese at Boyaliky is in Kurans Kapali-Avlu class. Esti-
mates of its date range from as early as late eleventh century, to before
[or around] 1224, to very early in the thirteenth century (Kuran,
1969, 44-46; tken et al., 1983, 150155). A neighboring trbe
has an inscriptional date of 1210, and it seemed reasonable to
suppose that the date of the medrese could be from that approx-
imate time. Because of the assortment of proposed dates we
collected cores from all 37 oak timbers in the medrese. The bark
date for this building is 1206 or four years before the date of the
trbe.
Figure 4.19. Afyon, Sincanli, Boyaliky Medresesi, exterior. The dendrochronological
date for the medrese is 1206. The inscriptional date for the trbe in the background is
1210. (P. I. Kuniholm, ADP)
Figure 4.20. Afyon, Sincanli, Boyaliky Medresesi, interior. The oak tie-beams, wall-
stretchers, and door-lintels were cut in 1206. The beam in the foreground is a poured
concrete replacement. (P. I. Kuniholm, ADP)
Figure 4.21. Afyon, Sincanli, Boyaliky Medresesi, second-story door lintel. All the
oak lintel-beams were cut in 1206. (P. I. Kuniholm, ADP)
47a. Samsun, arsamba, Mezarlik (Gkeli)
Camii, Primary Phase 1206B
47b. Samsun, arsamba, Mezarlik (Gkeli)
Camii, Revak (Porch) 1335v
The large wooden mosque in the east graveyard at arsamba, was
sampled in 1991 at the request of the Samsun Vakiflar Blge Mdr.
The fundamental publication which we did not see until several years
later is by H. H. Gnhan Danisman (1986,135-144, Plates 87-95, and
see below). All we had upon our arrival was information from Hseyin
zosma, Imam Hatip, arsamba Mezar Ii, Bu cami tahmini olarak
.
Rumi 592 [= A.D.1176] tarihinde yapilmistir. He did not amplify on
the source for his tahmin.
The mosque is a barn-sized log cabin or rectangular wooden
box of oak (locally known as pelit) with the mosque divided from
the son cemaat yeri by a crosswall with its ends notched into the
east-west long walls. On north, east, and west some trimming of
the ends has been done, but on the south the ends of the long
walls project in random fashion up to a meter beyond the corners.
An unusual truss (which seems to have little or no structural
function) runs north-south, dividing the mosque in two. The size of
the boards in the mosque is impressive, typically 0.55m. 0.15m.
13.06m. for all the exterior members of the walls of the mosque
and revak. The size of the trees exploited was equally im-
pressive. Since most boards are sawn or split radial sections of
large trees, as can be readily seen on the four corners of the
mosque and on the cross-wall, the original tree diameter was
often over one meter. Oaks like this are almost impossible to find in
Turkey today.
The hip roof slopes down on west, north, and east to a porch which
runs around three sides of the mosque. The rafters of the porch con-
tinue the line of the roof. Several appear to be later additions to the
original construction.
From the mosque proper a terminal ring of 1206 is preserved.
The wood was cut after the end of the growing season of 1206
and before the beginning of the growing season of 1207 and, on the
basis of standard Turkish carpentry practice, presumably used imme-
diately thereafter. We were unable to find other pieces with the
full sapwood preserved, so additional sampling would not have taught
us much.
All the timbers (rafters) we sampled from the north and west
porch were cut in 1335 or at the latest a year or two thereafter. Another
look at the mosque in 1992 confirmed that the 1335 porch is simply a
repair of an earlier porch construction. Cuttings show clearly where
the earlier porch adjoined the mosque walls. Not one of the eight dated
porch rafters is early.
Danisman speculates on the date of the mosque and proposes a
date in the 1100s on the basis of one tombstone, the reading of which
was disputed at the time, and which can no longer be found. (This was
possibly the foundation for the Imam Hatips claim mentioned above.)
His interpretation poses a problem since the Turks did not arrive on
the Black Sea coast until 1206 when I. Giyasettin Keyhsrev opened
the trade route from the Anatolian interior. How, in other words, could
we have a Turkish mosque in arsamba when there were no Turks
there? The dendrochronological date of 1206 for the construction of the
mosque coincides neatly with this historical event.
48. Konya, Seluklu Sarayi (II. Sultan
Kiliarslan) 1174v
In 1994 we collected four headers from the south face of the sub-
structure of Sultan Kiliarslan IIs kiosk in Konya. Upper-story
Figure 4.22. Konya, Seluklu Sarayi. Lower portion of the tower. Last preserved ring
is 1174. (P. I. Kuniholm, ADP)
Figure 4.23. Konya, Seluklu Sarayi. Another view at the lower portion of the tower.
Last preserved ring is 1174. (P. I. Kuniholm, ADP)
timbers just under the modern concrete parasol which protects the
structure from the elements were judged to be too unstable for sam-
pling. Since we have last-preserved rings of 1174 and 1173 on two of
our three datable pieces, both untrimmed, and 1167 on the third with
a few rings missing, we think the construction date must follow closely
upon 1174, right in the middle of Sultan Kiliarslan IIs reign
(11561192; see Aslanapa 1990:299301 and Figs. 291 and 291a;
Kuran 1965:155ff.). The photograph in the latter shows the state of
the tower when its upper story was still extant, i.e., when it was twice
as tall as it is today.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Malcolm and Carolyn Wiener Laboratory for Aegean and Near
Eastern Dendrochronology is supported by the National Endowment
for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, the Malcolm H.
Wiener Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Samuel H.
Kress Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological
Research, and individual Patrons of the Aegean Dendrochronology
Project. From 1973 to 1976 this project was supported by the Ameri-
can Research Institute in Turkey, and from 1976 to the present it has
been supported by Cornell University. For fundamental permissions
we thank the responsible authorities, both civil and religious, in the
countries where we have collected specimens. We also thank the exca-
vators of each site who kindly provided both material and discussion
of the problems of each excavation.
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Entangled Objects from the
Palestinian Past
Archaeological Perspectives for the
Ottoman Period, 15001900
5
Uzi Baram
INTRODUCTION
Bernard Lewis opens The Middle East: A Brief History of 2000 Years
with a description of a modern caf scene (1995:3):
. . . at almost any hour of the day you may find men-usually only men-
sitting at a table, drinking a cup of coffee or tea, perhaps smoking a ciga-
rette, reading a newspaper, playing a board game, and listening with half
an ear to whatever is coming out of the radio, or the television installed in
the corner.
Lewis presents all this material culturethe radio, the chairs, the
tobacco, the coffee, the clothes the men are wearingas symbols of the
immense and devastating changes which came out of the West over
the last five centuries to change the Middle East in modern times
(1995:3).
This analysis marks a dominant interpretation of the recent
Middle Eastern past. The recent past encompasses the era of Ottoman
imperial rule, roughly the fourteenth through early twentieth cen-
turies. According to the dominant paradigm, after the rule of Sley-
man the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire falls into decay and decline,
becoming the sick man of Europe. This image is one of stasis with the
only source of change being Western European penetration of the
empire. This story line implies that reaction, rejection, and response
UZI BARAM Division of Social Sciences, New College of the University of South
Florida, Sarasota, Florida 34243.
137
138 Uzi Baram
to the West (Lewis 1995:17) were the only pathways possible for the
Middle East, that the Middle East, its peoples and rulers, were passive
or incompetent in the wake of Western triumph (e.g., Kinross 1977,
Goodwin 1998).
As Lewis (1995) implies, objects are an important component in
any interpretation of this historical process. Objects are typically used
to illustrate the triumph of the West in the Middle East. In a recent
popular history of the empire, Jason Goodwin (1998:306308) points
to clock towers as evidence of Ottoman exhaustion in the competition
with the West. That continually renewed interpretation needs to be
scrutinized. In this paper, I explore some of the complexity in the mate-
rial culture in order to rethink that narrative. My argument is based
upon the ambiguity (Leone and Potter 1988) between archaeological
materials and the historical narrative. The focus on common examples
of material culture found in the archaeological record is meant to illus-
trate the potential of an archaeology of the Ottoman period for one
small corner of the former imperial realm. Rather than seeing the
objects only as reflecting the changes, the archaeological analysis can
conceptualize them as active components in the social transformations
of the modern era.
This analysis and interpretation of artifacts, I will argue, can chal-
lenge the dominant paradigm regarding the Ottoman past. I suggest
that the archaeological remains of certain commodities are evidence
for an entanglement of the region within global processes of change
rather than a passivity for the peoples of the Ottoman Empire. Rather
than a three- or four-century-long period of decay and decline, the
regions archaeological record has evidence of accommodation and
resistance to Westernization. The challenge has been to locate, orga-
nize, and interpret meaning for the material remains from the
Ottoman centuries. The implications of such interpretation for under-
standing the Middle Eastern past conclude this chapter.
CHARTING THE TERRAIN OTTOMAN
PALESTINE AND THE PALESTINIAN PAST
Several archaeologists during the late 1980s (Glock 1985; Kohl
1989; Silberman 1989) called for an archaeology of the recent past in
the Middle East. The Middle East is a contested zone in global history,
one of the most contested geographic components of the region is the
land which is today the State of Israel. Of Israels historical time
periods, the recent past is the subject of the harshest debates and is
6. Entangled Objects from the Palestinian Past 139
the most misrepresented and even silenced in popular discourse. Fur-
thermore, for a land which has been overturned in nearly every corner
with the archaeologists spade, the recent past is the least understood
archaeologically. As Silberman (1989:233) phrased it: Just as the story
was beginning to get interesting . . . with the processes of change and
transformations presented from the beginning of humans to the rise
of civilizations to the doorstep of the present . . . the archaeological
picture went blank. The discontinuity leaves out the recent past.
The several centuries before the twentieth century are categorized
archaeologically as the Late Islamic period. The Late Islamic period
stretches from the end of the Crusader era (i.e., the end of Christian
rule) to the advent of the twentieth century (with political control of
the land, first with the British, then with the State of Israel). The
chronological era includes two political periods: the Mamluk and the
imperial rule of the Ottoman Empire.
The search for the earlier strata, particularly of the Bronze and
Iron Ages, was meant to locate glorious pasts for newly emergent
nationalities (see Silberman 1989), leading commentators or Israeli
archaeology to label it nationalist (e.g., Trigger, 1984:358359) due to
its focus on selected aspects of the archaeological past. This archaeo-
logical perspective converged with the Orientalist notions for the time
period and the empire that ruled Palestine until the early twentieth
century. The peoples of the empire, and particularly the people of
Palestine in the centuries leading to the advent of the present, are
assumed to have been locked into stasis. When transformations in
history were located, diffusion and external stimuli was given as the
cause. Agency is seen as limited to the West and to Europeans; this
has been a harmful and misguided conceptualization. Orientalism
intersects with primordial notions of ethnic identity and with the polit-
ical uses of the past to degrade the Ottoman centuries or to remove
them from scholarly research. The constructed void in the historical
narrative allows the social and historical forces that influenced, or
even created, the ethnic and national identities of peoples in the region
to be ignored. That negation encourages understandings of identity as
fixed and changeless. The primordial stance contributes to the social
divisions found across the eastern Mediterranean, for example, the
supposed timeless division and rivalry between Jews and Arabs.
This past, by necessity, is disturbed during the search for a
distant, deeper past. Yet its artifacts and strata have been avoided,
ignored, or even bulldozed away. The avoidance of this archaeological
record is tied to erasing the Palestinian past, a colonialist endeavor in
archaeology which Trigger (1984:360363) describes as an attempt to
140 Uzi Baram
demonstrate that peoples were static. . . and lacked the initiative to
develop on their own.
Avoided, ignored, or misrepresented, the Ottoman period for
Palestine (15161917) is thus a contested era. In the vast sweep of pre-
historic to Biblical to the Classic Eras, archaeologists present the
dynamics of change and transformation. But for the centuries of
Ottoman rule are seen as an exception, either as desolate or passively
engulfed by Western triumph. The connection to the dynamics of
modernity as ignored. This understanding has only recently started to
change.
The Ottoman Empires rule over Palestine is not a simple tale of
conquest, decay, and loss to European control. Ruled by the Mamluk
Empire, Palestine along with Greater Syria, fell to the army of Sultan
Selim in 1516. His successor, Suleiyman the Magnificent, ordered the
construction of the walls around Jerusalem (the present-day fortifica-
tions around the Old City). Over the Ottoman centuries, local poten-
tiates (Fakhr-al-Din in the seventeenth century, Zahir al-Umar in the
eighteenth century) controlled northern Palestine in rebellion against
the Sultan only to be crushed by the imperial army under Napoleon;
rebellions arose in the cities (for example, in the early part of the nine-
teenth century in Jerusalem), Europeans attacked the coast of Pales-
tine (the French, the Russians in the last quarter of the nineteenth
century) only to be thwarted; and the local inhabitants rose against
Egyptian occupation in the 1830s, not to support Istanbul but to throw
off foreign occupiers of their land. During the First World War, the
British conquered Jerusalem and claimed Palestine under a League of
Nations Mandate, but the end of four hundred years of Ottoman rule
did not mean that the structures and influences of that empire sud-
denly dissolved.
The details of these events and transformations are slowly
coming forward as a new generation of scholars explores the Ottoman
past, Historians are mining Ottoman archives for insights into the
political, economic, and social changes in Palestine over the sixteenth
through early twentieth centuries as well as to understand the
emergence of Palestinian peoplehood (e.g., Cohen 1973; Maoz 1975;
Kushner 1986; Gilbar 1980; Cohen 1989; Kark 1990; Kimmerling
and Migdal 1993; Divine 1994; Singer 1994; Doumani 1995; Zeevi
1996; Yazbak 1998). Aspects of the political dynamics between
Istanbul and Palestine, insights into social and economic life for the
peoples of Jerusalem, Nablus, and other cities of the region, and
into the decisions made by the elite of the region are being brought to
light.
Even with this new research, much of the Palestinian past during
the Ottoman period is left in the shadows of history. As Edward Said
(1979:xiixiii) notes:
One of the features of a small, non-European people is that it is not wealthy
in documents, nor in histories, autobiographies, chronicles, and the like.
This is true of the Palestinians, and it accounts for the lack of a major
authoritative text on Palestinian history.
But even if the documents were plentiful, one of the foundations of his-
torical archaeological research (see Baram and Carroll, this volume)
is an appreciation for the peoples who do not enter the documentary
record. The archaeological record can open up questions and issues
regarding the groups (such as women, nomads, the urban poor, and
the rural villagers) who are mostly ignored by the recorders of history.
Some of the archival research by the fore-mentioned scholars inter-
sects with the remains of the physical landscape of Ottoman Palestine.
Archaeologically, even more is possible. The connections between the
processes of changes from the past to the doorstep of the present can
use several types of bridges. Archaeological research can work in con-
junction with archival research, and it can bring forward material
remains for interpretations in their own light.
Doumani (1995) provides an example of archival research focused
on the material world, a perspective from commodities to tell stories
about life and change in Ottoman Palestine. Doumani (1995) traces
the production of textiles, cotton, and olive oil and soap to shed light
onto the semi-autonomous region of Jabal Nablus during the second
half of the Ottoman period in Palestine (17001900). The changes in
production in Jabal Nablus are used to illustrate the integration of
that mountainous region with the urban centers of Beirut, Jaffa, and
Damascus and to the global processes of capitalism. Doumani is con-
cerned with surplus appropriation, regional and international compe-
tition, and distribution as seen in local and regional trade networks.
But what of the things that people consumed? What of the decisions
and actions of the people of Palestine during the Ottoman period?
Archaeology should provide insights and data for addressing those
questions.
For Palestine, new historical research is uncovering information
on the people of urban areas or based on information from an urban
perspective (e.g., Yazbak 1998). Most of the rest of other disciplinary
research (for instance, art history) on Islamic Palestine, as Glock
(1994) notes, focuses on Jerusalem. As a site of archival information,
this is not surprising. Yet if the goal of studying the Ottoman past is
142 Uzi Baram
to better understand the roots of the present, emphasis needs be placed
on rural life and on the people who did not enter the documentary
record. Archaeology can shed light onto just such people who rarely
enter the documentary record, but who left us insights into their lives
through their materials things.
ARTIFACTS OF THE MODERN WORLD
The Material Culture of Modernity
A diffusionist approach in Middle Eastern archaeology (e.g., Kark
1995) situates the consumption of Western goods as a symbol of and/or
illustrates the actual demise of the Middle Eastern way of life. New
goods are seen as opposed to traditional social life. Since stasis marks
the Ottoman centuries, the argument seems to go, smoking tobacco,
drinking coffee and tea, wearing tailored clothes, using jerry cans to
transport water, reading newspapers, led the peoples of the empire to
become agents of modernization and Westernization. Commodities and
other global goods then consumed the Ottoman Empire. Modernity is
equated with Westernization.
The question of modernity is contested for Middle Eastern history.
For Hourani (1993), the modern period consists of the last two cen-
turies. For the changes during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
have been so great and have gone so deep that they can be regarded
as forming a new and distinctive period in the history of the world
(Hourani 1993:3). Within Palestinian historiography, the dating for
modernity, as with many issues surrounding Palestine, is fiercely con-
tested in terms of the benchmark for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
(Doumani 1992:5). The transformations of the last two centuries are
clear; yet in order to trace the teleology and context for those changes,
we need to look even earlier. Hodgsons (1974) use of the sixteenth
century is most productive. As with any social transformation, the
benchmark date should be seen as part of a process rather than an
event. By using a perspective starting from the sixteenth century, some
of the questions regarding the introduction of modernity for the Middle
East and the connections between the region and global processes can
be opened up. And the use of the sixteenth century conveniently opens
up the entire period of Ottoman control over Palestine for study as a
unit. The fit is excellent and useful for comparative purposes
(for instance, to compare the processes and material events of the
Middle East to southern Africa and the Americasplaces with long
5. Entangled Objects fromthe Palestinian Past 143
established historical archaeological investigations of the roots of the
modern).
One aspect of the search for the roots of the modern Middle East
requires rethinking the material world. The dominant paradigm on
the Ottoman period assumes stasis for social life. And much of the
material world does demonstrate continuities (Baram 1996:73100).
But continuities are not the same as unchanging social life. The urban
settlement pattern of Palestine from the commencement of the Islamic
age until the nineteenth century does not demonstrate much change;
for the countryside, a cycle of retreat and expansion marks the rural
settlement pattern (Wagstaff 1985). Continuity also marks the archi-
tecturea similarity of style and structure is found in Palestinian
houses (Hirschfeld 1995). The archaeology, for the most part, reflects
those continuities. The disruptions that lead to rich archaeological
materials in the Bronze and Iron Ages and the Classic Periods are not
found for the Ottoman centuries in Palestine (with the exceptions of
shipwrecks, see for an example, Ward, this volume). Yet, that conti-
nuity does not imply stasis for the region; in the artifacts and com-
modities of the region there is clear evidence of change. The sources
of those changes, though, have traditionally been placed with external
forces. The assumption that very little changed, and what changed was
externally driven can be challenged by examining variation in classes
of artifacts.
The evidence of a changing cultural landscape can be located by
archaeology, but since few archaeologists have interpreted the remains
from the Ottoman period, a self-fulfilling prophecy occurs-nothing
interesting is assumed and nothing is discussed for material culture
in its own right. Focusing on one class of material culture, I raise a
critique against this notion with implications for archaeological under-
standings of the recent past and for the emergence of modernity. I hope
to illustrate the significance of Ottoman-period artifacts and ulti-
mately of the Ottoman era archaeological record.
Here, I restrict the discussion of material culture to the mater-
ial correlates of modern, global commodities. My approach and
interpretations toward the Ottoman past come from the history of
commodities: tracking the origins, appropriation, and the patterns
of use of material culture allows insights into the consumption of
commodities. Examining artifacts in terms of consumption opens a
window on the relationship between global power relationships
and societal tensions. My data sets and analyses are focused on exca-
vated materials from the land which is today northern Israel, one
small corner of the territory that was the Ottoman Empire, but the
144 Uzi Baram
conclusion should be useful to a larger analysis of the material culture
of a region.
Global Movement of Commodities
One piece of evidence for the transformation in commodity
consumption, particularly the consumption of pleasures, in the
Middle East comes from comparing two prohibitions; a simple change
reflects the impact of the larger global transformation. In 1516, as
the Ottoman army attacked Syria and Egypt, the Mamluk Sultan
decreed a ban on all excesseswine, beer, and hashish. In 1633, on
the pretext of preventing urban fires caused by coffeehouses, the
Ottoman Sultan banned coffee, opium, and tobacco. Both decrees
against these types of amusements were ineffective. The contrast
in pleasures points to a shift in recreation for the peoples of the
region. The new pleasures-coffee and tobaccoconstitute habits
of modernity. We can see their impact on the cultural landscape
through the numerous Orientalist portrayals of the Middle East
during the Ottoman centuries. The archaeological question revolves
around the timing, spread, and embeddedness of these habits. When
and by which agents did the modern commodities enter the Middle
Eastern landscape? Did the modern commodities trickle into use or did
Western commodities flood over the region (sensu Paynter 1988:418)?
And was there social differentiation with the consumption of these
items?
Commodities are goods which can be compared and exchanged
without reference to the social matrix in which they were produced
(Wolf 1982:310; see also Orser 1996:110117). With the rise of global
capitalism, the scale of commodity production increases greatly. People
consume commodities whose origins and production are very distant
from their own social context. Commodity exchange existed before cap-
italism and exchange of commodities continues to exist outside of the
capitalist social formation, but with capitalist hegemony, commodi-
ties impact and transform peoples lives from long distances (Wolf
1982:3 1011) and the production and consumption of commodities
become increasingly alienated from each other. With the emergence of
modernity, there is an acceleration of the circulation of goods and
peoples around the globe.
Commodities are more than the product of supply and demand.
From the social history of commodities we can find that they are not
static; objects pass through social transformations, undergo exchange
and use, and mediate multi-level relationships within their social
context (Thomas 1991:2728; see also Orser 1996:107130). In other
words, commodities are polysemic and are continually socially
transformed.
Commodities of Palestine
Throughout the late Islamic period (12001900 CE), Palestine pro-
duced such commodities as sugar, soap, cotton, barley, and oranges for
a regional and then hemispheric market. Located at the cross-roads of
Europe, Africa, and western Asia, Palestine was involved in imperial
and global distribution networks. Though production of these crops,
for example cotton, left their mark the region (Owen 1993:175179),
the only one that remains a symbol of production in Palestine is the
Jaffa orange.
With a long history of commodity production, distribution, and
consumption, the transformation to modern commodities comes with
the global pleasures. Wolf (1982:310) posits a trilogy of drug foods-
sugar, coffee, and tobaccoas emblems of modern life. Sugar predates
modernity in Palestine both in its production and consumption; tobacco
is produced in the early modern period in Palestine and is consumed
throughout the period; coffee is not produced in that land but is con-
sumed. A shift away from sugar production and to increased consump-
tion of sugar, coffee, and tobacco begins after the sixteenth century.
Production is not the only aspect of commodities that has impact
on peoples lives. The implications of the modern commodities trans-
verse production, distribution, and consumption of goods. The archae-
ological record has evidence for investigating the class process of
production, distribution, and consumption of labor and goods. We see
production in the archaeological record; for example, sugar production
left massive numbers of ceramic cones in Jordan and Cyprus. Distri-
bution is seen in the network of roads, ports, Khans, and other aspects
of transportation across the landscape. The placement of markets,
within urban areas and on major crossroads, is also an element in dis-
tribution of commodities. Production and distribution do not exist as
independent processes. Any changes in production and distribution
need to be understood as overdetermined by changes in consumption.
The Archaeological Evidence for Ottoman Palestine
What is the archaeological evidence for the introduction, rise,
spread, and decline of commodity consumption in this region? In light
of the lack of sustained archaeological interest in the recent past, we
146 Uzi Baram
are fortunate to have pockets of information from the archaeological
record.
The significance of the Ottoman period artifacts has not been
obvious to traditional archaeological research. The archaeological
record for the Ottoman period is uneven, unsorted, and uninterpreted.
There exists a discontinuous record in the ground associated with
Ottoman rule over Palestine; as stated earlier, archaeologists have
more often bulldozed than analyzed that record. The components of
the archaeological record when excavated are left piecemeal and dis-
connected from the rest of archaeology and from history. Yet, even that
piecemeal evidence is useful when the research questions are broad
enough. By fortune, one of the classes of Ottoman period material
culture that archaeologists consistently retain from their excavations
are the material correlates of one of the modern commodities: the
material correlates to the commodities banned by the sultan in the
seventeenth century, the clay tobacco pipes (see Table 5.1 for collec-
tions examined by the author and in various publications; see Baram
Table 6.1. Collections of Clay Tobacco Pipes in Israel
Location Number of artifacts
Mamilla Excavation-Jerusalem 81
Meshorer Collection-Jerusalem 62
Hasaniyyeh-OldCity of Jerusalem 28
7 Citadel of David-Old City of Jerusalem
Morasha Neighborhood-Jerusalem 5
Rockefeller Museum collections 21
TiberiasYardon Hotel Excavations 34
Anim Excavations 3
Khirbet Khamase Excavations 6
Khan Minya Excavations 16
Total examined 386
Publications
Ramat Hanadiv Survey 123
Wightman (1989)Jerusalem 95
Ben-Dov (1982)Jerusalem 11
Ziadeh (1995)Tell Taanach 10
Stern (1993)Tel Dor 5
Stern (1997)Akko 3
2
Pringle (1986)al-Burj al-Ahmar
Total from publications 147
Avissar (1997)TelYoqneam 24
SOURCE: Modified from Baram 1996: Table 3.
1995 for collections in Cyprus). But beyond descriptions, little has been
done with these objects.
Archaeological investigation into the Ottoman period is in its
infancy. Only since the 1980s, with massive salvage operations
throughout Israel and a new generation of archaeologists imbued with
processual and post-processual archaeological theories and influenced
by the tenets of anthropological archaeology, has attention been drawn
to the artifacts of the Ottoman period. The attention given typically
consists of a constricted discussion of the history of the area or brief
mention of finds isolated from any larger context than the excavation
unit. These starts of an archaeology of the land that is today Israel is
seen in recent publications. For instance, Rast (1992:200201) inter-
prets the period in terms of achievements during a period of decline.
Levy (1995) provides chapters on Palestine in regional and global con-
texts. These are useful beginnings for addressing change during the
Ottoman period in Palestine, but corrections need to be made to the
artifacts themselves.
The results of these recent investigations into the Ottoman past
are mostly unorganized collections of reports, collections, and analy-
ses which have not yet been systematically interpreted. Unlike earlier
time periods, few debates nor discussions have been created by the
remains from the Ottoman period (for an exception, see Ziadeh-Seely,
this volume). The significance of this archaeological record is in need
of support if there is to be more than antiquarian interest in these
modern objects.
The artifacts for the Ottoman period are significant for clues
regarding the consumption of certain goods. The appearance in the
archaeological record of coffee cups and tobacco pipes indicates a
change in peoples consumption. The new commodities of coffee and
tobacco shaped the Middle Eastern social habits and its cultural land-
scape. Their archaeological remains provide insights into the origins,
spread, and appropriation into society of the habits of drinking and
smoking these stimulants.
ENTANGLED OBJECTS
Entanglement
Archaeological investigations often play dependent roles for his-
torical research. For the archaeology of the Ottoman Empire, the
archival and other documentary insights of historians will guide the
148 Uzi Baram
research agendas, questions, and projects of archaeologists. The
details from the skilled hands of historians have and will point to
crucial questions and insights. Yet on an anthropological level, archae-
ology can provide an insight into social life. The bulk of the studies
that focus on the Ottoman Empire employ such terms of penetration
and incorporation to explain the interaction that led to modernity in
the Middle East.
Another imagery comes from an anthropologist concerned with
material culture. Thomas (1991) analysis of small scale societies in
the south Pacific during initial European expansion, is useful for
understanding consumption and its implications for global power
inequalities.
Thomas (1991) moves away from imagery of European penetra-
tion into the region in order to argue that the incorporation of regions
into the world system was based upon the entanglement of objects.
The center of this argument revolves around the concept of the gift in
the South Pacific islands. Thomas begins the discussion with a per-
spective that envisions things as having histories: he explores the
biographies of objects. He stresses the point that objects are not only
what they are made to be; objects have meaning for how they are used.
By examining the indigenous appropriation of European things, and
the European appropriation of indigenous material culture, he pre-
sents a transcultural history for the islanders, one that has the peoples
actively engaged in the process which ties the region into the political
and economic structure of the modern world system.
Incorporation is equally problematic for understanding social rela-
tions. Thomas (1991) envisions the process (the metamorphosis of
trade relations into colonialism) as entanglement. He bases the argu-
ment on exchange (through the classic anthropological examples of rec-
iprocity in the South Pacific). He envisions the trade between
Europeans and the peoples of the South Pacific as uneven, discontin-
uous, and as a component of different strategies of a local elite to create
and maintain its political position. There was no teleological or nec-
essary development from initial contact to dependency and colonial
control; the incorporation of goods needs to be understood within the
dynamics of local societies.
The move away from the imagery of penetration is important for
arguing an agency within the social processes of the last several cen-
turies. The link to agency comes from consumption. Rather than being
driven by production or by external forces, the material patterns for
the modern commodities can be seen in a more meaning manner as
related to the changing consumption habits of Palestine.
Patterns of Material Changes: A Case Study
The clearest example for arguing for the material changes over
the Ottoman centuries comes from clay tobacco pipes (see Figure 5.1
for 3 examples; also Ward, Figure 7.6, p. 195, this volume). These ubiq-
uitous items are plentiful all over the archaeological record of the post-
Columbian world. In the land which is today Israel, archaeologists
have often uncovered large numbers of clay tobacco pipes as they
search for the more distant past. For a number of reasons, but mostly
due to their artistic merit, of all the Ottoman period artifacts, clay
tobacco pipes are the most likely to be retained by the archaeologist.
Several large and numerous small collections of these archaeological
pipes are stored with the Israeli Antiquities Authority.
As part of a larger project, those clay tobacco pipes collections were
organized into chronological typologies and correlated the patterns of
material changes to social historical processes (Baram 1996). Those
patterns of material changes uncover some of the social processes that
impacted Palestine during the Ottoman centuries.
The patterns are built upon both archaeological and documentary
sources, sources that tell related but slightly different stories about
the origins and spread of this commodity. A text mentioning tobacco
in Istanbul in the 1590s is the earliest documentation of the com-
modity being used in the region (Goffman 1990). According to such
documented accounts, the Ottoman Empire received tobacco via the
British. The Turkish term for tobacco is ttn, a term coming from the
English. The archival record points to the turn of the seventeenth
century as the starting point for tobacco use in the Ottoman Empire.
Also significant is the capitulatory treaty of 1612 with the United
Provinces; the Dutch used the treaty as an opportunity to launch
tobacco into Turkish social life (Kinross 1977:329). From the histori-
cal sources, the origins of tobacco seems clear.
Yet, it is possible that tobacco was smoked before those docu-
mented accounts. The material evidence points, not to singular
Western European agents of introduction, but to a diffusion of tobacco
from West Africa through Egypt and up through the eastern Mediter-
ranean provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The early tobacco pipes in
the Middle Eastern part of the empire (rather than in Istanbul) look
surprisingly similar to examples in West Africa.
The reason may be quite simple: the shape and designs of clay
tobacco pipes in the Middle East originated in the styles from West
Africa. The English-style kaolin pipe probably influenced initial
styles in the imperial center of the Ottoman Empire. A focus on the
150 Uzi Baram
Figure 5.1. Examples of clay tobacco pipes used in the Ottoman Palestine during the
eighteenth (a) and nineteenth (b, c) centuries. (Drawing by N. Zevi).
provincial periphery, and away from the capital region, opens a
window on this question of origins. Combining the evidence from doc-
uments and the materials remains, the origins of tobacco for the region
can be found both in cultural diffusion and in the documented
exchange from British traders (Baram 1996: 140144).
This line of evidence based upon the shape of tobacco pipes is
useful to move away from external and Western European agents of
change and instead to find agents of change within the populations of
people in the eastern Mediterranean, change occurring due to con-
sumption within a cultural context rather than in emulation of
Western Europeans.
With that clarification regarding the complex origins of tobacco
and tobacco pipes, we can find agency in the integration of tobacco into
Ottoman social life. The first pipe making guilds were set up during
the second quarter of the seventeenth century. At first opposed by the
Sultan and religious leaders, tobacco was rapidly integrated into
Ottoman social life, the habit of smoking tobacco was rapidly taken up
by the peoples of the empire. Tobacco was grown in Anatolia, Lebanon,
Palestine, and imported from Persia.
Smoking tobacco became interlocked with coffee drinking. The
consumption of tobacco and coffee come together with the institution
of the coffeehouse, where people gathered to engage in social activities.
The coffeehouse was an innovation in social gathering for the Middle
East, a new arena for socializing outside the control of either the state
or the mosque (see Hattox 1985). While consumption of tobacco was
not restricted to coffeehouses, the use of this type of place had radical
implications for the peoples of the empire (and partially explains the
1633 banning of coffeehouses by the Sultan). The locations of archaeo-
logical remains illustrate that smoking was not limited to the coffee-
house, and, in fact, was widespread through the Ottoman period.
The new consumption patterns are seen in the distribution of clay
tobacco pipes across the archaeological record during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. From the fill of a Byzantine cistern on the
Mediterranean coast to a trash midden of a religious school in
Jerusalem, clay tobacco pipes are found nearly everywhere across the
Ottoman Palestine archaeological record. The presence of the clay
tobacco pipes is not surprising; the provenance can be the data for
insights into processes of change on the local level.
During the first half of the eighteenth century, taxes on the export
of tobacco existed for Jaffa and Akko (Cohen 1973:262), implying large
scale tobacco production and export from the Palestinian port-cities.
During that century, a wide range of variation of shapes, styles, and
152 Uzi Baram
colors of clay tobacco pipes appears in the archaeological assemblages.
The eighteenth century is marked by changes in the relationships
between the Ottoman central and local administrations, with some
regions having autonomous governments and others having rebellions
against the Sultan (Hourani 1991:207). One such example is the activ-
ities of Zahir al-Ùmar in Palestine in late eighteenth century Pales-
tine (Joudah 1987). The diversity in material culture might be linked
to these political economic transformations.
Over the nineteenth century, an acceleration of mass-production
is seen in tobacco pipes; the variation for these objects becomes con-
stricted during that century. By the late nineteenth century, Western
Europeans control tobacco production in Anatolia (the Socit de la
Rgie cointeresse des tabacs de l'empire ottoman, commonly referred
to simply as the Rgie). The French are manufacturing Turkish tobacco
pipes for the Ottoman markets. This standardization and the presence
of the West in the material life of the Middle East is seen in many
other forms, such as British-produced ceramics, German-constructed
railroads, and European settlements. This is the period commonly
referred to as the modern period in the Middle East (e.g., Hourani
1991).
In the early twentieth century, the tobacco pipe which had been an
emblem of the Ottoman imperial rule (Kinross 1977) goes the way of
the empire. Tobacco was still grown in Anatolia and in Palestine (the
end of Rgie control led to an expansion of tobacco production in Pales-
tine, one that lasted through the start of British Mandatory rule); the
pipes were replaced by Western styled and produced cigarettes. The end
of Ottoman tobacco pipe production coincides with the end of the empire.
Direct Western European control over Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia,
Palestine led to a flood of Western goods into the Middle East.
For understanding the transformation to modernity outside of
Western Europe, one issue concerns the flow of Western goods into
peripheral regions of the world system (Paynter 1988). For the Middle
East, a trickling of goods led to a flood. The social dynamics that led
to that flood is the key insight from the entanglement argument.
Interpreting the Material Remains
Lurking in the shapes, sizes, and designs of Turkish tobacco pipes have
been a range of unasked questions concerning choices and represen-
tations. And across the archaeological record in Israel are the ceram-
ics, bottles, houses, and settlement patterns that can rewrite the story
of the Ottoman past for Palestine. The Europeanization of those
classes of material culture was only one part of a process; rather than
directed by western Europe, change in material life occurred due to an
engagement with global processes of change.
The appearance of tobacco pipes in the material record begins in
the sixteenth century and lasts through the start of the twentieth
century, a splendid correlation to the period that the Ottoman Empire
ruled over Palestine. These artifacts embody the large scale con-
sumption of this modern stimulant. The diversity of the tobacco pipes
allows chronological typologies which are proving useful to field
archaeologists (see Table 5.2), here I wish to expand on the social
implications of the material changes.
This biography of the origin, spread, and appropriation of tobacco
as seen through clay tobacco pipes leaves open the interpretation
of material culture. This evidence could be marshalled to support the
Orientalist conceptualization of Middle Eastern history. But, in the
details of the artifacts and the patterns of change, another version of
history possible.
As one step towards understanding social changes over the
Ottoman centuries, the innocuous arrival of a commodity, its integra-
Table 5.2. Chronological Typology for the Clay Tobacco Pipes of the
Ottoman Empire
Earliest (seventeenth century)
Tend to be off-white, grey, or tan. small bowls with elongated shanks, earliest were
elbow-shaped, ending at a rounded wreath
Eighteenth century
A great diversity of shapes and colors. tend toward the earth colors-brown, red
brown, others; shapes include bowls that are rounded, sack-like, cylinder-shaped, or
rest on discs; for the disc-shaped bowls, through the century the pipe becomes bigger;
a plethora of motifs and designs decorated these types. Hayes (1992) looks for a thin,
smooth red or red-brown ware with a polished surface.
Early to midnineteenth century
Beginning of standardization; red brown dominate the colors; typical shapes are
rounded or disc-shaped bowls.
Mid- to late nineteenth century
Red brown, usually polished; fewer motifs or designs; mostly lily shaped bowls; very
large examples; often decorated; majority have makers marks
Late nineteenth to early twentieth century
Plain, large, brown lily shapes predominant
154 Uzi Baram
tion into social life, and its latter basis for Western European control
over production illustrate entanglement as a manner of incorporation
of a peripheral region into the modern world system. As people con-
sumed the habits of modernity, they became entangled in the produc-
tion and distribution networks of global capitalism. The archaeological
record illustrates the extent of the use of the commodity; Western trav-
elers who wrote on social life never failed to include comments on the
smoking of tobacco and the drinking of coffee-these modern com-
modities became part of the Middle Eastern cultural landscape.
A similar framework is possible for the material correlates of
sugar and coffee (Baram 1996:116120). These commodities have a
history and from that history we can uncover the action of consump-
tion. Archaeologists have uncovered and documented sugar cones used
for production of the sweetener; fewer have published or documented
the plentiful coffee cup sherds. The coffee cups, whose production
ranges from Britain and Germany to China, parallel the tobacco pipes
as indicators of modernity. The geographic origins and temporal dis-
tribution of these artifacts can address global processes of change and
the transformation in orientation for the people of the empire. Docu-
menting and analyzing the consumption patterns can aid in under-
standing the origins of modernity; the modern stimulants became
fixtures of Middle Eastern cultural life as seen in Orientalist paintings
and books and as uncovered in excavations across the region. The
peoples were not passive in the wake of Western European global dom-
inance. The goods were culturally appropriated even while they entan-
gled the people into the economic and political hierarchies of the
capitalist world system.
The clay tobacco pipes bring us to commodities that have a history
and from there to the action of consumption. Interpreting the con-
sumption patterns can aid in understanding the origins of modernity;
the modern stimulants became fixtures of Middle Eastern cultural life.
The implications for the benchmark dates of modernity, and for under-
standing the caf scene described by Bernard Lewis at the start of this
paper, open up the agency of people who have been written out of
history and for supporting the significance of understanding the things
they left behind.
UNCOVERING THE HABITS OF MODERNITY
I suggest that the archaeological remains of commodities point
toward consumption as entanglement with global power. The global
commodities were not alien to the Middle East, they became Middle
Eastern. The Ottoman Empire disintegrated; the Middle East became
socially, economically, and politically dominated by Europeans and
became divided by ethnic divisions. The history is the same as in the
standard scenario, but the notion of entanglement opens up a narra-
tion with complexities of social relations and political-economic
processes during the recent past. The common scene, invoked at the
start of this paper, looks different when the interactions are stressed.
Assemblages of clay tobacco pipes are catalogued for the
Kerameikos (Robinson 1983) and the Athenian Agora and Corinth
(Robinson 1985) as well as for a collection from Istanbul (Hayes 1992).
Over the next several years, more assemblages will be published as
archaeologists in the eastern Mediterranean document the totality of
finds, including Ottoman period finds, from excavations. Most of the
publications will focus on chronological sequences and production
typologies. This forthcoming flourishing of studies is most welcomed.
Similar to studies of clay tobacco pipes in the Americas and Europe,
continued publication of artifacts will allow greater chronological
precision for and testing of the typologies and enable archaeologists to
debate the material phases for the Ottoman centuries. The archaeo-
logical sequence should provide new questions for the social history of
the region.
The argument here is meant to raise the possibilities of inter-
preting the artifacts of the last several centuries not only as embodi-
ments of Ottoman material life (and of the regional variation of that
material world), but also to shed light on the active histories of peoples
who did not enter the documentary record. This follows Doumani
(1992) in writing Palestiriare into history. Though the discussion of
the entangled objects has been generalized, the artifacts were used by
the peoples of Jerusalem, the other cities and towns of Palestine as
well as by villagers and nomads. Historians have provided many
insights into their worlds, these objects speak directly to what they did
during their lives. Here is the promise of an archaeology of the
Ottoman Empire, uncovering the remains of peoples lives and the
transformations that they were actively engaged with.
CONCLUSIONS
Too much of the discussion on Israel/Palestine is presented as a
moral play of passions, isolated from its social historical context. Par-
ticipating in a common history, of course, does not imply commonality
156 Uzi Baram
of interests, but should allow us to explore the development of social
relationships. Thus, the archaeology of the Ottoman Empire can act
as a bridge between past and present to contextualize the material
culture, people, and histories of Palestine and the rest of the Middle
East onto a global stage.
In this paper, the material correlates of commodities are presented
within a framework of entanglement for an anthropological explo-
ration of the regions engagement with the modern world system. The
goal has been not only to report on the archaeology of entanglement,
that is the material remains of globalization for a small corner of the
Ottoman Empire, but to use artifacts to show the peoples of the Middle
East were actively engaged in change. The critique against stasis
expands the often told story of the region. Rather than an inevitable
decline in the face of the triumphal West, and a similarly inevitable
and eternal ethnic conflict, a complexity to the activities can be found.
The interpretations of these assemblages only hints at the possibili-
ties for employing the material remains of the Ottoman period. If this
research encourages only the continued retention of artifacts from the
upper levels of excavations, the project can be considered successful.
More broadly, as noted in the introduction to this volume, the archae-
ology can bring forward the material past for analysis and interpre-
tations that can change how we see both the past and the future of
this troubled region.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Support for the research came from the WF Albright Archaeolog-
ical Research Institute and the Department of Anthropology at the
University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Arthur S. Keene, Bob Paynter,
and Mary C. Wilson contributed to my thinking on these issues.
Thanks to all the conference contributors, especially Lynda Carroll, for
encouragement and feedback on these ideas and to New College for
support during the final stage of this project. Responsibility for this
chapter remains with the author.
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Toward an Archaeology of
Non-Elite Consumption in
Late Ottoman Anatolia
Lynda Carroll
6
INTRODUCTION
Over the past two decades, a growing number of studies have focused
on the social histories of workers, peasants, and other popular classes
in the Ottoman Empire (e.g., Berktay and Faroqhi 1992; Faroqhi 1986,
1987; Quataert 1983; Quataert and Zurcher 1995). However, it is still
relatively rare for these people to be included in historical dialogues
focusing on the Ottoman Empire. After all, of the vast documents avail-
able to scholars on the Ottoman period, relatively few sources describe
and document the lives of non-elite groups, especially working classes
and rural populations. As a result, these groups remain virtually invis-
ible, and their lives are left unrecorded. If dialogues centering around
the lives of the peasants, workers, nomads, and other non-elite groups
living within the Ottoman Empire are going to be written, new
approaches must be explored.
Archaeology is one form of documentation which can be used
to examine non-elite economic behaviors of the Ottoman past. Much
more than the study of sherds, or the history of minutiae, archaeology
provides a window into the lives of workers and peasants by examin-
ing the types of material goods they consumed and then disposed of
Equally important, archaeology allows us to reevaluate the relation-
ships between non-elite groups and larger-scale political economies
by examining the use of material culture within local, imperial, or
global contexts. By focusing on non-elite consumption patterns,
LYNDA CARROLL Department of Anthropology, Binghamton University, SUNY,
Binghamton, New York 13902.
161
162 Lynda Carroll
Figure 6.1. Anatolia, showing the locations of major ceramic production centers
mentioned in text.
archaeologists can provide alternative views of non-elite economic
behavior. In this essay, I am most concerned with Ottoman period Ana-
tolia-whichtoday is known as the majority of the territory of the
Republic of Turkeyand the relevance of archaeological approaches
which focus on non-elite consumption. Ottoman component sites in
Anatolia are rarely the subject of archaeological inquiry. I therefore
acknowledge that this discussion will undoubtedly create more ques-
tions than definitive answers. Nevertheless, I hope to initiate addi-
tional dialogues focusing on non-elite ceramic consumption in the late
Ottoman period.
THE RELEVANCE OF HISTORICAL
ARCHAEOLOGY FOR OTTOMAN ANATOLIA
Although a unified archaeology of the Ottoman Empire has yet to
be defined, archaeological approaches to the Ottoman past have
emerged from a wide variety of disciplines, such as history, art history,
6. Archaeology of Non-Elite Consumption in Late Ottoman Anatolia 163
classics, and Near and Middle Eastern studies. My approach to an
archaeology of the Ottoman Empire, however, stems from anthropo-
logical Historical Archaeology, which can be defined as a time period,
a research method, and the study of the modern world (Orser 1996:23).
While Historical Archaeology as a time period was initially con-
ceptualized in contrast to prehistory in the New World, the other
two definitions surely apply to Ottoman archaeology. As a research
method, Historical Archaeology helps to create dialogues between
documentary sources and the archaeological record, since both docu-
mentary sources and artifacts from the archaeological record can each
be used to extend the meaning of one another (Leone and Potter
1988:14).
The most interesting potential of Ottoman archaeology, however,
is its utility to help us describe the development of the modern world.
Many archaeologists and commentators have argued that historical
archaeology has the responsibility of bridging the past and the present
(e.g., Kohl and Fawcett 1995; Leone and Potter 1988; Orser 1996;
Silberman 1989). Ottoman archaeology can help us describe the devel-
opment of the modern world by examining the relationships between
peoples of the modern Middle East and the material culture they
use, whether in the context of a global world economy, or within the
household.
Dialogues focusing on non-elite economic activities, however, have
been based on two major assumptions. First, non-elite groups are pre-
sented as remaining untouched by larger political economic spheres.
For example, Anatolian peasant groups have often been considered
resistant to change, isolated, and, therefore, disarticulated from larger,
political economies, such as the Ottoman Imperial system. The second
assumption is that we can attribute economic transformations solely
to reactions to a global capitalist economy; the world system is often
presented as the most appropriate unit of analysis through which we
can study economic activities. Discussions about the processes of eco-
nomic and social change have largely ignored non-elite groups, espe-
cially in comparison to the Ottoman Empires trans-formations within
a global capitalist economy. Social actions are presented as the product
of a global system, especially one that emphasizes the west, and large-
scale economic processes.
These two assumptions share the basic premise that non-elite
groups remained outside of a world economy throughout the Ottoman
period. All change was primarily imposed on local groups. Economic
transformations are presented almost exclusively as reactions to
larger scales of influence. In particular, the processes of modernization
164 Lynda Carroll
and westernizationbeginning in the late Ottoman period and con-
tinued and expanded throughout the twentieth centuryhave played
a major role in creating these assumptions. We can challenge these
assumptions by examining the changes in non-elite economic life in
Ottoman Anatolia. By examining the economic and social links which
tie non-elite groups into larger Ottoman and global networks, we can
thereby debate the idea that the Ottoman past was isolated, unchang-
ing or static.
Our understanding of non-elite groups in Anatolia is relevant for
many reasons, including the fact that they assumed a major role in
the creation of the Republic of Turkey. The construction of a Turkish
national identity was based, at least in part, on the rejection of
links to an Ottoman elite class (e.g., L. C. Brown 1996:5; Deringil
1998:217218; Keyder 1997:4446). The Republic of Turkey looked
towards non-elite groupsspecifically an Anatolian peasantryto
redefine an authentic national identity, thus separating the newly
created Turkish state from the recent Ottoman past. As Keyder
(1997:45) states the Amasses [of the Republic of Turkey] gradually
emerged as the axis around which the subsequent history of Turkish
society was played out.
In order to better understand this axis, we should begin to recon-
sider the lives of non-elite groups in the late Ottoman period. Several
important questions about non-elite economic activitiessuch as their
access to wealth, use of material culture to negotiate status, or
exchange networkscan be examined through their consumption
patterns.
CONSUMPTION AS ECONOMIC PROCESS
In recent years, many archaeologists have expressed a growing
interest in consumption as an economic process. In the discipline of
archaeology, this topic is considered especially important for historical
archaeologists who have expressed a particular interest in the devel-
opment of the modern period, and the role of consumers in that devel-
opment (see for a few examples Cook et al. 1996; Gibb 1996; Klein and
LeeDecker 1991; Spencer-Wood 1987). In this approach, consumption
is often presented as a way to create or negotiate individual or group
identitiessuch as gender, or ethnicity. In addition, by focusing on
what people consume, we may be able to better understand wealth and
economic status, and the meanings which goods have for people within
classes.
The popularity of consumption among historical archaeologists
echoes a growing interest in this topic in the social sciences over the
past decade. These studies were conceived largely as a way to examine
the processes involved in the escalating production of material culture
which characterizes the modern period, and to reevaluate the reasons
behind the rise and development of consumerism (e.g., Brewer and
Porter 1993; McKendrick et al. 1982; Shammas 1990). Consumers
have a role and a stake in acquiring the things they use in their lives
(e.g., Cooket et al. 1996; Friedman 1994; Henry 1991; Miller 1987,1995a,
1995b). Even when so-called choices are limited by economic or social
boundariesor even the dictates of traditionthe appeal of this
approach is that people have active roles in negotiating their mater-
ial existence, within a political economy (Miller 1995b).
Critics of this approach, however, contest that individuals are
not, and never were, completely free to choose the goods which they
consume. Some social scientists argue that the notion of consumer
choice is considered too simplistic and embedded within capitalist ide-
ologies (Ewen and Ewen 1996, Wurst and McGuire 1999). More
importantly, consumption-led approaches which try to explain eco-
nomic transformations are meaningful, mainly to elite and middling
classes.
Certainly, some members of a society have a greater impact than
others in their ability to influence what is produced, and the relations
behind how it is then produced, as well as the meanings and contexts
in which they are consumed (e.g., Lury 1996:7). Consumption
approaches which rely too heavily on consumer choicewhile poten-
tially providing information about individual activitytend to obscure
relationships, such as socio-economic status or relations of production.
This is particularly true for non-elite groups, who are often not
included in this dialogue, since they typically do not control the means
of production.
The role of non-elite consumption in larger scale economies is nev-
ertheless still quite relevant. People can, and do, are involved in the
process of consumption; as Friedman (1994: 12) argues consumption
is often examined as a question of demand dependent upon the income
of the consumer rather than upon the nature of consumer desires and
of socially constructed interests. Consumption patterns not only illus-
trate what people choose to use, but also show how people-in
communities, households, or other social groupingsare tied to rela-
tionships of production or exchange. Moreover, people can become
entangled through exchange in consumption patterns which are char-
acteristic of larger-scale political economies.
166 Lynda Carroll
In the Ottoman case, the introduction of the coffeehouse, the use
of tobacco and tobacco pipes, or the popularity of styles on ceramic
vessels each represent ways in which consumption patterns helped
transform social and economic behaviors. As a process, we should not
only be concerned with the penetration of European goods and the
influence of European manufacturing techniques into the Ottoman
world. Instead, we can also consider the relationships between
European goods, techniques, relationships, or even styles with local
economies and consumption patterns, to examine how material culture
is exchanged and used by people. This may help to understand how
people can shape or negotiate social activities through the use of mate-
rial culture.
ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION
IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
To examine the relationships between non-elite groups and eco-
nomic transformations within the Ottoman Empire, we must turn to
debates in Ottoman history. Much of the current literature focusing on
the late Ottoman Empire is either informed by, or a dialogue with,
world systems theories (e.g., Kasaba 1988; Pamuk 1987; Wallerstein
and Kasaba 1980), or at least examine the Ottoman Empires rela-
tionship to the processes of modernization, westernization or Euro-
peanization. Many studies have focused on the incorporation and
peripheralization of the Ottoman Empire within the capitalist world
system. The major perspective presents capitalism as penetrating the
Ottoman Empire, usually during the nineteenth century (e.g., Kasaba
1988; Pamuk 1987; Wallerstein 1974; Wallerstein and Kasaba 1980),
as Western industrial centers sought to make the Ottoman empire a
supplier of raw materials and a consumer of manufactured goods.
Ideally, this economic transformation was supposed to encourage man-
ufacturing, production, and higher levels of consumption. By the mid
19
th
century it is possible to see changes in local networks of produc-
tion and trade which were related to the spread of Western capitalism.
In the sixteenth century, the Ottoman Empire vied for much of the
trade and commerce and controlled vast dominions throughout the
eastern Mediterranean. By the nineteenth century, however, the
Ottomans economic power on the global scale was increasingly
eclipsed by Europes. Burdened with nationalist movements in its
provinces, and faced with the spread and increase in internal social
conflict, the Empire lost control over many of its territories, as well as
much of the economic and political power it enjoyed during its classi-
cal era.
In an attempt to try to recover the empires standing as a global
power, the Ottoman state adopted a series of policies to encourage
modernization and socio-economic reform based on European models,
technologies, and strategies (e.g., elik 1993; Quataert 1989). By the
nineteenth century, this included large scaled efforts to acquire
western goods for the military, as well as new technologies introduced
during the industrial revolution aimed at improving the empires infra-
structure. In 1839, the Ottoman government formally introduced the
Tanzimat, a political and economic policy which declared the Ottoman
Empires intention of promoting liberal trading policies, political and
social reform, centralization, and a broadly defined western economic
model. Many Ottoman leaders and elites often accepted the promise
of progress and civilization which this modernization process was
believed to create.
By the midnineteenth century, and perhaps earlier, there were sig-
nificant changes in production and trade networks within the empire.
Local merchants, bankers, store owners, peddlers, and even the peas-
antry mobilized to take advantage of new European markets and
opportunities for wealth (see for example Kasaba 1988). By the last
years of the nineteenth century, the Ottoman economy was marked by
increasing industrial capitalism, as well as an increased demand for
consumer goods, especially by elites and an emerging bourgeoisie.
World systems theorists argue that these transformations
occurred because the Ottoman Empire was incorporated into an
emerging capitalist world system as a supplier of raw materials and
consumer of manufactured goods (e.g., Kasaba 1988; Pamuk 1987;
Wallerstein and Kasaba 1980). The lower wages paid to Ottoman
workers often made the empire an attractive place for European indus-
trialists to obtain raw materials and build industries. More impor-
tantly, these transformations were sustained through the labor of
workers and the peasantry. Privately owned industries and other man-
ufacturing establishments throughout the Empire are likewise pre-
sented as evidence of capitalist penetration into the Empire. World
system approaches acknowledge the affects of exchange relations
between global processes and local activities within the Ottoman
Empire.
Unfortunately, these approaches have been critiqued because they
often ignored the roles that people and communities had in these
transformations. Faroqhi (1984:8) discourages Ottomanists against
assuming that change is driven solely by a western political economy.
168 Lynda Carroll
There is, she argues, the assumption that the Ottoman social system
changed little if at all in the course of the centuries, except where
European intervention disturbed its functioning.
Although many of the transformations in the late Ottoman period
economy were based on western/European manufacturing-such as
mass productioncertainly not all economic activity followed this
model. While many major changes occurred during the later Ottoman
period, many Ottoman groups remained self-sufficient, resisting such
change and maintaining pre-capitalist social networks and relation-
ships (see Quataert 1983, 1993a; Wagstaff 1990).
But although we can recognize their structural positions within
the Ottoman or global economies, non-elites are mainly invisible,
except when these groups were organized into guilds or other syndi-
cates, and were of interest to the Ottoman state (e.g., Berktay and
Faroqhi 1992; Quataert and Zrcher 1995). Even while considering the
role of local communities as producers within a world system, what
can we really say about the lifestyles of the people of the most modest
substance in Ottoman history?
For example, Anatolian peasant economies are presented mainly
as falling within a traditional mode of productionor produc-
tion for household or localized consumption and exchange (e.g., Keyder
1993:171172), in which production in villages was based mainly
on subsistence agriculture (although mixed economies including
pastoralism, or the role of migrations to urban centers should also
be explored). Peasant interaction with larger economic networks
is glossed over, except in areas near ports, railroads, or major
centers of exchange. For the Ottoman and early Republic periods,
much of the peasantry in Anatolia are often described as almost
untouched by Western civilization (Issawi 1980:5), Atraditional@
(e.g., Keyder 1993:172) or otherwise static and resistant to
change.
These descriptions have, at least partly, resulted from the way
we conceive of non-elite agency and its relationship to broad scaled
change. The Ottoman world has been divided into two basic worlds
where elite groups, the state, or large-scaled processes were responsi-
ble for change, while non-elite groups are unchanging or traditional,
except where they are altered by elites, the state, or larger scaled eco-
nomic forces. In other words, non-elite groups are described as mainly
traditional, and, by extension, reactive to transformationsexperi-
encing change only when it is imposed from above, or when they resist
its implementation. Rarely are they considered active agents in
processes of change. These arguments rely on differentiating between
so-called complex and simple social groupings, where the former
initiates social or economic change, and the later react. This applies
both to the west and the Ottoman state itself. While this certainly
does occur, especially in contexts characterized by unequal power
relationships, the question of how and why groups change must be
critiqued.
Non-elite groups are often placed within a category emphasizing
their ties to tradition. Peasants are presented as living in social con-
texts which are perceived as unchanging, and linked to a complex of
material culture which is classified as outside of the realm of moder-
nity. The division between so-called traditional populations and groups
considered to be touched by modernity has created a dualistic distinc-
tion between necessity and luxury, a distinction which surrounds all
notions of non-elite economic action (Friedman 1994:3). These cate-
gories which assume that the category of traditional material culture
is antithetical to that of the modern commodity divides the world into
two groupsone of traditional subsistence producers and consumers,
and one which is related to material culture based on systems of spe-
cialized production (Friedman 1994:3). Primarily, these divisions are
based on approaches which see change mainly through relations of
production.
More important, the concept of peasantry as a category has come
apart at the seams (Kearney 1996:30). The very notion of a peasantry
can be critiqued as a form of primitive essentialism, in which small-
scaled societies or social groupings are viewed as untouched by larger
scaled political economies (e.g., Kearney 1996; Wolf 1982).
By filling in the details of what kinds of goods people used in their
everyday lives, archaeology provides a method to examine these
processes. For example, Baram (1996) has argued that we can examine
the entanglement of local groups into larger scaled trade networks by
examining the artifacts people used to prepare and consume products
such as coffee, tobacco, and sugar. In order to readdress the role of non-
elite people in the recent past, and how that leads to constructions of
the present, we have to look at how remains such as these were entan-
gled into peoples lives. To what extent (if at all) were the goods which
we associate with an expanding world system used and manipulated
in non-elite Ottoman economies? And to what extent were the goods
associated with an Ottoman elite class also a part of the material
worlds of non-elite groups? To reevaluate Ottoman economic activity
from below, we also have to examine the changing meanings behind
material culture within a larger Ottoman world. In this context, I
suggest that we can use an approach which parallels those used by
170 Lynda Carroll
historical archaeologistsespecially those who examine how cultures
and material cultures become entangled within a modern world (see
Baram 1996; Orser 1996).
In order to understand the exchange of material culture within
the Ottoman world, we must examine the related processes of pro-
duction and consumption, and the relationships which help structure
economic activity. But while studies focusing on the roles of non-elite
groups in Ottoman production has been initiated (Quataert 1983;
Quataert and Zurcher 1995), non-elite consumption practices have
been largely ignored and taken for granted (but see, for example,
Baram 1996, this volume; Quataert 1997:411). Archaeology therefore
provides a good opportunity to examine the remains of what people
consumed.
OTTOMAN CERAMIC TRADITIONS
I am concerned with ceramic consumption in the Ottoman Empire.
Ceramics are often studied by archaeologists, since they are not easily
destroyed, and thus are often found on archaeological sites. Sometimes
ceramics can be traced back to specific manufacturing sites, and, in
some rare cases, individual craftsmen. Ceramics are often highly styl-
ized and decorative, which can tell us about when they were made.
These decorations also can increase their value or confer symbolic
meanings to them, their owners, or the places they are used. In addi-
tion, ceramics were consumed in every corner of the Ottoman Empire
by many different classes of people.
A significant body of literature already exists concerning Ottoman
period ceramics (see for a few examples Altun et al. 1991; Aslanapa et
al. 1989; Atasoy and Raby 1994; R. Brown 1992; Carswell 1985:3233;
Crane 1987; Denny 1974; Hayes 1992; Henderson and Raby 1989;
Lane 1971:2167; Raby and Ycel 1983; Tite 1989; Ziadeh 1995). The
combination of a literature on Ottoman ceramics and the great poten-
tial for actually studying how these wares were distributed through-
out the empire or used at the local level is quite promising. Yet, despite
the extensive literature dealing with Ottoman ceramics, most studies
address on the wares which were produced in large scale Ottoman pro-
duction centers. Specifically, there has been an emphasis specifically
focused on the ceramics produced Iznik, Ktahya, and anakkale (see
Figure 6.1), even though ceramics were produced throughout the
empireat large centers supplying these wares for wide distribution,
as well as smaller, localized workshops. Handmade vessels also
comprised a significant portion of the ceramics circulating and used in
rural contexts (e.g., R. Brown 1992:174).
Despite the great variation in ceramic manufacture throughout
the empire, the vessels and tiles produced at Iznik are the most well
known and studied Ottoman ceramics to date. In addition, excavations
of the ceramic kilns at Iznik (Aslanapa et al. 1989) are one of the most
noted examples of Ottoman archaeology, and have made a great con-
tribution to Islamic art history and archaeology in general, and specif-
ically Ottoman period archaeology (e.g., Atasoy and Raby 1994).
Located in northwestern Anatolia, Iznik was the most important
production center of high quality ceramics intended primarily for elite
use until the seventeenth century. Ceramic and tile production at this
site dates from at least the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries,
although the height of production corresponds to an Ottoman classi-
cal period in the sixteenth century. These vessels were produced
mainly for an elite marketbeing either commissioned by the court
(for the imperial household, or monumental architectural decoration),
or other elites. These ceramics were also sold through agents on the
market. The high quality ceramic wares produced at Iznik are famous,
often considered the finest ceramics produced in the Ottoman Empire.
As such, Iznik tiles and ceramics have been of interest to scholars for
some time (see for example Altun 1991; Aslanapa et al. 1989; Atasoy
and Raby 1994; Carswell 1985:3233; Denny 1974; Henderson and
Raby 1989; Lane 1971: 2167; Raby and Yucel 1983; Tite 1989). Iznik
tiles are almost ubiquitous in grand Ottoman architecture of the clas-
sical periods, such as mosques, or in Topkapi Palace. Iznik vessels
graced the tables of sultans, elites throughout the Empire, and even
some elites in Europe. These wares were considered to be good sub-
stitutes for the more expensive porcelains, and became ideologically
important symbols of power and prestige used by elites (Carroll 1999),
in a tradition which linked blue and white pottery to Islamic royalty
(Denny 1974:76).
Iznik wares were typically decorated using blue cobalt over a
white slip, and then covered by a colorless glaze. Sometimes other
colors were also included in the decoration, such as greens, reds and
lavenders. Although these wares were often based on themes common
on Chinese porcelains, potters rarely copied the Chinese styles exactly.
Iznik ceramics had a distinctly hybrid Ottoman style, which was
derived from combinations of Turkish metal vessel shapes, and a com-
bination of Chinese and Arabesque motifs (Mudge 1986:20; see also
Denny 1977:188). Relatively expensive, the appeal of the ceramics
produced at Iznik during the sixteenth century was that they were
172 Lynda Carroll
used as markers of elite status, since they were considered to be good
substitutes for Chinese export porcelains.
Ceramic production occurred in a variety of workshops at Iznik by
master craftsmen and their apprentices. Although the Ottoman state
helped sponsor ceramic production at Iznik in the fifteenth and six-
teenth centuries, workshops and kilns were independently owned by
master artisans. Creditors and the state owned part of their capital;
official representatives of the Ottoman state not only supervised pro-
duction, but also obtained and distributed supplies for potters, which
would later be repaid from the proceeds of sales (Atasoy and Raby
1994:63). There was also a division of labor within some workshops
(Denny 1977:190); some Iznik vessels were decorated with drawings
created at the court, and some were painted by artists supplied by the
court. Artists from the court were brought to Iznik to participate in at
least some of the finer ceramic decoration.
While commissioned works made up a significant portion of Iznik
products, these were also available in the marketplace (Aslanapa et al.
1989:21). When orders for vessels and tiles from the court dropped,
potters at Iznik produced wares to sell on the marketplaceoften
relying on sales to local elites, as well as European exports (e.g., Denny
1977:190; Lane 1971:60). Especially in this context, potters deviated
from court styles, adopting more freehand styles (Atasoy and Raby
1994:115,118).
Ceramic production during the Ottoman classical period, however,
was by no means limited to Iznik. Other centersincluding Ktahya
also produced fine Ottoman ceramic vessels (Carswell 1991). Although
they also followed in the tradition of an Ottoman style, these vessels
were less expensive than their Iznik counterparts (Carswell 1991:53),
at least partially because they were considered of somewhat inferior
quality.
As Ottomans elites gained more power, more territories, and more
wealth in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the abilities of the
imperial court to import fine porcelains also increased. In addition,
these conquests meant that a larger number of peoplemerchants,
soldiers, even craftsmenhad more income. After 1550, an increasing
number of Chinese porcelains made their way into elite households
within the empire. Iznik wares therefore gained greater popularity,
and are found in increasing numbers in elite households. However, the
availability of expensive porcelains meant that their imitations from
Iznik would eventually be further devalued (Atasoy and Raby 1994:98).
While potters tried to supplement their orders from the court by
making wares for open market, the Ottoman elites which were
once major customers no longer expressed as much interest in Iznik;
while Iznik wares maintained value as status markers, Izniks posi-
tion as a center supplying fine ceramics diminished. Increasing pro-
duction with wider distribution of Iznik wares affected their quality,
as they slowly gained a reputation for being produced for the
masses (Denny 1977:190). By the seventeenth century, production of
Iznik ceramics had taken a turn for the worse. Iznik wares no longer
had the symbolic power to command the type of prestige Ottoman
elites expected.
As court patronage and commissions from elites dropped, potters
turned to larger markets. This, however, did not help the ceramic tra-
dition in Iznik (Atasoy and Raby 1994:64). Unable to maintain these
high standards, potters at Iznik began to produce wares in an increas-
ingly debased potters style (Atasoy and Raby 1994:285). By the 1650s,
no ceramics of any quality were produced at Iznik (Atasoy and Raby
1994:31). Instead, production shifted from elite ceramics which were
strongly influenced by Chinese wares, to wares which became more
heavily associated with inexpensive ceramics consumed by middling
and lower classes.
By the eighteenth century, there were significant transformations
in ceramic consumption among elites and an expanding middling class.
Porcelain imports from the Far East became the most desired type of
ceramics consumed by elites
1
. But as the Ottoman state and elite
classes initiated various policies of modernization and westernization
in the later Ottoman period, many forms of European material culture
were entangled in the empire. This included European import ceram-
ics. Although Kuthaya had continually produced ceramics since the
fourteenth century, it appears to have gained (along with anakkale)
even more prominence as one of the primary ceramic production
centers in late Ottoman Anatolia.
As far as the excavations at Iznik are concerned, the work at Iznik
has been presented first and foremost as an archaeology of production.
Due to this work, we can better understand methods and techniques
of manufacture. Along with historical documents and records of sales,
we can even trace the distribution of these works to elite households
within and outside of the Empire (Atasoy and Raby 1994), or examine
how they were used in elite sponsored architectural works (Denny
1977).
Iznik, however, is largely a site without people. What about the
groups who produced these fine wares? While we can look at the birth
of a ceramic tradition, the everyday lives of these artisans who created
them have been mostly ignored. We have little information on how the
174 Lynda Carroll
experiences of potters differ from those of other guildsmen or workers
in the empire. Most importantly, while we may be able to examine how
these people earned their living, can we say much about how they lived?
The research design at finik conforms nicely to previous under-
standings of the modern world and the Ottoman empire. finik reaches
its height at approximately the same time as the empires supposed
height in the sixteenth century. After this time, the empire, and finik,
are both described as falling into a period of decay and decline. More-
over, this period is often correlated with the expansion of a global cap-
italist economy into this region by the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. In this case, however, the decline in elite ceramic produc-
tion has less to do with European expansion or importation of goods,
and more to do with the influence of Chinese export porcelains. This
affects both elites and non-elites, since Ottoman ceramicsonce con-
sidered a product mainly for elite useloose much of their value as
status symbols.
In the eighteenth century, the majority of Ottoman ceramic pro-
duction in Anatolia shifts to other centers, such as anakkale and
Kutahya. These wares produced there were popular, but did not
compete as much for elite markets within the Empire; their styles no
longer conjured up the prestigious symbolism that Inik wares did
during the classical age. Many of these wares were produced for a wide
variety of consumers. In addition, these ceramics were popular in
Europe (e.g., Aslanapa et al., 1989, p. 21; Atasoy and Raby 1994:113;
Carswell, 1985; Lane, 197159, 63), as examples of Oriental art. Were
these wares now considered too low in quality, unsophisticated, or even
traditional for elite consumers within the empire? Many of these so-
called peasant wares were distributed throughout the Aegean region
and other parts of the empire (Lane 1939:234). The meaning behind
Ottoman ceramic production and symbolism may have been changed
from one indicating class affiliationstatusto one indicating the
changing meanings behind what constituted group affiliation within a
fragmenting empire. But at what point were these styles redefined as
traditional Turkish wares?
Blue and white ceramicsin an Ottoman stylewas originally a
marker of elite status in the empire. But this Ottoman ceramic style
has since come to be associated with a distinctly Turkish style, and
holds meaning as a part of a Turkish artistic tradition. More impor-
tantly, Inik and Kutahya wares formed the foundation of Ottoman
ceramic revivals in late Ottoman Anatolia and the Republic of Turkey
(Glassie 1993:444). Turks and the Republic of Turkey are often con-
sidered to be the sole inheritors of Ottoman history, and, in this case,
a traditional craft style. Yet, many contemporary Turks look to an
Anatolian peasantryand not an Ottoman elite culturefor their cul-
tural heritage.
As archaeological investigations in Anatolia begin to focus more
on the Ottoman period, we will begin to understand the distribution
and consumption patterns of Iznik and other Ottoman ceramics wares,
as well as better understand how patterns inform us about the every-
day lives of Ottoman subjects. However, we have relatively little idea
about what happened in terms of ceramic production for non-elite
groups. I argue that there is a major gap in our knowledge about
Ottoman ceramic production, consumption, and distribution simply
because we are not necessarily able to see the smaller scaled, local-
ized, or simply utilitarian production centers without archaeological
investigations. Were non-elite groups tied into imperial networks
of exchange? Were Anatolian peasants using vessels produced for
exchange in other Ottoman provinces? Glassie (1993:422) suggests
that this may be the case, since Bulgarian wares were very popular
and traded throughout the empire in the nineteenth century.
Finally, what roles did the changing consumption patterns of com-
modities like coffee and tobacco have in the production, exchange and
consumption of a wide variety of ceramic vessels which were used
along with these goods, such as coffee cups or clay tobacco pipes? What
are the implications of understanding these relationships for our
understanding the lived experiences of non-elite groups in Ottoman
Anatolia?
CONCLUSIONS
As I forewarned, this chapter has brought up many more ques-
tions than available data currently allows us to examine. Moving
towards an archaeology of non-elite social action, the use of material
culture must be viewed on several scales of analysis. At the largest
scale of analysis, societal trends which characterize the modern era as
consumers swimming in a sea of material objects allow us to examine
trends in the cultural context and meaning placed on material culture
and other commodities. At the smallest scale, individual action may
help aid in understanding the motives and incentives behind Ottoman
ceramic consumption. Both scales can offer insights, and we can
come full circle in understanding the processes of creating, using and
manipulating material culture for and by the people of most modest
substance in Ottoman society. Understanding production and
176 Lynda Carroll
consumption patterns may help us understand, as well as appreciate,
the dialogues which have been created through the use of material
goods in global and local arenas.
In an attempt to move toward an archaeology of non-elite con-
sumption, I have argued that the changes in non-elite consumption
and production may have great significance for understanding their
lived experiences. The changes in their lives were not simply responses
to European powers or fashions. In this case, the use of ceramics
helped create symbols representing an elite class during the Empires
height, and a non-elite segment of society in the context of global
entanglements in its later years. This may have also meant that people
within the empire, through symbols associated with an empire, were
also tied to a global system.
This essay was aimed at providing a context for future archae-
ological investigations in Ottoman period Anatolia, specifically looking
at how consumption patterns of ceramics may indicate transforma-
tions in social action among non-elite groups. As archaeologies of
this region begin to unfold, and our understanding of the distribu-
tion of Ottoman period ceramics becomes clearer, we may begin to
examine some of the other pressing questions concerning non-elite
social action.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Laurie Miroff, Mary Price, and Uzi Baram
for reading various drafts of this paper in its preparatory stages.
This paper, although expanded since it was first presented in April
1995, is based on an earlier paper read at the Breaking New Grounds
for An Archaeology of the Ottoman Empire Conference, entitled Men
of Even More Modest Substance: Towards an Archaeology of Non-Elite
Consumption in Ottoman Anatolia. This final version has benefited
greatly by pre-dissertation research, funded in part through pre-
dissertation fellowships from the Social Science Research
Council-NMERTA Program (19961997), and the Institute of Turkish
Studies, Inc. (19971998).
NOTE
1. Over the centuries, the imperial household would acquire one of the most signifi-
cant collections of export porcelains in the world, of which over ten thousand pieces
survive to this day (Atasoy and Raby 1994:15).
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TRADE,
SUBSISTENCE, AND
IDEOLOGY IN THE
OTTOMAN EMPIRE
III
As seen in the previous section, the search for local histories is one of
the goals for surveying regions, excavating sites, and analyzing arti-
facts. But the archaeology of the Ottoman Empire also can address
issues of general archaeological concern, to include the artifacts and
cultural landscapes from the Ottoman period within the general
archaeology of the region. Three of the pillars of archaeological
research are investigations into trade, subsistence, and ideology. The
case studies in this section start a dialogue with archaeologists regard-
ing these topics which are of fundamental concern to the discipline
of archaeology. Historical Archaeology has been used as a type of
ethnoarchaeology, using the control over what happened in a time
period to correlate material remains to issues of general archaeologi-
cal concern; the examples in this section illustrate the insights that
the archaeology of, respectfully, trade, subsistence, and ideology for the
Ottoman Empire can provide for earlier time periods. And in addition,
the case studies provide entry points for a significant large scale issue
for the Ottoman Empire: the interaction between the state (and
its administrative structures) and localities during the last several
centuries.
Traditional histories of the Ottoman Empire focus on the Sultan
and his court. Great leaders, like Suleyman the Lawgiver (more com-
monly known in the West as Suylieman the Magnificent), are under-
stood to have governed well, expanding the empire and facilitating
a smooth administration. Other, particularly later, sultans are pre-
sented as misguided or inferior. The evaluation of individual reigns
can be left to historians, but popular assumptions conflate the empire
with its rulers. The archaeological study of the Ottoman Empire
can contribute to the comparative study of imperial rule. Historical
Archaeology tends to examine influences rather than control; the chap-
ters in this section illustrate the possibilities for exploring power
181
182 Trade, Subsistence, and Ideology in the Ottoman Empire
dynamics for an empire in the modern era, to uncover the relations of
domination and resistance, accommodation and social change, from
the archaeological record. Each of the authors examines issues that
transcend the Ottoman Empire and its time period. LaBianca is
explicit on this point, pointing out the comparative wealth of data for
the Ottoman period versus earlier epochs in Jordan.
The three contributions illuminate dynamics of imperial planning
and administration. From a shipwreck in the Red Sea, we find evi-
dence of the extensive and long-distance trade that marks the geo-
graphic history of the Ottoman Empire. The goods from East and
South Asia recovered by Ward illustrate the trade that flowed into the
eastern Mediterranean and provide a picture of a moment in the mid-
eighteenth century. From the Chinese export porcelains, we can piece
together the distribution of goods in terms of the choices made by mer-
chants. The continuing excavations of the Sadana Island shipwreck
will aid in the chronological delineation of goods and provide insights
into the globalizing of trade in the eighteenth century. But it also con-
tributes to general archaeological interest in the movement of goods.
For instance in encountering the balance between agency and social
process, Ward gives us documented evidence for the choices made by
British merchants in China. The absence of certain types of artifacts
(e.g., the lack of human figures for ceramic decoration) indicates the
intersection of ideology, consumer choice, and trade for the Ottoman
Empire. Material evidence of cultures in contact comes across clearly
in this example.
LaBianca explicitly tackles the intersection of the imperial control
with local level resistance. LaBiancas food systems approach includes
large-scale, comparative issues for the Ottoman period archaeological
remains from the Madaba Plains Project. Subsistence is more mean-
ingful than just what people eat; LaBianca locates in the food system
an indigenous resistance to imperial rule as well as insights into
human manipulation of the environment. The framework allows ques-
tions for the gaps in history as well as when the archaeological data
is sparse.
The Ottoman Empire was an Islamic imperial formation. Much of
Historical Archaeology has ignored the material correlates of religion;
to address a concern with ideology, Snyder describes the transforma-
tions in architecture for mosques. Her typology of mosques illustrates
a change in symbolizing the central government. As the mosque
became larger by the sixteenth century, planning needed to include
technological innovations for lighting the interior of the mosque. We
get the sense of how the mood changes with transformations in archi-
7. Trade, Subsistence, and Ideology in the Ottoman Empire 183
tecture. The dynamics of history for a tradition is clearly presented, a
significant move for archaeologists. The indicators for what constitutes
a Muslim religious structure is clear. Rather than the architectural
traditions being equated with stasis, Snyder helps us to envision tra-
dition as transformative. Her study of the architectural implications
of light opens up new vistas for the social study of architecture. And
similar to the other chapters in this section, the intersection of admin-
istrative planning of mosques with the actual use of the religious build-
ings brings forward the dynamic power relations for the empire.
The topics in this section exemplify typical topes for archaeology
and they employ Ottoman period material remains in innovative
manners. The topics are part of a dialogue that Ottoman Archaeology
will need to sustain with both Middle Eastern Archaeology and His-
torical Archaeology. And the insights into social relations can increase
the understanding of the Ottoman Empire and raise questions for
other empires. Social historians of the Ottoman Empire are attempt-
ing a comparative understanding of the empire; archaeological
research may help to propel that endeavor. An archaeological per-
spective on of the Ottoman Empire can contribute to situating it as
part of global history. These case studies are part of that dialogue as
well.
The Sadana Island Shipwreck
A Mideighteenth-
Century Treasure Trove
Cheryl Ward
7
THE SHIPWRECK
Before the Industrial Revolution, sailing ships were the worlds grand-
est and most complex machines. These floating emporia acted as con-
duits between countries and continents for people and ideas. Just off
the coast of Egypt, a ship capable of carrying approximately 900 tons
of cargo slammed into a coral reef and sank more than 100 feet beneath
the Red Sea nearly two and a half centuries ago. Since 1994, the
Institute of Nautical ArchaeologyEgypt has investigated the Sadana
Island Shipwreck in cooperation with Egyptian authorities and insti-
tutions (Haldane 1994, 1996).
To date, archaeologists have excavated, catalogued, cleaned and
conserved nearly 3,000 artifacts stored in the Alexandria Laboratory
for Submerged Antiquities, a joint project of INA-Egypt and the
Supreme Council for Antiquities of Egypt (Haldane 1996). Chinese
export porcelain, earthenware water vessels and tablewares, copper
kitchen utensils and cooking pots, glass liquor bottles, a wide variety
of spices, aromatic resin and other organic remains, and more personal
items such as pipes and jewelry provide unexpected physical evidence
for trade in a part of the Red Sea whose significance is less well doc-
umented and understood than commerce further south (Brouwer 1991,
1992; McGowan 1994).
About 15 kilometers north of Safaga, a fringe reef extends about
500 meters from shore to Sadana Island, itself no more than 500
CHERYL WARD Department of General Academics, Texas A&M University at
Galveston, PO Box 1675, Galveston, Texas 77553.
186
186 Cheryl Ward
meters long. Two full seasons of excavation took place in 1995
and 1996; the third and final exploration is scheduled for summer,
1998. Data from almost 3,000 dives have produced a framework
for understanding the site as well as an evocative collection of
artifacts whose preservation and study is ongoing under the authors
direction.
The wreck site lies between 28 and 40 meters beneath the sea on
the north side of the reef, and stretches nearly 50 meters along the
sandy seabed. The ship rests parallel to the reef, with the bow deeper
than the stern and most of the starboard side broken away and inac-
cessible. Much of the stern is intact, including an iron grid from the
transom and massive timbers, some of which are more than 60 60
centimeters in section. The ship seems to be shell built, a shipbuild-
ing technique in which the planking shell precedes the insertion of
framing, but the Sadana ship is neither sewn together nor edge-joined
as most shell-first ships are. Its timbers are covered with a relatively
thin layer of sand, and few artifacts now remain on site. Although the
ship is just older than the United States, it is proving surprisingly dif-
ficult to find any comparable land sites in the area as regional archae-
ologists have focused on the more distant past.
An Arabic inscription on a copper basin dated 1764 CE places the
ships final voyage in the mideighteenth century. Its cargo of Chinese
export porcelain, Indian pepper and coconuts, spices from islands in
the Indian Ocean, and earthenware vessels, incense, and coffee from
the Hadramaut testifies to a northbound journey while exemplifying
international contact and exchange (McGowan 1994; Raby 1986). A
lack of cannon on the ship suggests that its voyages were confined to
the Red Sea, within the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire, and that
it had no need to defend itself from the pirates or European merchant
ships that had few compunctions about appropriating goods from other
vessels in the western Indian Ocean and south of the Red Sea
(Brouwer 1991, 1992). The ships interior details bear little resem-
blance to contem-porary Chinese, Mediterranean, European, or Amer-
ican watercraft. Although the Sadana ship is not an edge-joined, sewn
ship such as the dhow, its timber and hull dimensions have more in
common with these western Indian Ocean ships than with either
Western or Far Eastern examples. To date, no ship expert has reported
similar construction on an excavated vessel, adding to the importance
of documenting the Sadana ships unique construction.
Many archaeological excavations and historical studies focus on
Mediterranean trade in the Ottoman period, but the tides of commerce
in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean are only faintly understood (Panzac
7. The Sadana Island Shipwreck 187
1992; Chaudhuri 1985; Das Gupta 1987; Lewis 1973). One of the exca-
vations primary goals is to examine the ships role within the regions
historical, economic and geographical context. Analysis of artifacts
classed as personal possessions rather than cargo suggests that, like
the ship, the crew was non-European. The paucity of finds, their
strong Islamic cultural parallels and even Arabic inscriptions point to
a Muslim crew, as historical sources confirm (Raymond 1973; Hansen
1964; Niebuhr 1772, 1774). This study will thus significantly advance
our knowledge of Arab and Indian navigators.
A slightly earlier wreck, excavated by Avner Raban at Sharm el
Sheikh, had strong Mediterranean links although its cargo of about
1,000 clay water jars ( qulal) belongs more to the Arab world (Raban
1971). The Sharm el Sheikh ship relied on typical eastern Mediter-
ranean construction techniques and was built primarily of fir and pine.
Sunk at anchor fairly close to shore, the ship had burned to the water-
line. Only a handful of porcelain fragments remained in the presumed
cabin area, either because the remainder were previously salvaged,
unloaded before the sinking, or even from an earlier voyage. These
dated the ship to the late Kangxi period (16621722), and Raban sug-
gests a date in the second quarter of the eighteenth century. Israel
recently returned all Sharm el Sheikh artifacts to Egypt as part of
recent political accords, but I have not seen the collection.
The Red Sea was the gateway to Europe for many oriental
products, and sea travel, despite the risks of navigation along coral-
lined shores, proved to be much cheaper and safer than land caravans.
The collapse of the Safavid dynasty in the Persian Gulf during the
first part of the eighteenth century weakened trading networks there
and contributed to the spread of piracy along its shores, causing mer-
cantile interest to shift to the Red Sea. Although European ships
had been sailing to Suez since the sixteenth century, they rarely oper-
ated north of Jeddah during the mideighteenth century (Faroqhi 1994;
Chaudhuri 1978). Europeans still formed an important component of
regional trade because they not only brought eastern wares to Mocha
from China and western India but also extended the line of trade
through cargoes purchased in and shipped out of Alexandria, espe-
cially coffee (Raymond 1973). Indian ships also followed the same
routes (Parkinson 1948).
Much of the Red Sea trade reached Egypt by a complicated route.
Ships obtained goods in China and Indonesia, and often transshipped
cargoes at other centers such as Surat in India. From there, Indian
and other ships caught the spring monsoons and carried locally
produced spices and textiles, in addition to Far Eastern luxuries such
188 Cheryl Ward
as porcelain, to Mocha and Jeddah. Coffee, spices, incense, porcelain
and inexpensive textiles dominated the markets there, and trav-
elers describe ports with ships from all corners of the Indian Ocean.
Indian ships were particularly common, both at Suez and in Jeddah.
Investigating these strong commercial and cultural ties is important
to understanding the scale and depth of interaction in the area, and
studying a ship carrying the most sought-after goods of the period
provides an exciting opportunity to do so. This contribution reports
preliminary finds and offers commentary on their significance, which
must be considered carefully as there are no comparable excavated
collections.
Raban expressed frustration with being unable to define the
origin of qulal from the Sharm el Sheikh wreck, again, because few
dated examples from the post-medieval period can be identified. It is
clear from looking at the far broader range of artifacts and organic
remains from the Sadana Island shipwreck that the story of shipping
in the northern Red Sea is more complex. For example, research in
Englands East India Companys archives by Richard Kilburn has pro-
duced a letter instructing employees in Canton buying porcelain for
sale in Mocha that could almost be a manifest for the Sadana Island
ship (see below). The stunning collection of Chinese porcelain in the
Topkapi Museum in Istanbul includes many of the same types of objects
(Krahl and Ayers 1986). From a Danish scientific expedition chronicled
by Carsten Niebuhr (Niebuhr 1772, 1774; Hansen 1964), we learn that
exorbitant freight charges on the Red Sea ships meant that even the
largest class of ships (50 meters and longer) paid for themselves after
only three voyages. Niebuhr also provides an intimate portrait of life
aboard one of these gigantic vessels, which might carry 75 crew with
their wives and children in addition to 500 or 600 pilgrims.
The Sadana Island ship is one of four vessels of this size and with
similar cargo INA-Egypt has identified in the northern Red Sea. The
wreck at Sharm el Sheikh, a second porcelain wreck below 50m near
Hurgada, and a porcelain cargo salvaged in the early 1980s north of
Jiddah all point to an active trade route north of there. The Sadana
Island ship is the only accessible site with substantial hull remains
and cargo present, and it offers an unprecedented opportunity to
examine closely a mideighteenth-century global venture that links the
ships final voyage to the greater world of commerce and society across
four seas. Excavation will be completed in 1998, so all conclusions pre-
sented below are tentative.
Chinese export porcelain and earthenware water jars ( qulal) are
the most numerous finds on the site. So far, over 540 complete and
several hundred broken porcelain objects represent a special class of
export wares created by kiln centers in China for the Middle Eastern
market. Cultural injunctions against the representation of human
figures meant that most porcelain sold in the Middle East featured
floral designs. At least some European agents for cargoes destined for
the Red Sea were strongly warned against buying any other type,
which resulted both in limiting market choice and responding to
market demand. A 1723 letter from the London office to the person
responsible for purchasing porcelain for the British ship Princess
Amalia describes the task of selecting goods in China for later sale in
Mocha succinctly:
CHINAWARE 300 to 350 chests. Tis impossible to give particular or full
Instructions for providing this Articley One General Rule must always be
observed, and that is, never to pack a peice [sic] of Ware that hath the figure
of Humane Species, or any Animal whatsover, and as formerly the Colord
ware prevailed, so it is more than probable that it still doth, the red and
gold used to be most in esteems, & three quarters of the colourd Sortments
with one quarter of blew & white was the customary package of the whole
parcel. (Richard Kilburn 1996, pers. comm.)
The Sadana Island collection includes a single piece decorated with
animals (two cranes), and none with humans, suggesting its pur-
chasers did not want or did not have access to more figurative styles.
Monochrome glazed, enameled (also called colored or Chinese
Imari), white, and blue-and-white decorated wares allow us to look at
the variety of Chinese porcelain known and used in the Ottoman
world. The Sadana collection includes several types of the popular
blue-and-white porcelain traded to Europe and elsewhere in large
numbers. At least 170 large blue-and-white dishes decorated with a
peony scroll motif on the interior and two bare branches on the exte-
rior have been excavated. The dishes measure either 34.4cm or 37.8
cm in diameter like those represented in the Topkapi Sarayi collection
and are there dated to the late seventeenth or early eighteenth cen-
turies (Krahl and Ayers, 1986:1026, no. 2208). Two other blue-and-
white, saucer-shaped Topkapi dish designs also present at Sadana are
dated to the early 18th century (Krahl and Ayers, 1986:1072, no. 2405,
and 1073, no. 2408).
More than 210 cups of at least 15 different types include celadon
and monochrome brown glazed examples (typically dated to the later
seventeenth century), cobalt blue bodies once overlaid with gold, a
brown glazed type having a quatrefoil medallion filled by an under-
glaze blue plum-family blossom, and a number of others in the Chinese
Imari group (Figure 7.1). On many of the latter examples, only the
190 Cheryl Ward
Figure 7.1. Porcelain coffee cups with blue underglaze (stippled) and ghosting (solid
lines): (a) 2312, MD 7.3cm; (b) 2334, MD 8.1cm; (c) R224, MD 7.9cm; 2397, MD
6.9cm. (All drawings by N. Piercy).
underglaze blue decoration remains of a pattern once bright with
enameled colors such as red, yellow, green or gold applied after firing.
Enamel colors rarely are found on pieces that come from the sea, but,
with patience and raking light, it is possible to trace their original
location on the porcelains because the enamels last long enough to
partially protect the glazed surface from the effects of salt water. This
kind of work must be done after the object has been desalinated and
dried, so few of the Sadana pieces have had their ghosting defined
as they are still in conservation.
Some larger bowls have undergone this process. Bowl 265, with
day lilies and chrysanthemums preserved only as ghosts (solid lines)
in a framework of underglaze blue leaves, flowering grasses, and
panels is almost identical to Topkapi Saray Museum bowl TKS 4062
(Krahl and Ayers, 1986:1216, no. 3011). The Topkapi bowl is about 15%
larger and is dated to the early eighteenth century. Sadana bowls with
vine-leaf-shaped medallions and another with spiralling blue panels
with intricate ghosted patterns (Figure 7.2) also find parallels in the
Topkapi collection (Krahl and Ayers, 1986:1296, no. 3343; 1339, no.
3525). These examples are dated to the second half of the eighteenth
century and 173060 respectively, and thus correspond closely to
Sadana Island dating.
Some 66 smaller bowls of two styles also featured colors applied
after firing. On one, a blue fence, decorative rocks, and floral elements
remain; the other is decorated with flowers and floral sprays on the
outside while inside, a central rosette of 10 alternating light and dark
petals and, at the rim, a now-invisible diaper border enclosing blue-
flowered panels complete the design.
The catalogue of enameled wares also includes shallow dishes and
plates, today plain white, but originally painted with a central nosegay
Figure 7.2. Porcelain bowl sherd 2345 with blue underglaze (broad stippled bands)
and ghosting (solid lines and stippled areas they enclose). MH 9cm. (Drawings by N.
Piercy)
192 Cheryl Ward
and undulating rim pattern (Figure 7.3). Forty-seven plates and 26
dishes with bracket-lobed and ridged rims have six pendants that
extend to the cavetto. At least one large platter also belonged to these
matching pieces. No matches have been located for the central design,
but the border design, probably derived from shells and cornucopias,
resembles that on a Qianlong piece dated to 1745 (Howard, 1994:845,
no. 70).*
As noted in the descriptions of different types, the dating for
Sadana Island porcelain spans a century according to traditional inter-
pretations. It is unlikely that the porcelain itself was made over such
a long period and traded only after 1760 because of the high and con-
stant demand in the Middle East for precisely these goods. Because
porcelain wares within this period rarely bear reign marks that could
provide a precise date, it is likely that the Sadana Island ships cargo
eventually will help resolve new and existing questions about Qing
Dynasty chronology as well as helping us to understand market forces
Figure 7.3. Porcelain plate 2348 with ghosting. MD 27.3 cm. (Drawing by N. Piercy)
*Richard Kilburn graciously provided me with this reference.
within the Muslim world. Because dates offered by expert porcelain
scholars range from the 1650s to the 1760s for similar pieces, it is
likely that design changes followed a much slower calendar in the
Middle East than that for porcelain sold to Europe and America.
More difficult to compare to firmly dated examples are the earth-
enware water vessels from the wreck (Figures 7.4 and 7.5). More than
800 qulal of some 30 different types came from the ships stern quarter,
and at least as many remain on the seabed for study in 1998. Efforts
to find comparative material have produced few results as terrestrial
archaeologists have provided almost no firmly dated examples of these
jars, all of which are made of a similar gray-brown fabric with many
inclusions. Many qulal are decorated with incised lines and applied
Figure 7.4. Earthenware water vessel ( qulal). 1643 with incised and applied plastic
decoration. MH 23.1 cm. (Drawing by L. Piercy)
194 Cheryl Ward
Figure 7.5. Earthenware water jug ( qulal) 1244 with incised decoration. MH 26.2cm.
(Drawing by L. Piercy)
plastic clay features, and all were fired to a relatively high tempera-
ture. Shapes include pitchers (both with and without handles), goblets
and a plain, long-necked type. Knobbed lids for both small and large
(55 cm tall) examples also were excavated.
7. The Sadans Island Shipwreck 195
Figure 7.6. Tobacco pipe bowls: (a) MH 4.8 cm; (b) MH 4.6 cm (c) MH 5.3 cm; (d) black-
slipped, MH 5 cm; (e) MH 4.8 cm; (f) red-slipped MH 3.2 cm. (Drawing by L. Piercy)
Qulal were packed in horizontal layers with the bases of one layer
between necks of the layers above and below, much like modern sellers
of qulal display their wares. Despite the wide variation in decoration,
most of the types fit into fairly standard size ranges in terms of height
and maximum width, which facilitated stacking of diverse styles.
Other earthenware objects include large storage jars of three types
(zila), fragments of glazed bowls, amphoras of Ballas type, flat-
196 Cheryl Ward
Figure 7.7. Miscellaneous artifacts: (a) red-slipped clay kurs (charcoal holder) for a
water pipe, MH 9.4cm; (b) cut-glass flask 365, MH 8cm; (c) copper pan handle 629,
MH 8.5 cm; (d) ivory or bone game piece 48, MH 3 cm. (Drawing by N. Piercy)
bottomed basins, incense burners, a spouted pot and decorated tobacco
pipe bowls (Figure 7.6) as well as an elaborately carved and red-slipped
charcoal holder ( kursi ) for a water pipe (Figure 7.7a). Aunique, handled
jar with dark green, crazed interior glazing and a yellow and brown
glazed bowl with a central spiral and lotus-like blossoms on arms
extending from the center are the finest examples of tablewares.
Glass finds include a small, cut-glass flask (Figure 7.7b) and the
remains of at least three dozen case bottles. Case bottles are typically
used for transporting liquor; these imitate a standard European gin
bottle. Standard European wine bottle bases and the neck of a large
glass container of a type used for wine in Ottoman Turkey also are
present.
Just over 50 copper metal artifacts have been recovered, ranging
from a pair of inlaid bracelets to a large tray. Most of these objects
came from one area in the starboard stern quarter, and may have been
stored in a galley much higher. Almost all seem to be related to cooking
and serving food and drink (Figure 7.7c). Archaeologists recovered a
coffee pot, two tripod grills lined with a ceramic insulator, tripod sup-
ports, pan handles, a kettle, ewers, basins, cooking pots, and dishes.
A large sheave, an embossed lidded box (possibly an expanding
lantern), the hasp for a chest, and an elaborately decorated brass box
offer a view of other aspects of life aboard ship.
Inscriptions on copper finds offer the most precise evidence for
dating the site. Three pieces bear Arabic names and dates, but only
two of the dates are legible. Copper basin 648 is inscribed with
1169 [AH]/1755/6 CE and pan 651 with 1178 [AH]/1764 CE (Figure
7.8). Historically, this places the ships last voyage after 1764, a time
of increased foreign activity in the northern Red Sea during economic
growth within Egypt.
Miscellaneous finds include a stone mortar, a carved bone or ivory
game piece (Figure 7.7d), large and small wooden lids, a knotted leather
bag, and iron fastenings and concretions. Noteworthy in this summary
of finds is the paucity of personal possessions, which is indicative of a
relatively small number of individuals aboard rather than the 600 pil-
grims a ship this size could carry. Although some 3,000 artifacts have
already been excavated, the ship itself was mostly empty when we
began work, suggesting that it carried a predominantly dispersed
cargo, probably organic in nature. Intensive recovery of bioarchaeolog-
ical remains suggests several candidates for the missing tonnage.
Because the northbound Red Sea luxury cargoes so often were
organic in nature, bioarchaeological remains from the Sadana Island
Shipwreck receive a great deal of emphasis. Chance finds of rope, wood,
charcoal, aromatic resin, a pitch-like substance, and coconut husks
Figure 7.8. Copper pan 651 with inscripton and date, MH 4.7cm, MD 27cm. (Drawing
by N. Piercy)
198 Cheryl Ward
demonstrate the excellent preservation of this class of material. One of
the more excruciating duties for team members has been emptying the
hundreds of small-mouthed qulal and processing their contents by
bucket flotation to recover plant remains. Systematic examination of
all jar contents and dark-colored deposits in this way allows us to
compare the gross morphological features and sections of recovered
seeds to modern examples and identify their species or genus.
More than three dozen coconuts spilled from a storage area in
the stern provide unusually challenging problems of excavation and
storage as they are whole, but lack the fibrous husk and meat of a
fresh fruit. Coconuts would have provided not only a refreshing treat
for those on the ship, they could also have been sold as curiosities to
Europeans in the markets of Egypt. Both the coconut milk and flesh
could be eaten raw or incorporated in dishes from the western Indian
Ocean. We also documented coffee beans, pepper, large quantities
of aromatic resin, coriander, cardamom, and nutmeg from western
Indian Ocean sources and, from the Mediterranean, hazelnut, grape,
fig and olive. In addition, members of the grass, squash, onion and
bean families expand the list of economically significant plant
species carried on the ship. Beetles and weevils also were abundant.
Archaeobotanical studies continue and focus on the cultural context of
finds, as well as their scientific identification.
As we excavated layers closer to the ships hull, we found a variety
of animal remains including the remains of a leather bag tied with a
knot and bones of several animal species, including young sheep/goat.
Butchering marks on several bones prove their use as food; faunal
analysis will be conducted as part of the conservation process in
Alexandria.
THE HULL
Studying methods of ship construction gives us the opportunity to
look at the most complex machines built before Industrial Revolution
(Steffy 1994). The ship, as the largest and most technologically infor-
mative artifact on the site, provides us a unique opportunity to docu-
ment a previously unrecorded shipbuilding tradition. Despite a long
history of contact between Europeans, Egyptians, and others who
sailed the western Indian ocean and Red Sea, separate shipbuilding
traditions continued.
The Sadana Island ship is an example of type that is not Euro-
pean, not Arab, not American, not Chinese, and not Mediterranean. At
50m in length and about 17m wide, the Sadana ship could carry about
900 tons of cargo. Its heavy wooden construction suggests ample sup-
plies near its home shipyard; identification of timbers may help to pin-
point the geographical origin of hull components. For example, up to
three keelsons and sister keelsons (timbers stretching the length of
the ship above the keel) are not unusual in either Mediterranean or
European shipbuilding, but the Sadana ship had at least 12 end-to-
end timbers we call stringers on the port side alone. Stringers are
fastened only every 50cm to frames, and typify the comparatively
light fastening pattern on a ship this size. Frames are spaced farther
apart than on ships of comparable size and do not fit the planking
well, with wooden shims filling gaps of up to 4cm. Iron fastenings
are sparse compared to more well documented traditions, and yet
we have not, to date, found any evidence of edge fastening. Further
research and documentation of the ship will enable precise recon-
struction of its features, teaching us lessons its builders learned
centuries ago.
CONCLUSIONS
Excavations at Sadana Island contribute to a far better under-
standing both of Red Sea trade and of a single vessel representative
of the largest class of ship active in the Ottoman Red Sea during the
second half of the 18th century. An inscribed copper basin with a date
equivalent to 1764 CE gives us a firm link to explore the historical
aspects of Red Sea trade during this period although slightly earlier
documents are also important in its study.
Analysis of the Sadana Island Shipwreck reveals a signifi-
cant mini-history of Red Sea trade that dovetails into the greater
scheme of international commerce between East and West. The
Sadana ships porcelain cargo suggests it was bought in broken
lots at a secondary market, probably Jeddah or Mocha. Contem-
porary accounts of Mocha describe a busy harbor populated with
English Free Merchants, Portugueze, Banyans and Moors, and by
Vessels from Bossorah, Persia and Muskat in Arabia petrea, all of
whom sought to trade in coffee and, some drugs, such as Myrrh,
Olibanum or Frankincense from Cassin, and Aloes Soccatrina from
Socotra, liquid Storax, white and yellow Arsenick, some Gum Arabick
and Mummy; with some Balm of Gilead, that comes from the Red Sea,
according to Captain Alexander Hamilton, writing in 1723 (Hamilton
1723:412). As noted above, European ships bought Chinese export
200 Cheryl Ward
porcelain designed for the Middle Eastern market to trade at Mocha
and Jeddah for coffee.
Two-thirds of the value of Egypts foreign imports came from coffee
brought in via Suez. Between 30 and 40 ships made the trip between
Suez and Jeddah each year; of these, 15 to 20 could carry more than
900 tons and, though they were more expensive to build than Nile or
Mediterranean ships, could be paid off after only three voyages. The
presence of large (3050 meter long) porcelain-carrying shipwrecks at
Sadana Island, Sharm el Sheikh (Raban 1971) and looted sites near
Hurgada in the northern Red Sea and Jeddah suggests that there was
a strong interest in moving Chinese porcelain and other goods by sea
north of Jeddah, a point traditionally seen as the terminus of the sea
trade from the Indian Ocean during this time (McGowan 1994; Raby
1986). Egyptians under Ottoman suzerainty controlled what was effec-
tively internal trade until the late 18th century when European ship-
ping began operating between Suez and Jeddah.
In 1670 the rais Ahmed owned two Indian ships at Suez, and in
1682, port chronicles mention a markab hindi, or Indian sailing ship,
anchored in the harbor there (Raymond 1973:110, n. 5). In 1762,
Carsten Niebuhr noted that of the 14 ships that operated between
Suez and Jeddah, most were built in Suez where the industry was
flourishing, but by the later eighteenth century, a French traveler com-
mented that most Arab ships in the Red Sea were built in India
(Raymond 1973:110). For much of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies, strong commercial ties existed between Egypt and India, and
it would not be surprising to find that Indian shipbuilding techniques
were adopted by local Egyptian builders or that we are excavating an
Indian ship at Sadana Island.
The continuing excavation of the Sadana Island shipwreck fur-
nishes an opportunity to explore the nature of the ship, its cargo, and
its crew and master. It also ensures that this part of Egypts nautical
heritage will be investigated and preserved while offering a new
perspective on international trade and contact at a time of transition
during the Ottoman period.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Sadana Island Shipwreck is a joint project of Egypts Supreme
Council of Antiquities and the Institute of Nautical Archaeology,
funded in large part by The Amoco Foundation, The John and Donnie
Brock Foundation, the Institute of Nautical Archaeology and a con-
sortium of corporate and private sponsors to whom we are extremely
grateful. Thanks also are due to our dedicated volunteers, who fill
almost all excavation positions, and to the hardworking archaeologists
and inspectors of the Supreme Council of Antiquities who join us each
summer in the Red Sea. Richard Kilburn, Beryl Joyce, John Carswell,
Rose Kerr, and Regina Krahl offered invaluable guidance on porcelain
studies and have my sincere appreciation.
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the 2nd and 3rd Decades of the 17th Century, according to the Records
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Wastfeld, B., B. Gyllensvrd, and J. Weibull
Daily Life in the
Shadow of Empire
A Food Systems Approach to the
Archaeology of the Ottoman Period
ystein S. LaBianca
8
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter my aim is to present the case for a food systems
approach to the archaeology of the Ottoman Empire. While this may
strike some as being a very limited perspective, I shall try to show the
opposite, namely that such an approach provides a powerful method-
ology both for investigating the Ottoman period as a historical era
in its own right and for making the archaeology of this era relevant
to a much broader scholarly audience. The case will be developed in
the following manner: First comes a brief review of some background
assumptions and definitions pertinent to understanding what is meant
by a food systems approach. This is followed by a discussion of macro-
level issues having to do with how archaeologists think about and
investigate the influence of Ottoman imperial interventions on the
operation of local food systems. Next come some thoughts on some
micro-level issues related to carrying out archaeological research on
local food systems, particularly as it relates to understanding the
response of indigenous peoples to Ottoman policies and interventions.
Thereafter I discuss briefly some implications of the food system
concept for understanding the impact of the Ottoman centuries on
the local environment. The conclusion offers some reflections on the
promise of a food systems approach to making the archaeology of the
Ottoman Empire relevant to global archaeology and world history.
YSTEINS. LABIANCA Department of Behavioral Sciences, Andrews University,
Berrien Springs, Michigan 49104.
203
204 ystein S. LaBianca
Figure 8.1. Madaba Regional Survey, Jordan.
WHAT IS MEANT BY A
FOOD SYSTEMS APPROACH?
The first and most basic reason for why a methodology which is
explicitly concerned with peoples quest for food needs to be reckoned
with by Ottoman archaeologists is that, throughout most of human
history, it has shaped the daily lives of the vast majority of human
8. Daily Life in the Shadow of Empire 205
beings. Furthermore, attention focused on this quest leads inevitably
to concern with the lives of the rural masses living in the shadow of
empire. And since the lives of most elites in the past depended, directly
or indirectly, upon various mechanisms for inducing the rural masses
to produce a surplus of food, a food systems perspective provides a
window on their lives as well.
What is meant by a food systems approach is something far
broader than a concern simply with what people eat! This becomes
clearer as one reflects on the implications of the following definition of
the food system concept: A food system is a dynamic and complex unity
consisting of all the purposive, patterned and inter-dependent sym-
bolic and instrumental activities carried out by people in order to
procure, process, distribute, store, prepare, consume, metabolize and
dispose of food.
1
The implications of this definition are manifold. To begin with, it
provides a common frame of reference for thinking about all historical
periods-the palaeolithic through the present. An important benefit of
this is that it makes possible temporal comparison of food system
processes. This is because local food systems are never static, but are
always undergoing some sort of change. Such change is either in the
direction of intensification or abatement depending on changes over
time in the intensity with which a given local region is being exploited
in order to provide people with food. Generally, as a regions food
system intensifies, its inhabitants tend to become increasingly land-
tied due to increased investment in plough agriculture. Consequently
their residential patterns tend to become more sedentary. Intensifi-
cation, therefore, normally is accompanied by sedentarization. Abate-
ment is said to occur when a given regions inhabitants diminish their
reliance on plough agriculture in favor of livestock production within
a given territory or homeland. This generally involves adoption of more
mobile residential patterns, or nomadization, whereby people, for the
sake of their increased investment in pasture animals, turn to sea-
sonal migration between watering places, ploughlands and pas-
turelands within a given territorial homeland. Such shifts occurred
ubiquitously throughout rural landscape of the Middle East in the
distant past, and surely also during the Ottoman period.
This leads to a second advantage of the food system concept,
namely the fact that it brings under a common analytical frame of ref-
erence the various strategies employed by people to procure food-
hunting, gathering, farming, herding, and trade. This makes the
concept much less limiting than, for example, the concept of agricul-
ture which tends to be associated with sedentary production of crops
and husbandry animals. More often than not, when investigation of
food getting practices is carried out under the heading of agriculture,
it tends to lead to superficial or altogether inadequate consideration
of the role of other methods of food procurement.
2
A third advantage of the food system approach is that it leads
automatically to a concern with how rural landscapes were utilized by
people in order to procure food. It thus focuses investigation on pat-
terns of land use and settlement in the hinterlands of human settle-
ments. In other words, it forces the archaeologist to get off of her
archaeological mound and out into the surrounding fields as a natural
and complementary dimension of her research activities. Mention
must also be made of the utility of the food system concept when it
comes to fitting together and interpreting the results of archaeological
excavations and surveys. In this regard, the above-stated definition
leads one to understand more clearly the function of a wide range of
rural structures (used for housing and protecting food producing
households, storing their food and protecting their animals); pottery
(used for storing, serving, distributing and serving food); stone objects
(used mostly in some way in connection with food preparation); and
animal and plant remains occur as they do in the archaeological
record. The concept also helps link discoveries made by means of
archaeological excavations to those made by means of regional surveys
in the hinterland of a particular dig site.
There is much more that could be said with regard to all of the
above points, and other points could easily be added to bolster the case
for using a food systems approach when doing archaeology. What has
been said, however, should suffice to give an idea of the scope of the
concept and its relevance for understanding the activities of the rural
masses and the elites of the Ottoman Empire.
CAN WE SPEAK OF
AN IMPERIAL OTTOMAN FOOD SYSTEM?
One of the intriguing questions which follow from a food systems
approach to the history and archaeology of the Ottoman Empire is the
extent to which it is possible to distinguish analytically the salient fea-
tures of an imperial food system? In other words, can we speak of
an imperial Ottoman food system just like today reference is made to
the global food system (Warnock 1987) or the American food system
(Bodley 1996). In certain ways, this question has already been
answered in the affirmative by economic and social historians who
have examined the development and implementation of economic poli-
cies by various Ottoman sultans and their administrations (e.g. Issawi
1980; Inalcik 1983).
There is a need, however, for closer cooperation between histori-
ans and archaeologists in addressing questions about the actual
impact of such imperial policies on the grass-roots level of local food
systems throughout the empire. Cooperation is needed, for example,
to answer questions about the grass-roots impact of sporadic initia-
tives to improve the rural infrastructure necessary to protect, trans-
port and sell agricultural commodities; to promote production and
export of certain specific agricultural products from particular local
regions; to regulate the migration of agricultural laborers in and out
of a particular local region; to intervene in the pricing of agricultural
products; and to impose various forms of taxation and tariffs on the
population of particular localities. A complicating factor, in this re-
gard, is the emergence during the Ottoman Era of the capitalist world
system (Wallerstein 1990). What is complicating about this develop-
ment is that it makes it harder to ascertain whether increases in pro-
duction and export of agricultural commodities at the grass roots level
were the result of successfully enacted imperial policies or local entre-
preneurial initiatives responding to new opportunities created by the
rise of the capitalist world system. For example, a compelling case
for the role of the capitalist market in stimulating the development
of large-scale commercial agriculture in the Ottoman Empire has
recently been published in a collection of papers edited by Keyder and
Tabak (1991).
Our efforts on the Madaba Plains Project to document the grass
roots impact of Ottoman agrarian policies have involved three main
lines of inquiry.
3
The first has been documentary research by members
of our team aimed at reconstructing the history of re-settlement and
economic growth inside our project area over the past century and a
half (Russell 1989; Abujaber 1989; LaBianca 1990:53106).
4
Sources
for this history have included imperial and local government admin-
istrative records; the accounts of nineteenth century geographers
and travelers to our project area; family archives of early settlers; and
interviews with elderly local residents.
The second line of inquiry has involved attempts to learn more
about the history of rural buildings in our project area from the
Ottoman period such as the fortified residential compounds known
locally as qusur or qasr (LaBianca 1990:201232). One of these appear
to be over two hundred years old, namely the one located near Ain
Hesban which belongs to the Adwan tribe-a tribe whose ancestors
existed in Jordan throughout the entire Ottoman period. It served as
a sort of headquarters for the tribe, having been one of the residences
of the tribal chieftain.
The third line of inquiry has involved the use of a metal detector
to search for coins from the Ottoman period throughout our project
area. A major reason for implementing this procedure was because of
the disappointing results of all other archaeological attempts to dis-
cover finds which could be clearly associated with initiatives of
the imperial Ottoman administration. We started this procedure in the
summer of 1994 and found over three dozen coins as a result, many of
which could be positively identified as being from the Ottoman period
(Bochenski 1994, personal communication).
When the results of the various archaeological undertakings men-
tioned above are brought together they contribute preciously little in
the way of direct archaeological evidence for Ottoman imperial inter-
vention in the project area.
5
There are no official buildings or public
works which can be identified as having been built because of Ottoman
imperial interventions in the area. The only tangible evidence of
any kind linked more or less directly to the imperial powers are coins.
When it comes to indirect evidence, however, the picture is different.
For example, the very fact that villages and towns came into existence
again in the project area toward the end of the nineteenth century-
after four centuries during which there were apparently no perma-
nently lived-in towns or villages in the project areais attributed by
many contemporary witnesses to renewed efforts by imperial Ottoman
rulers to provide protection for agricultural villagers and townspeople
as far away as Central Transjordan. One could infer from this, there-
fore, that during the earlier centuries of Ottoman administration there
was little or no initiative on the part of the imperial administration to
promote the welfare of settled folk, whereas toward the end of the nine-
teenth and during the early twentieth century many pro-settler ini-
tiatives were implemented.
Interestingly, these late Ottoman imperial interventions aimed at
fostering settlement of villages and towns appear to have gone hand
in hand with efforts on the part of local entrepreneurs to cash in on
the rising demand for grain brought about by the rapidly expanding
capitalist market economy (cf. Abujaber 1989; Schilcher 1991). Thus,
even as far away as Central Transjordan, one can detect the dual influ-
ences of the imperial Ottoman administration and the emerging cap-
italist world economy. From this particular case it would appear, in
fact, that the interventions of the Ottoman imperial administration
were intended to promotewhether by design or accidentlinkage of
the grain markets of Transjordan with those of the capitalist world
economy.
CAN WE SPEAK OF AN INDIGENOUS
RESISTANCE TO IMPERIAL INTERVENTIONS?
As important to our understanding of the Ottoman Empire food
system as is the concern with imperial policies and interventions is
the need to grasp the response of indigenous residents to their predica-
ment as subjects. In this respect, a distant backwater in the imperial
landscape such as Transjordan provides a particularly good opportu-
nity, although the phenomenon of resistance was surely widespread
throughout the empire. It appears, however, that the region of greater
Syriawhich typically includes Transjordanwas a region in which
resistance was rampant. Schilcher (1991:195) writes:
The fact that Syrias peasantry continued to rebel, generation after gener-
ation, is perhaps the strongest indication that something in their local
social, economic, and political arrangements sustained them and gave them
the aspiration and motivation to continue the struggle. How else can we
explain the fact that the Syrian peasantry of the late Ottoman period
retained a stronger bargaining position vis-a-vis the government and vis-
a-vis interlopers than was retained by peasantries of peripheralized
economies elsewhere in the region, or, for that matter, in many parts of the
world?
What, then, is this something which has sustained the inhabi-
tants of Transjordan in their quiet resistance against Ottoman poli-
cies and interventions in their homelands. It is, as we shall see, a
particular cluster of sentiments and practicesa set of indigenous har-
diness structuresby means of which the inhabitants of this area have
become inured to fatigue and hardship and thus have managed to
persist and at times prosper despite greatly fluctuating political and
economic fortunes.
6
Thus far we have been able to delineate at least seven such har-
diness structuresall of which have been integral to local resistance.
Important in this regard has been their role in facilitating movement
by individual households and larger groups along the sedentarization-
nomadization continuum. I turn next to briefly describing each one of
these seven secret weapons of the indigenous resistance.
Tribalism. First, and most important by far, have been their
kin-based social networks as members of large extended
families and tribes. These kin-based networks have provided

shepherds and farmers alike with a highly flexible mechanism
for welding people together for their common good, whether
on the open range as groups of nomads or on cultivated lands
as members of villages and towns. It has provided a means
by which small groups of kin have been able to adjust
successfully not only to a fragile natural environment, but also
to shifting political landscapes and very uncertain economic
conditions.
Multiresource economy. Another secret of their survival
has been their mixing of production of cereals and tree fruits
with raising of sheep, goats, donkeys, and camels. This ancient
agricultural regime, which goes back at least five thousand
years, has helped them to easily shift back and forth between
agricultural and pastoral pursuit. They have thus been able
to adjust their livelihoods to maximize chances of survival
in the face of constantly shifting economic and political
conditions.
Fluid homeland territories. In order to pursue such a variety
of economic options, both settled and nomadic tribes have
tended to maintain fluid homeland territories. Although a
somewhat fixed center of gravity may have prevailed at any
given point in history, the outer boundaries of homeland
territories have been allowed to continually change in order
to accommodate new social, economic or environmental
realities.
Residential flexibility. Over the centuries people have used
stone houses, residential caves and tents to live in. As the pop-
ulation has sedentarized or nomadized, the amount of time
they spend living in one or another of these residences in any
particular year would vary.
Small-scale water sourcing. Because of the risks involved in
constructing and maintaining the sorts of elaborate water
works developed, for example, by the ancient Romans, the
indigenous population has for the most part relied on small-
scale water sourcing arrangementsaccess to natural springs
and streams and re-use of ancient cisterns.
Hospitality. The emphasis on hospitality for which the Arab
population of Jordan is famous has its roots in more than good
manners. By means of their generosity to fellow tribesmen and
strangers, people have been able to accumulate I-owe-yous
which can be banked until such a time as a pay-back favor can
come in handy. Also, by means of hospitality, information

which is vital to their existence as shepherds and farmers may
be shared.
Honor. The institution of honor, whereby members of families
and tribes demonstrate their solidarity with each other as a
group of kin, also has a very practical function in tribal society.
Its built-in system of rewards and punishments serve to assure
that individuals and families dont shirk their obligations
toward one another as kin. Cooperation in feuds is only one of
many examples of the operation of this institution at work.
The point to be stressed here is that all of these practices and insti-
tutions have evolved and persisted at the grass-roots level in Jordan
over a very long time. In other words, they did not come about just
because of the nominal Ottoman occupation of the country. Indeed,
these structures were all well in place by the time of the first world
empires in the ancient Near East in the third millennium B.C. In the
particular case of Transjordan they have become particularly deeply
ingrained in the collective memory of the countrys inhabitants as a
result of three synergistically related uncertainty producing factors:
namely the unpredictability of the annual rainfall; the frontier condi-
tions created by the countrys proximity of the Arabian and Syrian
desert; and its position astride a much fought over intercontinental
landbridge. This third factor accounts for why the country has experi-
enced almost continuous foreign domination since the second millen-
nium B.C.
Pivotal to the research which has led to the delineation of these
indigenous hardiness structures has been the same food system per-
spective which guided our research on imperial intervention in the
local situation. It was this perspective, for instance, that led us to con-
centrate effort and time on trying to understand the gaps in the occu-
pational history of Tell Hesban. These were the centuries during which
nothing or very little in the way of accumulation of occupational debris
occurred on the tell. Significantly, the most recent such gap was that
between the strata representing the Mamluk and the early modern
periodthe centuries of Ottoman domination.
To discover how people managed to meet their basic needs for food,
water and shelter during this most recent gap period we launched a
survey aimed specifically at learning more about the history of migra-
tory food production or transhumance in our project area. This, in turn,
led quickly to the discovery of the crucial role which habitation caves
had played in peoples lives during the Ottoman period. To learn more
about these and life in general during these centuries, we began to
carry out extensive interviews with older residents who remembered
having lived in the caves when they were younger. Thus, gradually
the clues to their hardy existenceas represented in these seven
structuresbegan to come to light.
7
As for the obvious question of why the majority of local residents
chose not to live permanently in villages and towns throughout most
of the Ottoman centuries, the answer is that it didnt make much sense
in this particular corner of the empire! To do so meant being constantly
harassed either by imperial Ottoman taxation officials or by enemy
tribesmen. Consequently people opted to resist by following the time-
honored practice of living lightly and simply on the land. In other
words they opted to seek shelter in tents, caves and abandoned ruins
and to rely on pasture animals and cereals produced during winter
months in the fertile valleys behind their seasonal cave villages. In an
indirect sort of way, this situation adds further to our understanding
of the agrarian policies of the imperial Ottoman administration!
HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS
There is one more important line of research which a food systems
approach facilitates, and that is inquiry concerned with the human
impact in a given locality on the natural environment and visa versa.
What makes this approach particularly helpful in this regard is
that, as a methodological framework, it has its roots in ecosystem
theory, Thus it leads naturally to a concern with short and long-term
changes in the natural environment and the role of humans in bring-
ing them about.
Some intriguing questions arise in this regard when attention is
focused on the Ottoman period. For instance, is it fair to assume as
some scholars have that the natural environment simply deteriorated
in Palestine throughout the Islamic centuries? Is it possible that
a certain amount of regeneration of the environment might have
occurred as a result of the low intensity with which at least the Trans-
jordanian landscape was exploited during most of this era?
What a food systems approach provides is a set of hypothesis
about the processes by which the environment gradually was changed
to how it appears today. It posits that such change occurred in large
measure as a result of the cyclic episodes of intensification and abate-
ment in the local food systemaccompanied as these were by cycles
of sedentarization and nomadization. It posits further that as each
such episode took place, it set in motion spasms of rapid environmen-
tal degradation followed by rest periods during which the landscape
underwent partial regeneration. The present-day rather barren
appearance of the landscape of Transjordan is thus the cumulative
result of multiple such spasms and rests over the past ten thousand
years. To what extent the Ottoman centuries added to this cumulative
impact remains very much an empirical question.
8
THE RELEVANCE OF
OTTOMAN ARCHAEOLOGY
In conclusion, I believe firmly that archaeologists working on the
Ottoman Empire can reach across the distances which separate theme
in terms of location of their projects and time periods of interest. One
way to do soalthough certainly not the only wayis by means of a
common concern with local food systems. This approach also has the
merit that it links the concerns of Ottoman archaeologists with those
of global archaeology and world history.
This volumes introduction asks whether the archaeology of
the Ottoman Empire should be regarded as the archaeology of an
empire or a time period. My view is that it should be both. Surely
archaeologists working anywhere in the empire must be concerned
with looking for subtle and obvious signs of imperial intervention in
their localities. Such interventions may be more pronounced during
some time periods than during others, thus the temporal dimension is
also going to be crucial. In the case of our Transjordanian test case, it
seems one can never quite eliminate from the picture the existence of
the empire, for as we have seen, its policies appear to have had a lot
to do with how people lived throughout the entire period of the empires
existence.
About the relevance of archaeology of the Ottoman period to
archaeologies of the more distant past and to mainstream Middle
Eastern archaeology there can be no doubt. Again, from the vantage
point of our work in Jordan, what we have learned about people living
lightly on the land from our research on the Ottoman centuries has
been essential to developing hypothesis and research strategies for
studying earlier episodes of low intensity occupation in our project
area. The importance of the Ottoman period for mainstream Middle
Eastern archaeology, therefore, lies in that it offers a near-at-hand
opportunityin terms of data accessibilityfor archaeologists to learn
about the dynamics of pre-industrial complex society in the Middle
East. Research on this era is also essential to archaeological under-
takings which take seriously the challenge of advancing understand-
ing of long-term patterns of cultural change throughout the world.
There can also be little doubt about the relevance of Ottoman
archaeology for the current debate on the aims and political uses of
archaeology. One of the valuable contributions of the post-modern cri-
tique is precisely the fact that it has brought to our attention the Euro-
centric bias of traditional Orientals archaeology. It is precisely this
bias which has caused Ottoman archaeology to languish in compari-
son to research on earlier more important periods such as the bibli-
cal or the classical periods. In our own case, it was only as we began
to focus our research on a problem which was equally applicable to
all historical periods that we began to take seriously the Ottoman
centuries.
When it comes to the feminine critique of archaeology there is
much to be said for a food systems approach. Because of its concern
with the complete range of instrumental and symbolic activities
carried out by people in their quest for food, it automatically brings
the contribution of women, and also children, to the fore. It thus gets
beyond the traditional masculine concerns with fortifications and
building remains, something which actually has been crucial to our
attempts in Jordan to operationalize research on the Ottoman period.
Indeed, from this period, it is more the work of women than the work
of men that has left residues for archaeologists to study. I would like
to conclude by explaining what I see as being the merits of a Marxian
world systems approach as compared with the food systems approach
which I have advocated here. In my view, the world systems approach
is useful as a means to understand the oscillations during historical
times in the operation of local food systems. It provides some of the
answers to why during certain periods we see a pumping up of the
local food system and during other periods we see a slacking off in
the intensity of this system. The approach does not provide an ade-
quate framework for operationalizing research on all historical
periods, however. Furthermore, it is inadequate as a tool for opera-
tionalizing research on pre-industrial agrarian society in the Middle
East because of its emphasis on unequal exchange in a hierarchy of
world markets. During some historical periods, and certainly during
prehistoric times, this assumption simply does not apply. Finally,
however, what I find most useful about the food systems approach is
that it really is not grounded in any particular deterministic dogma. I
view it rather as a heuristic, as a thinking aid for helping archaeolo-
gists to think integratively about the wide range of materials they
uncover in their surveys and excavations. This is because, as noted
earlier, the vast majority of the finds we encounter as archaeologists-
especially those of us working in rural contextscan be set in some
sort of functional or symbolic context using this perspective. I believe
that alone, the food systems perspective is insufficient for explaining
long-term cultural changes. While it is useful as a framework for oper-
ationalizing research on rural regions and settlements regardless of
time period; and while it goes a long ways toward helping to make
some sort of integrative sense out of a wide range of artifacts and bio-
facts, it has to be supplemented by other theoretical orientations in
order to provide adequate explanations for the cultural patterns it
helps to uncover. Such supplementary frameworks might include the
role the capitalist world system; or it might include the role of reli-
gion. For example, the archaeology of Transjordan in the first millen-
nium A.D. cannot be adequately understood without reckoning with
the influence of Christianity and Islam.
Thus, to conclude, no single framework is likely to provide all the
answers to the complex task of understanding the Ottoman world. My
aim here has merely been to remind us as scholars comfortably at work
in our offices that for the masses living in the shadow of empire, the
quest for food was more than a just brief interruption lasting a few
minutes every day. For the majority of these men, women and chil-
dren, whose lives we are trying to understand by our scholarly endeav-
ors, it was what daily life was mostly all about!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to applaud Uzi Baram and Lynda Carroll for taking
the initiative to break new ground for an archaeology of the Ottoman
Empire. I have long felt the need for such an effort and am glad that,
thanks to their efforts, the conference was organized and now has been
published.
NOTES
1. For a discussion of the intellectual roots of the food system concept and its impli-
cations for archaeology, see LaBianca (1990:130, 107134; 1991).
2. The food system concept is also less limiting than the concepts of subsistence and
livelihood, for whereas the former is commonly associated with food production pri-
marily for the sake of survival; the latter has the drawback of being too broadof
referring to any type of work that a person does to earn a living.
3. The Madaba Plains Project is a large-scale archaeological investigation of the
territory located between Amman and Madaba in Jordan (e.g. Geraty et al. 1987
and Herr et al. 1991). It began in 1968 with excavations at Tell Hesban, and has
expanded over the years to include excavations of two other major tell sites, namely
Tell el-Umeiri and Tell Jalul. In addition to the excavations undertaken at
these major sites, their hinterlands have also been intensively surveyed and a
number of small-scale soundings of farmsteads, habitation caves, cemeteries and
other ruins have also been carried out. The project is sponsored by a consortium of
international educational institutions headed by Andrews University. Sources of
funding includes numerous private donations and the National Endowment for the
Humanities.
By project area I mean first of all the hinterlands located within a radius of five
kilometers of the three major tells, namely Tell Hesban; Tell el-Umeiri and Tell Jalul.
These territories have been intensively scrutinized by means of surface surveys and
soundings over ten seasons of fieldwork. The goal of much of this work has been to
reconstruct the history of landuse and settlement in order to illuminate the tempo-
ral dynamics of the local food system.
5. I am now speaking strictly about the territories surveyed by our team as described
in the previous note.
6. I have written about this phenomenon elsewhere in a paper entitled Indigenous
Hardiness Structures and State Formation: Towards a History of Jordans Resident
Arab Population. The paper was originally presented at the Third Nordic Confer-
ence of Middle Eastern Studies held in Finland in June 1996. It can be accessed on
the World Wide Web.
7. For a more detailed account of the research which went into discovering these struc-
tures see LaBianca 1987 and 1990.
8. I discuss these proposal in greater detail in a paper presented in June 1996 in Torino,
Italy, at the Sixth Annual Conference on the History and Archaeology of Jordan. The
proceedings of the conference is being prepared for publication by the Department
of Antiquities of Jordan.
4.
REFERENCES
Abujaber, R. S.
1989 Pioneers over Jordan: The Frontiers of Settlement in Transjordan, 18501914.
I.B. Tauris and Co., London.
1996 Anthropology and Contemporary Human Problems. 3rd ed. Mountain View,
Mayfield Publishing Co., California.
Inalcik, H.
1983 The Emergence of Big Farms, Citliks: State, Landlords and Tenants. In
Contributions a lhistoire economique et sociale de lEmpire ottoman. J. L.
Bacque-Grammont and P. Dumont ( eds.), Editions Peeters, Louvain. pp.
105126.
Geraty, L. T., et al.
1987 Madaba Plains Project: A Preliminary Report of the 1984 Season at Tell el-
Umeiri and Vicinity. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research Sup-
plement 24.
Bodley, J. H.
Herr, L., et al.
1991 Madaba Plains Project II. Andrews University Press, Berrien Springs.
Issawi, C.
1980 The Economic History of Turkey, 18001914. The University of Chicago Press,
Chicago.
1991 Landholding and Commercial Agriculture in the Middle East. State Univer-
sity of New York Press, Albany.
1990 Hesban 1: Sedentarization and Nomadization, Food System Cycles at Hesban
and Vicinity in Transjordan. Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press.
in press Food Systems Research: An Overview and a Case Study from Madaba
Plains, Jordan. Food and Foodways 4(3 + 4):221235.
Russell, M.
1989 Hesban During the Arab Period: Ad 635 to the Present. In Hesban 3: Histori-
cal Foundations. L. T. Geraty and L. G. Running (eds.), Andrews University
Press, Berrien Springs.
1991 The Grain Economy of Late Ottoman Syria and the Issue of Large-Scale Com-
mercialization. In Landholding and Commercial Agriculture in the Middle
East. . Keyder and F. Tabak ( eds.), State University of New York Press,
Albany. pp. 173195.
The Politics of Hunger: The Global Food System. Methuen, New York.
Keyder, . and F. Tabak (eds.)
LaBianca, . S.
Schilcher, L.
Warnock, J. W.
1987
Transformations,
Readings, and Visions
of the Ottoman Mosque
Alison B. Snyder
9
INTRODUCTION
Buildings can express and capture the essence of an epoch. Cultures
display their social, political, religious and artistic foundations
through their built structures. Power and strength may be codified and
packaged for regional consumption and in this way the religious build-
ing is imbued with layered meanings. During the fourteenth through
sixteenth centuries, the Ottoman mosque underwent substantial
design transformations. To investigate these, I am interested in con-
necting an historical and theoretical architectural perspective with
archaeology. Though this study is primarily concerned with the reli-
gious building typologies developed during Ottoman times, these
structures remain in the extant landscape.
The allure and mystery behind the persistent contradictions
and social conflicts inherent in todays Turkey with its enduring
ancient traditions can be viewed through the ubiquitous mosque
(cami). When studying some of the existing literature on Ottoman
architecture, there are several who have written on specific buildings,
their elements and the societal factors surrounding them. Yet, there
are three to whom I will first call attention to, as they have written
copiously on this broad subject as well as on the specifics. It appears
that most scholarly work dealing with the Ottoman mosque is
primarily concerned with experimentation in structural technology
(and then current capabilities) as the major catalyst for producing
ALISON B. SNYDER Department of Architecture, University of Oregon, Eugene,
Oregon 97403.
219
220 Alison B. Snyder
new design configurations, mentioning light and lighting as a byprod-
uct (for example, Godfrey Goodwins 1971 A History of Ottoman
Architecture, Dogan Kubans 1985 Muslim Religious Architecture:
Development of Religious Architecture in Later Periods and a 1997
paper in Muqarnas, and Aptullah Kurans 1986 Sinan: The Grand Old
Master of Ottoman Architecture ). To date, there has been no formal
analysis that traces mosque design transformation during the four-
teenth through sixteenth centuries in Turkey especially with regard
to light.
Giving credence to the concept of looking at how light is handled
with respect to the design of ancient structures, one might consider
the best of current architecture. Twentieth-century architects around
the world have worked with and have been inspired by designing with
light in their religious (and secular) buildings. Perhaps the most well-
known are Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, and Aero Saarinen, as well as,
current architecture such as Tadao Andos or Steven Holls chapels,
and Louis Kahns or Pietro Belluschis synagogues. (Others such as
Jean Nouvel, Norman Foster, and Ricardo Legorreta consistently use
light to inspire their secular designs.) The essence of light has and con-
tinues to be explored literally and metaphorically by many authors,
philosophers, scientists and lighting designers. By focusing on the
influence and perception of light with regard to the designing of archi-
tecture, and here, specifically the mosque, a richer understanding and
more comprehensive view will be gained. Look into these buildings in
a way that you may not have before to see that both natural and man-
made (or manufactured) light may be considered the protagonists of
mosque design.
In this study, light becomes the prime catalyst for structural inno-
vation, for changing spatial qualities and for effecting the temporal
aspects of Ottoman formalism. The study of light as a primary archi-
tectural element stresses a departure from the more traditional and
typical methods of architectural or archaeological analysis usually
based upon the tangible. Light is ever-present and is a most elusive
architectural element; and yet, it can be shaped and used in a variety
of ways. Religious buildings embody rational humanistic and visceral
spiritual ideals. Though they may retain and employ some secular styl-
istic or historically recognizable architectural forms, they differ from
the secular in an ethereal way. A study of light and form-making from
an architectural and archaeological perspective therefore exposes
several viewpoints. By focusing on the use of and need for light, a more
enhanced model of how one looks into buildings is suggested and may
result in a different way of seeing.
9. Transformations, Readings, and Visions of the Ottoman Mosque 221
There are also general implications and meanings generated by a
study of light and building structure. Calling both of these essential
building components, allows them to form a basis for research that
may be germane when analyzing ancient or modern, and religious or
secular structures. In buildings from other past (and existing) cultures,
the way light is controlled may be the basis for analyzing the function
and usage of specific rooms and areas as well as their level of impor-
tance. The discovery of natural and manufactured lighting techniques
are as important as other independently found material culture. For
instance, one might also analyze a structure by looking at the siting
or environmental orientation along with its relationship to other build-
ings, the selection of materials, the general layout and procession of
space, the conceptual theories behind it and its aesthetics. Then, based
upon some or all of these elements, symbolic and rational meanings
may be formulated with levels of meaning to recover that are both
visible and non-visible (Locock 1994).
Is this study of the architectural implications of light archaeolog-
ical? Can the study of the usage and meanings behind these structures
be included in an archaeology of the Ottoman empire? Many struc-
tures built during the Ottoman Empire still exist in many of the
regions once under its rule. Remnants of Ottoman lifestyle and culture
persist though the Republic of Turkey has been in existence since the
early 1920s. Archaeologists, therefore, have the advantage of this
recent Ottoman history with much of the material culture, such as
architecture, intact. By deliberately focusing on this as a continuum,
these monuments implicitly embody clues towards function, spatial
usage, regional context and a relationship to economic expenditure. If
archaeology is the recovery and study of previous cultures through
either excavation and/or extrapolation of information from material
culture and text, this study re-exposes a changing religious architec-
ture to form a broader archaeological analysis of the past with a simul-
taneous regard for the present. To examine these structures
(chronologically over approximately three hundred years) is to express
formal and theoretical means of comprehending and reinterpreting
their usage, space and design with a particular relationship to light.
Layering of this information as an archaeological palimpsest allows
for a unique product.
The connection between a changing architectural form with
respect to imperial ideology (and cultural necessities) needs to be
addressed. This would will be hard to trace, but size and configuration
undoubtedly relates to changing Ottoman requirements. Was the
praying population (and the liturgy) at least partially responsible for
some of the formal stylistic or symbolic changes? Were the designers,
be they engineers or architects, working on their own ideas of aes-
thetics and use of geometry rather than providing purely functional
solutions? This study seeks to consider some of these issues.
As mentioned above, several historians of Ottoman architecture
have written on various aspects of Ottoman mosque design. The direc-
tion on which some have focused in relation to structure and some-
times light is different from the premises put forth in this study.
Authors such as Goodwin, Kuban and Kuran as mentioned above, as
well as Ara Altun (1990), Jale Erzen (1986, 1988), Gulru Necipoglu
(1985, 1993), and Arthur Stratton (1971), support beliefs that design
change is a result of wanting to innovate structurally in order to
achieve certain other goals. Some discuss the relationships between
the spread of imperial power and cultural or social necessities, as well
as, an interest in perfecting an aesthetic, in the context of design
change. The result of bringing light into structures is discussed by
some, though in a less than systematic way. Only Orhan Bolak, whose
work is covered in later research produced a study based upon light
in six Istanbul mosques, yet his methodology and the thrust of his
arguments are quite different than in this study. The previous works
augment this research; yet new analyses come about by systematically
deriving a variety of meanings from a much larger sampling over a
much longer period of time.
The following are brief critiques of how mosque design has been
previously analyzed. This topic is certainly a complex one, so only some
of the issues can be dealt with here. Also, there is quite a lot of mate-
rial on the sixteenth century during the apex of the Empire when the
most well-known architect, Sinan (1505ca. 1588), had a fifty-year
building history which enabled him to have the major influence over
Ottoman mosque form. It should be noted that Goodwin, Kuban,
Kuran and Altun have concentrated on other centuries, as well as the
sixteenth century, with other scholars remarking where an earlier
building type precedent is important to their argument. In the dis-
cussion below, specific mention is made when an author refers to
lightmost of which is naturalas manufactured light is rarely noted.
In Goodwins comprehensive volume on Ottoman design, he
invokes the imperial conquest, its building traditions, and use of mate-
rials while light is only sometimes described. At times he will actually
give a sense of how a window type, or even a hanging fixture, distrib-
utes light into the immediate space, but there is no effort to do more
than describe aesthetically or to interpret over time or really compare
within the typology. There are also no direct statements relating these

descriptions to structural changes except in the most general way.
Kuban, has written a great deal on Ottoman culture and building
structure with regard to their meanings. He sets up many comparisons
and contrasts between Ottoman building precedents and contempo-
rary European movements such as the Renaissance. Included in some
of his descriptions of mosques are passages which say Sinans
sixteenth-century mosques are filled with light in comparison to a
church; or that the faade elements are there to aid in shaping the
total ensemble based on the volumetric centrality of being capped by
the semi-domes and main dome above. At different times, Kuban says
that providing light through masterful fenestration was functional and
efficient (providing a relationship between the exterior and interior),
as well as, achieving just the right amount of visibility to see all the
articulation of interior detail. Yet, with all his attention to light he
writes about it in a beautiful yet general fashion, rather than truly
discussing and tracking the incredible changes that have been pur-
posely worked into the designs. Aptullah Kurans research on Sinan is
perhaps the most extensive survey, mostly forming a basis of support
for the ubiquitous classical style or centralized single-dome design
noted before. He, like several of the others, believes that the dome is
most important element in the design of the Ottoman mosque. Kuran
is interested in conceptual inventiveness in theory, but says the
largeness of these buildings increased the need for the articulation
of the facades. This is another allusion to the fenestration being a
byproduct, as opposed to conceiving of methods to achieve more light
from the outset.
To continue with this review of the literature, Ara Altuns survey
of mosques built by Ottoman and other Muslim sects during the
fourteenth century or earlier considers spatial change with regard to
function, regional power structures, available technology and aesthetic
while barely mentioning light. Jale Erzen is interesting in that she is
actually concerned with the transformation and composition of wall
surfaces in sixteenth-century mosques. While invoking the European
movement, Mannerism, her discussion is concerned with what she
calls stylistic changes that result from the structure that supports the
dome. She follows Sinans work and breaks it into three time phases
related to the plan or base forms for the domes (square, hexagon,
octagon). Of all of the faade elements, she singles out the windows
and their rows and groupings, as most effective in expressing the hier-
archy of the spaces in Sinans evolution of design yet she does not
discuss the quality of the light and lighting techniques as fully. One
also wishes that this work on prototypical window shapes and types
were compared visually through many more diagrams so as to arrive
at even more layers of meaning than is discussed. Necipoglu, on the
other hand, describes mosque design and structure mostly through
imperial rule as well as the role and goals of the architect. Her writing
touches on the fifteenth-century mosques, with the rooms that housed
caravansary visitors and dervish sects, as they gave way to the cen-
tralized schemes of the sixteenth century that represent the later,
more centralized Ottoman government. While covering the issues of
monumentality in the sixteenth-century Suleymaniye mosque, she
does include one passage written about the divine light entering the
qibla wall (the wall oriented towards Mecca which contains the sym-
bolic mihrab niche) and the heavenly oil lamps lighting the night time
interior but, this poetic yet scant mention of light is only a small part
of her analyses regarding the changes in mosque design. Perhaps the
best-known biography of the architect, Sinan, is by Arthur Stratton.
He describes Sinans work poetically and functionally. While, it seems,
Stratton is seeking to explain as much as possible on the impetus
behind a specific mosque, he will at times give a count of the windows
and describe their arrangements. But, while he regards the changes
of form in the Ottoman Mosque worthy of praise, he, like some of the
others does not seek to argue these changes based upon the desire for
light and lighting techniques over engineering and style.
To finish, to the best of my knowledge, Orhan Bolak (1967) is
the only person to attempt a study of light with regard to Ottoman
mosque design. In his publication, the results of light and lighting
are examined through a selection of five Istanbul sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century Ottoman mosques along with the Byzantine
church turned mosque, the Haghia Sophia. He states the major
methods of bringing in natural light and the need for hanging light
fixtures. He also compares and contrasts church design from contem-
porary and several historical periods. Yet, this study does not trace a
development sequentially nor does it cover earlier mosque typologies.
Bolaks argument is mostly comprised of qualitative and quantitative
analyses based upon taking a series of light level readings inside each
structure with hand-held lumen-measuring monitors. While also con-
firming that the use of domes functions as good light distributors
Bolaks work is impor-tant because of his inventive use of light lumen
technology to try to prove what others have said through observation
and research (the compared results found that the later mosques
allowed more light in), but the study lacks a comprehensive body of
buildings to allow for a broader diachronic investigation of light and
formal change.

DOCUMENTATION AND STUDY
Research has, so far, consisted of visiting nine cities all located in
the modern republic of Turkey to document a selection of existing
mosques. The mosques are located in the three Ottoman capitals-
Bursa, Edirne, and Istanbul, and in significant Ottoman provincial
capitals such as Amasya, Manisa, Iznik, Kayseri, Konya, And Sivas.
Of the more than thirty-five structures surveyed, only a few are
selected for discussion here.
To document and record the usage and perception of the interior
spaces; and, the use of, or absence of light (both natural and manu-
factured), color and black and white photographs were taken at dif-
ferent times of the day and evening. Photographs attempt to capture
and explain the perception of spatial changes resulting from light as
realistically as possible. They show the materiality of the enclosures,
the aesthetic detail and the other elements of design. Drawings, such
as plans and sections, are used to show the relative scale of spaces
throughout the entire building. Further interpretive and analytical
drawings utilize the plans and sections to express other information
related to the layering of light and lighting as they impact different
aspects of a design (see Figures 9.19.3).
MOSQUE FORMS AND LIGHTING
TYPES: A VOCABULARY
The evolution of Ottoman mosque forms will be categorized here
through three functional or architectural descriptions with the third
form also describing a kind of ideology. The first mosque type is the
multi-cell which mostly occurs during the fourteenth century after the
break-up of the Selcuk Empire. Its form has its basis in the earlier
Selcuk mosques along with building elements found in Central and
West Asia. Second, there is the double-dome type which roughly falls
within the fifteenth century and reflects mostly ancient regional forms
with strong ties to Byzantine building traditions. The third is the
single-dome type which will also be referred to, here, as the empire-
style. This type continued to influence later mosque designs and this
period has been commonly called the Ottoman classical period (e.g.,
Kuran 1986, 1996). To clarify the idea behind the empire-style, most
sixteenth-century single-domed mosques are considered imperial since
they were commissioned by or for the Sultan, his relatives or even, for
example, a Grand Vizir working under him. Mosques of this period and
thereafter, reinforced the wealth and greatness of the Empire,
glorified their benefactor and his political aspirations and projected
a religious unity. The prominent and prolific architect, Sinan,
was credited with establishing the single-dome empire-style during
the sixteenth century while serving the Sultans Sleyman, Selim
and Murad III.
By using a chronological framework, we are able to see three dis-
tinct architectural typologies which fit roughly within 100 year seg-
ments of time. As the Ottoman empire grew, its building forms did not
necessarily reflect a clear progression of scale, in fact, the buildings
during these three centuries begin fairly large, then reduce in size and
eventually become much larger. Most visible in the three-dimensional
transformation of mosques during the fourteenth through sixteenth
centuries is the shift from a horizontal to a vertical orientation. Spa-
tially, the multi-cell type, built mostly in the fourteenth century, is ori-
ented horizontally. It is followed by the fifteenth-century double-dome
type which acts as a spatial transition between the horizontal and ver-
tical. The vertical volume, then, is mostly explored in the single-dome
empire-style mosques that follow. This ability to eventually build
higher (and thus change the viewers orientation) is partially a result
of the construction capabilities with an added interest towards some
innovation of form. It also seems to represent or symbolize the move-
ment toward a more centralized and strong governing power
(Necipoglu 1985; Kuban 1985; Kuran 1987)
.
It is my belief that the transformation of form is not only reflected
in the layout of fenestration, but that the want and need for more
light led to structural and facade experimentation which resulted in
lighter masonry structures. It is important to note that Ottoman
religious architecture does not use light to directly produce a reli-
gious mystical symbolism as in a church (Kuban 1987), but a rich
vocabulary of lighting systems were developed and are essential to
reading and interpreting the meaning behind the spatial characteris-
tics of the Ottoman mosque. Therefore, light is also brought in as
a functional necessity, as a definer of space and volume, as a reinforcer
of rhythmic procession, and as a multi-layered decorative patterning
element.
Light is literally brought into the Ottoman mosque in two dis-
tinctive methods. During the day, natural light is brought inside,
intentionally, from the exterior through various types of punched open-
ings or fenestration. The four window opening types are the prayer
window, the layered masonry window, the crown window and the
oculus. In addition to natural daylight, hanging light fixtures of
various scales and configurations were developed as the primary
manufactured lighting for darker days, or night-time usage. The ring-
lighting, a versatile type of light fixture was able to light a large space
with very little bulk. This fixture is described in more detail later and
is most splendidly developed with the single-dome interiors. Because
the mosque is used in times of darkness as well as in daylight, an inter-
esting phenomenon takes place relating to the perception of light and
the interior volumes. Each type of lighting or fenestration has its own
visual prominence producing radically different results at different
times. Solid-void or figure-ground patterning make up the interior
(and exterior) faades.
Case Study I: The Great Mosque
Each mosque type will be discussed through a separate case-study.
The first type of mosque in the transformation towards the single-
dome empire-style is the multi-cell Eski or Ulu Cami, translated as
old mosque or great mosque. These mosques were used as the Friday
mosque, or the mosque that drew the common and high-ranking people
to pray on the holiest day of the week. Good examples are the Bursa
Ulu Cami completed in 1399, the Ulu Cami in Manisa, completed in
1366, and the Edirne Eski Cami, completed in 1414. These mosques
usually have an entrance facade that is strong and massive yet less
detailed than their Selcuk predecessors or the larger mosques that
follow. Generally, this early Ottoman mosque type is made up of a
series of cells, divided by columns, which are roofed collectively under
a flat ceiling with an exposed beam structure, by a series of separate
decorative domes of varying sizes and shapes or, by a combination of
the two. The interiors seem to go on repeating forever as the spatial
thrust of these mosques is purely horizontal.
Here, structural clarity and function literally serve the needs of
Moslem prayer. Those praying, enter the mosque and stand in random
places praying silently as the space fills up with people. To prepare for
group prayer, they organize themselves and line up in parallel rows
facing the qibla wall. As they are led through prayer recitation and
movement, they bend at the waist, kneel on the floor and bow their
heads to itup and down, up and down, in unison. This type of human
organization and ritualistic dance-like movement appears to directly
reinforce the architectural layout and organization of the great
mosques.
Light is brought into the mosque in a functional yet seemingly
unorganized method. There is no real geometrical pattern on the
interior facades to speak of; but, as exemplified in the Manisa Ulu
Cami, there can be a strong figure-ground relationship. In Manisa,
it is important to note that there is a courtyard before entering
the sanctuary, and light is brought inside through windows placed up
high on the entry wall which serves as the division and portal between
the exterior and interior. While only incidental at the interior,
this window placement allows for a more unified reading of the facade
facing the entry court. There are few window punctures along the
qibla wall as a result of the mosque having been built into the side
of a hill. Yet, a so-called pattern of indentations on this wall begin
to suggest a substitute figure-ground fenestration-like arrangement.
In addition, this early mosque has a small dome centered in front of
the mihrab; yet it is without an oculus opening to the sky. The manu-
factured or supplemental light used in this and other great mosques
generally comes from individual hanging light fixtures that are rela-
tively small modern chandeliers and are centered within each cell. In
the case of the Manisa Ulu Cami, there are two light fixtures on axis
with the mihrab niche, which appear to compete since they are stylis-
tically different.
In a sense, the lack of a strict or complex interior pattern in these
mosques allows for a reading of a series of distinct spaces, whose pres-
ence de-emphasizes the whole. This is the case with the Ulu Cami in
Bursa. The fenestration is spare and the windows seem to be small
and out of scale with the large and expansive walls. The most promi-
nent element of this mosque is experienced upon entry. A glazed dome
allows for a flood of natural light over an ablutions fountain below. Yet,
this dome is not in the center of the mosque but it acts as the visual
pivot as one is always aware of the penetration of this natural light
from anywhere within the large cellular space. Again, there are also
separate light fixtures set within the center of the cells delicately
illuminating the zones in between the grid of support columns (see
Figure 9.1).
I question why light is less carefully manipulated in the older
structures. The multi-cell structures were certainly not expressions of
the most daring masonry technology though there was experimenta-
tion and substantial variations within the type. I would not describe
these mosques as graceful but there is a heavy sculptural beauty to
them. Indeed, the double-dome mosques that followed differed sub-
stantially from the multi-cell. They begin to touch upon the evolution
of form that culminated in the 1600s.
Figure 9.1. Interior photograph and floor plan sketch of Ulu Cami and dome location
in Bursa.
Case Study II: Readings of the Double-Dome
Building scale, formal layout and lighting technique details
changed radically in the fifteenth century. An influential precedent for
the double-dome mosque was most likely the Byzantine church since
there were many surviving as the Ottomans took over control of the
land (in fact, the Ottomans kept many of these churches and renovated
them into mosques). The Kariye Mosque (Church of St. Savior in
Chora), still standing in Istanbul, shows an example of Byzantine
aggregation of detailed domed forms and intricate brick and stonework
some of which looks to have found its way into this later time period of
building.
These double-dome mosques were used differently than the multi-
cell great mosques. Some refer to them as zawiye mosques, or those
that have separate side and upper level rooms used for other functions
than prayer. It is also said that some of these mosques housed itiner-
ant Moslem mystical sects (dervish) and that they acted as multi-
functional local or regional houses of worship (Goodwin 1971;
Necipoglu 1985) instead of acting only as the main prayer gatherers
as the great mosques did
.
One of the most outstanding double-dome mosques is found in
Bursa, the first capital of the Empire. The Sultan, Celebi Mehmet Han,
set about having his mosque built in 1414. Called the Yesil Cami, it is
placed facing a courtyard yet plans for a five bay domed portico were
never carried out because of the Sultans death in 1421, so essentially
only the construction of details was finished by 1424. Though the build-
ing stands incomplete, the facade is all the more readable and
analyzable.
Procession is emphasized more formally in the double-dome type.
The ornate masonry work and unusual fenestration gives a clue that
this mosque had multiple functions. From the exterior, light appears
to be let into different spaces and rooms before one even reaches the
first domed space. A transition is made from the exterior world to the
interior with the use of a dimly lit passageway. In this mosque, a sleep-
ing and receiving quarters with royal loge rooms are located above the
passageway for the Sultan to have used during his travels on caravan.
As in all Ottoman mosques, the main entrance of the Yegil Cami is
aligned on axis with the mihrab niche. The emphasis on this horizon-
tal path, in architectural terms, is significant.
Though there are great similarities of plan type and form in the
double-dome mosque, there are many variations in terms of the detail.
Domes differ in scale and in the type of fenestration providing natural
light. In the Yesil Cami, the first dome emits a ray of light from the
oculus and is crowned by four windows at the base of the dome. This
arrangement does not point to any one special place; it tells us only
that this is the space with the ablutions fountain below, preceding the
main sanctuary. The second dome over this sanctuary has been lit with
eight crown windows which when combined with the typically raised
platform spanning the entire space under the second dome, provides
a different volumetric feeling as compared with the first. In addition,
the space under the second dome is perceived differently because of
the two prayer windows in the qibla wall and one on each adjacent
wall all set close to the floor. After acknowledging and experiencing
the two separate vertical spaces beneath the domes, the eye is pulled
horizontally towards the symbolic qibla wall. A simple yet effective
pattern of fenestration begins to set off this important wall from the
others particularly with the deep-set windows which serve to anchor
the design. This trend will be defined in the mosques following.
The manufactured light fixtures here and in other double-dome
mosques are placed in the center of the main domes in the form of a
chandelier. In the broadest sense they are used as area lighting. Other
lighting appears in modern strip fluorescents on the qibla wall and at
the exterior entrances whose placement works with and against the
fenestration pattern. This sort of unsophisticated yet largely unobtru-
sive use of manufactured fixtures is also seen in the earlier multi-cell
type. Though the scale of the double-dome mosques is not large, most
of the double-dome mosques are relatively dark inside even during the
day as a result of the limited fenestration and insufficient hanging
fixtures.
There are other ways of viewing and comprehending the double-
dome mosques. The placement of fenestration and other decorative
forms of punctuation reveal the possibility of discovering sacred mean-
ings and correlations between the walls within a structure. By study-
ing the geometric and proportional divisions of interior facade-work in
the 14th- and 15th-Centuries, figure-ground readings are perceivable
when comparing the same facades in daylight and times of darkness
(see Fig. 2).
Good examples of decorative patterning are seen on the royal loge
facade of the Yegil Cami opposite a related qibla wall. The dynamic
relationship posed between the two is more apparent when daylight is
not present. Another special interior relationship exists with reading
the qibla wall of the U Serefeli Cami, built in 1447, in Edirne. Also
more easily perceived in times of darkness, this wall possesses a geo-
metrical quality not unlike military talisman shirts and the spatial
qualities depicted in Turkish miniature art of the 15th-Century. A third
example of wall patterning exists in some of the earlier Ulu or Eski
type mosques. In the Ulu Cami at Bursa, the massive columns have
graphic inscriptions from the Koran which compete with the fenes-
tration pattern, but when comparing with the Eski Cami at Edirne,
the painted walls tend towards a somewhat looser composition of over-
sized Koranic and Sultanic calligraphy sending literal messages that
also enliven the space. In a sense, the decoration is so large and
Figure 9.2. Photgraph of the interior of the Yesil Cami in Bursa (above) and a sketch
of the decorative patterning on the royal loge facade opposite a related qibla wall (below).
powerful it tends to obscure and then de-emphasize the reality of the
massive walls and their openings. All of these examples of decoration
and fenestration find their basis in the development of Islamic geo-
metric patterning which came to be in the absence of human repre-
sentationa specification of the teachings in the Koran. In this
analysis, interior facades must have evolved to be seen and understood
as a layer of not only aesthetic but sacred meaning. This link to a pos-
sible sacred geometry is subtle and enhances the building. Later, in
the sixteenth century, the development of large dome-making becomes
synonymous with the inclusion of Iznik ceramic tiles which take the
place of the earlier geometric patterns and create new dynamics with
the more plentiful and sophisticated fenestration.
Case Study III: Reaching Toward the
Haghia Sophia: The Empire-Style
Double-dome zawiye structures are basically discontinued by the
beginning of the sixteenth century as the dervish sects decrease and
the Empire becomes more unified (Necipoglu 1985). To proclaim the
imperial power of the Sultans, the architectural expression of the
single-dome empire-style strove to equal and surpass the vast and
striking 6th-Century Byzantine monument, the Haghia Sophia or
Church of Divine Wisdom. Dedicated by Emperor Justinian of Con-
stantinople in 537 AD, it has survived dome collapses and earthquakes.
It was renovated into a mosque shortly after Mehmet conquered the
city in 1453 and in 1935, more than a decade after the collapse of the
Ottoman Empire and the beginning of the Turkish republic, it was con-
verted into a secular museum. It stands today in Istanbul as a monu-
ment still revered for the wonder of its age, scale, beauty and quality
of light. In a sense, it has been rivaled, but never equaled.
So, in reaching towards the Haghia Sophia, the single-dome
mosque starts to develop a lighter masonry structure that allows for
growth in size and more luminosity. The U Qerefeli Cami begins to
express some of these changes. Built in Edirne, in 1447, it is seen by
historians (Goodwin 1971; Kuban 1985) as the mosque that bridged
the earlier designs with the laterfrom the multi-cell to the em-
pire-style.
Having visited the U Serefeli Cami in the rain, in the light of day
and the darkness of the evening, it is among this authors favorites
because of its indifference to the rules of proportion and its lack of
slender elegance. Enter through the exterior courtyard from the side
street and continue into the inner sanctuary of the mosque. The feeling
of leaving one world and going towards another is profoundly experi-
enced. Sometimes one is completely alone and at other times there may
be groups of school children using the mosque as an interior play-
ground. One is confronted with an expansive space under the central
dome that immediately forces the user and viewer to try to compre-
hend the weight of the building. Perhaps clumsy, perhaps daring, the
disregard for the external world is at work here. At the same time, one
is very aware of the thin veil of light hanging above, while facing the
mihrab. It seems that just the right amount of light is produced by
this minimal fixture which is some twelve feet above the floorapprox-
imately one-quarter of the distance to the top of the dome. Instead of
a group of concentric flat horizontal circles mimicking the dome, there
are concentric rectangles filling the space. The center is filled with an

obviously modern chandelier of a large scale which destroys the subtle
beauty of the rectangles. To enjoy the square lighting system one must
try to understand it in architectural terms. This concentration on the
center continues to be emphasized in later mosques and here, the long
rectangular interior is echoed and therefore explained by the lighting
while complimenting the dome above and surrounding deep-set prayer
windows.
The U Serefeli is most remarkably a nighttime space when an
opposite life for this weighty mosque structure comes alive. Fantastic
shadows produced by the manufactured light are thrown onto the thick
muqarnas, the stalactite-like decoration found at the base of the dome
and on the arches below (as well as in other wall niches). The massive
and imposing feeling of this single-dome mosque recalls the plan and
form of the Manisa multi-cell mosque (Goodwin 1971) and some of the
weightiness yet openness of the fourteenth-century mosques in Bursa
and the Sokollu Mehmet Paga Cami in Istanbul.
The Sokollu Mehmet Paga Cami is a small but significant mosque
in Istanbul situated not far from the Haghia Sofia. The design was
conceived by the most well-known architect and prolific builder during
the Ottoman Empire. Sinans career spanned from 1538 to his death
in 1588; and, this mosque is an interesting example of his later work.
It is suggested by Dogan Kuban (1985) that Sinan experimented and
adapted the plan of the U Serefeli Cami and when comparing the
plans of these two mosques. This appears to be true. In this design,
Sinans plan is essentially a hexagon inscribed in a square, while the
U Serefeli Cami is a hexagon inscribed in a rectangle. Though in
terms of structure, mass and light the two are very different. In plan,
Sinan worked carefully with geometry and proportion, and he utilized
light to accentuate his three-dimensional form while continuing his
exploration of the (dome) circle-in-the-square or hexagon or octagon
plan forms. Using the hexagon and six arches as a dome support, he
provided a more perforated and splayed-open interior than those of his
even larger square plans (Snyder 1992).
Built in 157172 for Esmahan Sultan, the daughter of Selim II
and the wife of the Grand Vezir, Sokollu Mehmet Pasa, Sinan was able
to use the sites steep hill to his advantage. The strict axis between
the entrance and the mihrab is adhered to as exemplified in the earlier
mosques. Upon entering the mosques domain from the street, one is
confronted with the first shift of outside lightness into darkness. One
travels through a gate and up a flight of covered stairs which allows
a glimpse of the ablutions fountain above. At the top, one is doubly
aware of the brightness of being outside again while also being within
the mosques exterior rectangular courtyard enclosed by a medrese or
Koran school. Passing the fountain and crossing to and then through
the domed portico into the mosque, ones eyes adjust to the final inte-
rior space. The theory, that the culmination of the Ottoman mosque
form is predicated on the verticality of the unifying central dome, is
realized here. Immediately, the compressed volume of this highly
sophisticated interior forces the viewers eyes to be drawn to the
termination of the axisthe glistening Iznik-tiled qibla wall opposite
the entrance.
The compressed nature of the hexagonal space under the dome,
allows for close inspection of the lighting elements. Following this
ornate wall from bottom to top, one is aware that light is emitted
through punctures in the wall and ceiling region, engulfing the viewer.
Typical Ottoman fenestration techniques of various shapes and sizes
are used in a harmonious way. The primary walls in the design are set
within the tall arches that support the dome above with the aid of pen-
dentives. Structurally, the walls act as infill only (not load bearing)
and therefore allow for a freely designed fenestration. The side walls
outside of the hexagonal area are comprised of two-story galleries and
employ a different structure but utilize similar fenestration techniques
to remain consistent with the rest of the mosque (see Figure 9.3).
The mosques bottom tier utilizes the typical deep-set prayer
window approximately sixteen inches above the floor on all sides of the
mosque throwing soft reflected and direct light onto the floor or prayer
surface. This window type emphasizes the thickness of the masonry
structure at the base. The layered-masonry window type is found in
the mid-section set within the walls and semi-domes under the arches
which encompass the main space beneath the central dome. Here, a
series of different sized and shaped windows are actually constructed
with two layers of glazing. One may find this construction in the mid-
section of many mosques but the view of this construction method,
is at times obscured, or less aesthetically pleasing. In the Sokollu
Mehmet Pasa, the walls adjacent to the qibla wall have excellent
examples of this type of construction. Varied decorative stained glass
windows face the interior with an airspace of approximately eight
inches separating them from an exterior screen comprised of pieces
of thick round glass, approximately six inches in diameter and set in
place with mortar. The view from within allows for us to see the layers
clearly through the more decorative colored glass and adds a further
dimension of pattern. The light from the mid-section combines with
the rest of the fenestration and produces a defracted and muted col-
orful glow. Light is admitted differently through the base of the main
Figure 9.3. The interior of U Serefeli Cami in Istanbul with a sketch of the interior
architectural design.
central dome than in the mid-section as these smaller crown windows,
which are also made of two layers of glass, are arranged in a circle and
are designed with an uncolored yet divided geometric pattern. Their
high, unobstructed placement brings light directly into the dome
where the brightness is reflected, or captured and redistributed.
The general sense of light, as in most of the empire-style mosques,
is that of even-ness, equality and balance. The light seems to reinforce
the equality of man within his religious world, while the dome high
above may represent the heavens and greatness of Allah over man. As
stated earlier, there are other ways of perceiving interiors with the
addition and use of manufactured light.
The method of todays manufactured illumination is through the
use of electrical technology, The decline of the oil lamp was hastened
by the concept of progress and the efficiency of the brighter light bulb.
It replaced the need for the man who lowered and filled each glass cup
with oil, lit them and then raised them during the day and evening.
In making this change, the gentle flicker has been replaced by a small
punch of light much brighter than the earlier designed intention.
Many of the oil lamp fixtures described are original but have been
retrofitted with bulky wiring systems to include broadcast speakers as
well as light bulbs. Several mosques have also added incongruous elec-
trical chandeliers of various shapes and sizes, and fluorescent tube
lighting now known to be the most economical choice. In questioning
clerics and other people using the mosques, they accept rather than
question the electrification, and they are quite proud of their modern
abilities. But, these additions change the perception and purity of the
internal volumes and layered spaces.
It is my belief that the manufactured lighting of a mosque is
intentionally designed to produce a multi-layered reading within the
structure. In a sense, the additional light aids the functional needs of
prayer, as well as providing an emphasis on a horizontal space within
the vertically-oriented mosque. It is and was necessary to provide
extra light at the floor level for prayer during the dawn, dusk or night
hours as well as for use during darker days. In the Sokollu Mehmet
Paga Cami, this layer of now electrified incandescent lighting or ring-
lighting, gently yet clearly, cuts through the vertical space under the
dome. Constructed of iron and glass, essentially round and flower petal
in form, and hung on great chains from the dome above, this fixture
emphasizes the size and shape of the dome while retaining its own
independent appearance.
Other larger single-dome mosques have special fixtures such as
the large single-tier fixture seen in the Sleymaniye Cami in Istanbul
(1557), and the three-tiered lamp fixture in the Selimiye Cami in
Edirne (1575). Though these fixtures are present all the time, when
they are electrified in times of darkness the interior space is illumi-
nated and defined more dramatically. A prominent shift of spatial
usage comes from sensing two stacked vertical spaces divided by the
thin plane of horizontal light, rather than the single perceived volume
between the floor and the dome experienced when the fixture is not
illuminated (figure 9.3). The division of the space into two vanes and
is roughly a ratio of one-quarter to three-quarters or sometimes one-
fifth to four-fifths. When a mosque is filled with people for prayer, the
bottom tier is emphasized especially when the fixture is illuminated.
The horizontal plane of the light fixture becomes a veil-like transpar-
ent ceiling above the participants heads. As mentioned in the discus-
sions about positive and negative window patterns, the natural light
and manufactured lighting elements work independently and as an
ensemble to form a richer, more provocative and delineated architec-
tonic space.
CONCLUSION
The legacy of the empire-style mosque and the resurgence of reli-
gion in modern-day Turkey is evident in the number of new mosques
being built throughout the country. These new mosques seem to be a
kind of cookie-cutter design owing to the modern building industry of
cast-in-place concrete with masonry infill-in fact, they come complete
with pre-cast domes, mini-domes, mihrabs and decorative screens.
Lighting is assumed as a requirement but is treated simply and as a
functional byproduct. These structures lack a sensitivity towards
faade elements, proportion and harmony. Far from the grandeur once
evoked during the Empire, they simply attempt to continue the visual
unity of the traditional Ottoman past and current-day rise of Islam
rather than embark on a new architectural representation of our
present time, as other designers strove to do during the many periods
of the Ottoman Empire, and thereafter. Will these new-old Turkish
designs universally succeed as a place of respect both in social usage
and in town planning as the original Ottoman kulliyes, or mosque com-
plexes, continue to do?
The concept of designing for a new era as seen during the Modern
Movement and International Style in Europe and America influenced
secular and religious architecture in different areas of the Middle East
from approximately the 1920s through the 1960s. Today, there are
architects working throughout the Moslem world who are designing
new forms while respecting traditional beliefs. And, some are allowing
light to guide their designs.
It is possible to formulate archaeological and architectural corre-
lations between building structure and the use of light as more than
a resulting component of a design. And, with the advantage of a recent
Ottoman and still persistent Moslem culture, we can ascertain, infer
and even observe the cultural effects that aided in the designs of
these structures. Is there not another transformation of form that
could take place that would capture Islam in Turkey (or elsewhere)
while embodying new and continuing meanings and symbolism? In
this changing culture, are the real and ethereal meanings of the past
now lost?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to acknowledge the William Kinne Fellowship and the
Graham Foundation for the Fine Arts for early support of this
research. In addition, I would like to thank Dr. Samuel Paley for his
willingness to read interdisciplinarily.
REFERENCES
Altun, A.
1990 An Outline of Turkish Architecture in the Middle Ages. Arkeoloji ve Sanat
Yayinlari, Istanbul.
Bolak, O.
1967 Camilerin Aydinlatrlmasi Uzerinde Bir Ari. Istanbul. Istanbul Teknik niver-
sitesi Mhendislik Mimarlik Fakultesi.
Erzen, J.
1986 Stylistic Evolution of Ottoman Mosque Facades in Sinans Era. In M.E.T..
Journal of the Faculty of Architecture. Vol 7 no. 2. Orta Dogu Teknik niver-
sitesi, Ankara. pp. 105116.
1988 Sinan as Anti-Classicist. In Muqarnas, OIeg Grabar ( ed.), vol. 5. Leiden. E. J.
Brill. pp. 7086.
Goodwin, G.
1971 A History of Ottoman Architecture, Thames and Hudson, New York.
Kuban, D.
1974 Muslim Religious Architecture: The Mosque and Its Early Development, part 1,
E. J. Brill, Leiden.
1985 Muslim Religious Architecture: Development of Religious Architecture in Later
Periods, part 2, E. J. Brill, Leiden.
1987 The Style of Sinans Domed Structures. In Muqarnas, Oleg Grabar ( ed.), vol.
5. Leiden. E. J. Brill. pp. 7297.
Kuran, A.
1987 Sinan: The Grand Old Master of Ottoman Architecture, Institute of Turkish
Studies, Washington D.C., and Ada Press, Istanbul.
1996 A Spatial Study of Three Ottoman Capitals: Bursa, Edirne and Istanbul. In
Muqarnas, G. Necipoglu ( ed.), vol. 13. Leiden. E. J. Brill. pp. 114131.
Locock, M., ( ed.)
1994 Meaningful Architecture: Social Interpretations of Buildings. [Worldwide
Archaeology Series 9] Avebury (Ashgate), Brookfield.
1985 The Sleymaniye Complex in Istanbul: An Interpretation. In Muqarnas, O.
Grabar ( ed.), vol. 3. Leiden. E. J. Brill. pp. 92117.
1993 Challenging the Past: Sinan and the Competitive Discourse of Early Modern
Islamic Architecture. In Muqarnas, O. Grabar ( ed.), vol. 10. Leiden. E. J. Brill.
Necipoglu, G.
pp. 169180.
Snyder, A.
1994 Daylighting by Two Modernists and an Old Master. In Architectural Record
Lighting, November. McGraw-Hill, New York. pp. 2831.
Stratton, Arthur
1972 Sinan, Scribner, New York.
PROSPECTS
IV
The two concluding essays invite a renewed consideration of the poten-
tial of an archaeology of the Ottoman Empire. As mentioned in the
introduction, the impetus for archaeological investigation of the
Ottoman period owes a great debt to two articles published in 1989.
Neil A. Silberman presented a vision for the archaeology of the recent
past in Israel/Palestine as well as raising a series of research issues
with his essay Tobacco Pipes, Cotton Prices, and Progress in Between
Past and Present: Archaeology, Ideology, and Nationalism in the
Modern Middle East. In the following chapter, Silberman puts forward
further challenges for Middle Eastern Archaeology to include sultans,
merchants, and minorities in the study of Ottoman Empire and to con-
ceptualize, even confront, the notion of modernity itself. The goal is a
socially significant archaeology, significant not just to North American
scholars, but to the people of the region. Silberman emphasizes the
meaning of archaeology to the peoples in the successor states of the
Ottoman Empire and of the need to fully include their ancestors in
global history. Silberman underscores that, for the eastern Mediter-
ranean, confrontations with colonialism, imperialism, and ethnic con-
flicts are essential for the archaeology of the Ottoman Empire.
Archaeologists should address the very pressing issues that dominate
current social life in the region.
Philip L. Kohls The Material Culture of the Modern Era in the
Ancient Orient: Suggestions for Future Work posed questions for
archaeological research in the greater Middle East. Some of those sug-
gestions, such as locating the impact of colonialism on the shaping of
urban areas, still need to be taken up. Connecting those concerns with
his recent investigations into the intersection of nationalism and
archaeology, Kohl concludes this volume with even more insights into
the archaeology of the modern era. He highlights the themes and
future challenges for a Historical Archaeology of Southeast Europe and
the Middle East and illuminates the paradoxes for studying ethnicity
and ethnic identity with archaeology. The people of the region have a
series of understandings of how they are; the intersection of archaeol-
ogy with those local understandings will remain a challenge for
archaeologists, particularly those committed to exposing elements of
241
242 Prospects
the Ottoman Empire. Archaeological remains are discussed through-
out the volume in terms of global production and distribution; the
impact of this understanding on local histones and national identities
has yet to be evaluated.
Both concluding essays, by scholars instrumental in conceptual-
izing questions for an archaeology of the modern period in the Middle
East, are invitations to further the studies in this volume and the
task of building an archaeology of the Ottoman Empire. This
volume only starts to break ground for an archaeology of the Ottoman
Empire. Facing the challenges posed by Silberman and Kohl remains
at hand.
Sultans, Merchants, and
Minorities
The Challenge of
Historical Archaeology
in the Modern Middle East
Neil Asher Silberman
10
The fact that a group of historians and archaeologists would gather in
upstate New York in the spring of 1996 for a conference devoted
entirely to the study of the material remains of the Ottoman Empire
might suggestat least to the optimists among usthat an important
new era in the history of Historical Archaeology has begun. As I reflect
on that conference and on the papers published in this volume, I
look forward to a time when studies of the material culture of sul-
tans, caravan merchants, dervishes, kabbalists, and the mosaic of reli-
gious communities of the Middle East and Mediterranean might be
as routine at the annual meetings of the Society for Historical
Archaeology as reports about American colonial forts, plantations, and
factory towns. Its not that Im hoping for the disciplines mere geo-
graphic expansionthough that would surely not be a bad thing in
itself (as forcefully advocated in Orser 1996). It is rather that I firmly
believe that the intellectual integration of the study of the post-
medieval material remains of both the old world and the new world
could fundamentally challenge and redirect Historical Archaeologys
quest to understand colonialism, capitalism, and the genesis of modern
life.
These words, I know, may sound like so much politically-
correct megalomania, especially since the projects discussed at the
NEIL ASHER SILBERMAN Ename Center for Public Archaeology, Beaucarnestraat 17,
B9700 Oudenaarde, Belgium.
243
244 Neil Asher Silberman
Binghamton conference were for the most part small and daringly
entrepreneurial by the standards of the huge, massively-funded expe-
ditions that are still all too common in the archaeology of the Middle
Eastern and Classical worlds. And the idealistic vision of a truly mul-
ticultural Historical Archaeology may seem a tad ironic in light of the
conferences almost exclusive methodological concentration on con-
sumption patterns, ethnic identity, agricultural technology, and
housing utilization. These analytical categories and economic concepts
are the bedrock of archaeological research agendas formulated by and
within the rather homogeneous academic culture of Europe and the
United States (Leone 1995; Patterson 1987).
Yet I would argue that there is a fundamental difference. Over the
last ten years, Ive watched as the components of a new archaeologi-
cal discipline began to appear in scattered Middle Eastern research
projects and salvage operations, here and there, in the shadows and
in the aftermath of the great expeditions that strip-mined rich sites
for biblical and classical antiquities. The raw materials were the
scraps of material culture unearthed almost by chance in the course
of large scale excavations or modern development projects: the sugar
cones and molasses bottles of Venetian and Ottoman Cyprus (von
Wartburg 1983); the hundreds of clay pipe bowls from the upper levels
of Corinth and the Kerameikos district of Athens (Robinson 1983,
1985); the village architecture of Jordan (Khammash 1986) and of
northern Yemen (Niewhner-Eberhard 1985); the remains of Palestin-
ian villages abandoned since 1948 (Khalidi 1992); and the design and
physical layout of late nineteenth-century Zionist settlements in
Ottoman Palestine (Ben-Artzi 1988). These were all fragments of a
larger picture that seemed to meat leastto provide a deeper under-
standing of the process I then innocently considered modernization in
the Mediterranean and Middle East.
Of course, the public interest in post-medieval remains was and
still is quite superficial in most countries of the region. Restoration
projects devoted to remains of the Ottoman period were usually meant
to do little more than consolidate crumbling (if exotic looking) struc-
tures for reuse in the tourist trade. In most cases, hard currency,
funneled through various international aid agencies, has been used to
fund a variety of Cultural-Resource-Management-type projects, moti-
vated primarily by economic development or dutiful historical com-
memoration. Yet there was one project I had the opportunity to observe
in the mid-1980s that made a conscious attempt to connect the study
of material remains with an evolving, modern political and cultural
reality.
10. Sultans, Merchants, and Minorities 245
In 1982 or 1983, a small expedition from Bir Zeit University on the
West Bank began to excavate some outlying houses in the Palestinian
village of Taanneka village located on the slopes of a huge Bronze
and Iron Age mound (Ziadeh 1987 and this volume). That site, the bib-
lical Tel Taanach, is well known in the archaeological literature, but
the reports of the German and American expeditions there revealed
almost nothing of the post-biblical history of the site (as seen in the
bibliographic references in Glock [1997]). It was almost as if the lives
and culture of the modern villagers (who incidentally served as the
excavation laborers) were utterly inconsequential to anyones history.
In digging down through the ruins-through the squatter occupa-
tion of 1948 refugeesthrough the first evidence of the 19th-century
economic transformation of Palestine-to the earlier eras of Ottoman
administration of the country, the director of the expedition, Professor
Albert Glock, a longtime expatriate American scholar who had founded
the Department of Archaeology at Bir Zeit University, sensed that
North American Historical Archaeology could provide his Palestinian
students with some important conceptual tools. Even if Stan South,
Jim Deetz, and Mark Leone had no interest in, or perhaps even knowl-
edge of, sultans, caravan merchants, or Middle Eastern minorities,
Glock recognized that the study of the material remains of the last few
centuries could reveal that the modern lives and struggles of both
Israelis and Palestinians had perhaps more to do with 18th- and 19th-
century material transformations than with any ancient conquest of
biblical kings.
In time, Glock and his Palestinian students met with like-minded
Israelis to explore the real archaeology of the Arab-Israeli conflict. But
that was all before the violence and counter-violence of the Palestin-
ian Intifada and Glocks still unsolved murder. Historical Archaeology,
carried out against the grain in highly charged political contexts, can
indeed be a business that is taken very seriously.
* * *
What I want to stress in the next few pages is that from my per-
spective as a historian of archaeologyrather than a digger-there is
a very specific historical and political atmosphere in the Middle
East that mitigates against the success of Historical Archaeology. And
its an element that Historical Archaeologys would-be practitioners
can ignore only at their own risk. Historical Archaeology in much of
the region is not, I insist, merely a matter of collecting information
about subjects and periods that have long been neglected; it is a chal-
lenge to the accepted boundaries of archaeology itself. For in most of
the countries of the region where otherwise strict antiquities laws
decree that material remains later than 1600 or 1700 are more than
removable garbage, the very act of Historical Archaeology is immedi-
ately confronted with vast, ongoing archaeological destruction, coupled
with the arrogant dismissal of the importance of these later remains
by both biblical and classical archaeologists (Silberman 1991).
There is a coherent and dangerous ideology that validates both
the destruction and the arrogance. Lets call it the Golden Age myth.
One telling example of material culture should be enough to tell the
story: the sculptured relief above the entrance of the Oriental Insti-
tute of the University of Chicago, carved in the 1920s, in which the
justification for western archaeological in the Middle Eastthen and
nowis made clear (as pointed out by Larsen 1990). On the right-
and easternside, is an Egyptian priest standing beside a sacred lion,
surrounded by the iconic rendering of sphinx, pyramids, obelisks, and
assorted Hittite, Assyrian, Mesopotamian, and Persian kings. He is
handing a scroll of wisdom westward to a white American male draped
with what appears to be a towel, standing next to a buffalo, surrounded
by a Greek philosopher, Roman emperor, armored crusader, and, of
course, a modern archaeologist. Behind them is a different set of icons:
the Parthenon, the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and the soaring tower
of the Nebraska State Capitol.
Needless to say, there are no women in this picture, nor is there
a Jew or a Muslim (despite the Crusader), or even any symbolic indi-
cation that the right side and the left side of the picture, divided by
time, are also divided by thousands of miles of geographical space. This
is an image in which the modern nations of the West are the true inher-
itors of Ancient Middle Eastern civilization (Silberman 1995). The
modern peoples of the region, standing quietly in the background, have
apparently been left out of the will. The only way they can apparently
gain a share of the inheritance was to learn archaeology from western
scholars, at places like the Oriental Institute. And what are the con-
tents of the inheritance? They are the material evidence of the things
most prized in modern western civilization: urban life, technology,
centralized administration, institutionalized religion, and military
supremacy.
What makes this self-validating reading of Middle Eastern history
so pernicious is that when nation-states arose in the region after World
War II, the Golden Age myth was easily adaptable to nationalistic
ends (Silberman 1995a, 1997). In each nation, archaeological sites con-
taining early evidence of city planning, temples, archives, or impres-
sive fortifications were selected for intensive investigation and
romantically linked to the nations present across an assumed period
of civilizational, political, or religious neglect. Through this symbolic
connection, the modern nation-state was often seen as a divinely pre-
ordained culmination of a long historical epic. And the fact that the
monuments of its history were discovered by descendants whose
leaders were reasserting the nations independence after centuries or
even millennia of political subjugation, was a poetic correspondence
that was as political as it was literary. And as I have noted elsewhere,
the identification and restoration of golden ages and the selection of
chosen peoples implicitly discredit the history of people who are not
chosen and require that the darkness of ideologically mandated
periods of desolation be heightened by contrast to the brightness of
todays dawn (Silberman 1995b). For the nations of the Middle East-
including the modern Republic of Turkeythe age of the Ottoman
Empire was seen as the Age of Desolation (cf. Kardulias 1994:49). And
it was only by emphasizing the deadnessnot life and complexity-of
that long period that the archaeological restoration of its earlier, bib-
lical and classical antiquities always seemed so miraculous.
* * *
Of course Ottoman history, which roughly occupies this period of
ideological mandated desolation from the sixteenth to the early twen-
tieth centuries, was filled with ups and downs, heroes and villains,
nobility, innovation, and backwardnessin short, a history that is
fully as vital as that of the ancient Middle East or the modern West.
Unfortunately, that reality does not mesh with the romantic Golden
Age myth, which mandates that a remote, glorious past and patriotic
present be directly juxtaposed. Nor does it mesh with the stubborn
insistence of North American Historical Archaeologists to see the non-
American, non-European worldin the absence of direct contact with
America through immigration or imported trade goodsas almost
entirely irrelevant.
Take the familiar Virginia Adventure, given its latest, magister-
ial retelling by no less a figure in mainstream North American
Historical Archaeology than Ivor Nol Hume (1994). The long involve-
ment of one of the main characters, Captain John Smith, in the early
seventeenth-century anti-Ottoman wars in the Balkans is dismissed
in a single, breezy paragraph, in which Nol Hume half-facetiously
describes Smiths amazing feats of valor, his capture and brief service
as a slave to a wealthy Ottoman noblewoman, and his eventual murder
of her brother-in-law, an Ottoman pasha, and successful escape
(1994:126127).
Nol Hume and most other scholars who have described Smiths
experiences and adventures before his turn toward America have
with the notable exception of Philip Barbour (1964, 1986)treated
these stories as little more than colorful Arabian Nights fairy tales. In
fact, Nol Hume makes the break between the Ottoman world and
western civilization clear and complete. He concludes his colorful
preface to Smiths real career with the words: After several other
adventures of no relevance to the Virginia story, we find him back in
England in the winter of 1604-1605 . . . (1994:127).
But were the worlds of the Ottoman Empire and the European
Age of Discovery really so separate? In tracing the material culture of
the Ottoman Empire and its immediate neighbors, is it not possible to
see a civilization against which the nations of western Christendom
reacted and of which they were constantly aware? (as suggested by
Greenblatt [1991]). The possibility of Crusades eastward ended with
the Ottomans conquest of Constantinople in 1453. For Christopher
Columbus and Hernando De Soto, for John Smith and his Spanish,
Portuguese, Dutch, French, and Austrian contemporaries, the
Ottoman Empire was not a weak but a powerful and threatening
Other. The bloody and brutal European colonization of the New World
can be seenat least in its early stagesas a conscious response and
reaction to the vast, multi-cultural empire ruled by Suleiman the Law-
giver and his successorsstretching from the fertile plains of Hungary
(where John Smith taken prisoner in battle), through the mountain-
ous highlands of the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Asia Minor with their
mines and overland trade routes, to the ancient market cities of Syria,
Mesopotamia, Palestine, through the fertile Nile Valley, all the way
south toward the Horn of Africa, to the remote land of Yemen on the
southwest Arabian coast.
What makes the study of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern
historical archaeology so intriguing is the possibility that it might
offer some concepts and historical formation utterly outside the expe-
rience or even analytical categories of the European colonial and,
later, capitalist world. For the Ottoman Empire seems have been
based on the maintenance of cultural diversity as the fulcrum of
imperial coherence and profitnot in the tendencies toward rigid
hierarchization and centralization one sees in the West (Lewis 1995;
Brummet 1994). And maybe part of the reason we are today so
utterly confused by the surging nationalisms and religious passions of
the Middle East, the Caucasus, and the Balkans is because we
have been trained as archaeologistsboth New World and Old
Worldto disregard the history, function, and vitality of Middle
Eastern religions and cultures as inconsequential or irrelevant to our
own experience.
Its true enough that the empire of Suleiman the Lawgiver
was eventually to become the so-called Sick Man of Europe, humili-
ated and dominated by the flood of manufactured goods and cap-
italist ideologies (Kasaba 1988). Indeed, some of the excavations and
surveys in this volume all offer glimpses of that process, though it
was not one in which European capitalism and empire could ever
completely impose their will (as documented historically in Quataert
[1983]). Thats why I believe its so important that those who
would undertake Historical Archaeology in the Middle East and
the Mediterranean not merely fill out the picture conceived in
North America, merely reporting on what the rest of the world looked
like when America was being conquered and settled or alternatively
show how the relentless penetration of mercantile and then industrial
capitalism finally conquered the Old World as well as the New.
Professor Al Glock at Bir Zeit University had a vision of using His-
torical Archaeology not only as an intellectual exercise, but an active
tool of identity and political consciousness for both Westerners and
Middle Easterners as they interact politically, economically, and
culturally today.
The archaeological and historical path to the present need not
follow only one set of tracks. It can also be traced along a road, or
perhaps network of roads, peopled by sultans, merchants, and minori-
ties to places like modern Israel, Palestine, Greece Turkey, Bosnia,
Bulgaria, Chechnya, Somalia, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf. The mater-
ial and non-material legacy to be found today in each of these places
includes traditions, economic structures, and communal identities that
challenge the nature of modern capitalism even as they assimilate
themselves to it.
There is a larger picture to be comprehended. And it is the chal-
lenge and great opportunity of Historical Archaeology in the Mediter-
ranean and Middle East to grasp fully the global dimensions and
material transformations of modernity. For archaeologists to continue
to ignore the modern populations of the Middle East and the Mediter-
raneanor to declare them utterly irrelevant to the main trajectory
of western civilizationis to allow themselves to become unwitting
accomplices to the very same processes of imperial expansion and
ethnic differentiation that, as historians and scholars of past societies,
they presume dispassionately to describe.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to offer my thanks to Uzi Baram and Lynda Carroll for invit-
ing me to participate in the Binghamton Conference, and to express my
admiration for their administrative skill, patience, good humor, and
boundless energy in making this pioneering enterprise a reality,
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1964 Three Worlds of Captain John Smith. Houghton-Mifflin, Boston.
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1994 Ottoman Seapower and Levantine Diplomacy in the Age of Discovery. State
1997 Taanach. In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East. E. M.
Meyers ( ed.), Oxford University Press, New York. p. 149.
1991 Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World. University of Chicago
Press, Chicago.
Barbour, P. L.
Ben-Artzi, Y.
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1986 Village Architecture in Jordan. Jordan 11(1):2027.
1990 Orientalism and Near Eastern Archaeology. In The Politics of the Past, P.
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Leone, M. P.
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Khalidi, W.
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Niewhner-Eberhard, E.
1985 Sada: Bauten und Bewohner in einer traditionellen islamischen Stadt.
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Noel Hume, I.
Orser, C. E., Jr.
Patterson, T. C.
1994 The Virginia Aduenture. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.
1987 Development, Ecology, and Marginal Utility in Anthropology. Dialectical
1983 Social Disintegration and Popular Resistance in the Ottoman Empire. New
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1983 Tobacco Pipes from the Kerameikos. Mitteilungen des Deutschen Arcologis-
chen Instituts. Athensiche Abteilung 98:265285.
1991 Desolation and Restoration: The Impact of a Biblical Concept on Near Eastern
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1995a Power, Politics, and the Past: The Social Construction of Antiquity in the Holy
Land. In The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land. T. E. Levy, ( ed.). Leices-
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1995b Promised Lands and Chosen Peoples: The Politics and Poetics of Archaeologi-
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Fawcett, ( eds.) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. pp. 249262.
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1983 The Medieval Cane Sugar Industry in Cyprus: Results of Recent Excavations.
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Quataert, D.
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Von Wartburg, M. L.
Diverse Approaches
to the Ottoman Past
Toward a Globally
Conceived, Regionally
Specific Historical Archaeology
11
Philip L. Kohl
The chapters in this volume abundantly illustrate the need and value
of an archaeology of the Ottoman Empire that is conceived as a
regional manifestation of a global historical archaeology, a discipline
concerned with the emergence and establishment of mercantile and
industrial capitalism throughout the world (cf. Orser 1996:11). The
form this historical archaeology takes will reflect the complex political
history of the Middle East over the past 500 years and more, and the
editors persuasively argue for an archaeology of the Ottoman polity,
the material consequences of the extension of Ottoman imperial rule.
Obviously, this expansionary process took place at different times and
affected different regions differentially. Thus, for example, Kuniholms
compendium of dendrochronologically dated Ottoman monuments
abundantly shows the presence of first Turkish and then Ottoman
remains in Anatolia several hundred years prior to the capture of Con-
stantinople in 1453; the eleventh-century Bekdemir mosque, so valu-
able for dating purposes, extends the temporal span of concern nearly
an additional half millennium or uncomfortably approximate with the
largely ignored Late Islamic period (12001900 CE) in Israel, a
lumping category which Baram rightly criticizes. When does one begin
the archaeology of this empire and how should one subdivide its
extended temporal expanse?
PHILIP L. KOHL Department of Anthropology, Wellesley College, Wellesley,
Massachusetts 02481.
253
254 Philip L. Kohl
Space too is implicated in this question, and clearly one has to
refer to the historical record of Ottoman expansions and retractions in
specific areas from at least the fourteenth century onward to distin-
guish between period and polity. In any event, the imperial process is
certainly underway before Columbus, and the problem then becomes
one of tracing the effects of the Great Discoveries and the emergence
of the European-led modern world system within the domains of the
Ottoman Empire from the sixteenth century onward. The articles by
Brumfield and LaBianca illustrate an additional difficulty: the possi-
bility that the advent of Ottoman rule will register little effect in a
given region (e.g., in the surveyed Vrokastro area of Crete which
apparently did not witness the establishment of the iftlik landwork-
ing system) or only be observed indirectly and negatively by the
absence of significant settlements in specific regions (e.g., the massive
abandonment of settlements in Greater Syria during the 17th and 18th
centuries as discussed by Ziadeh-Seely or the chronological gap in the
occupational history of Tell Hesban and the Ottoman-dated occupation
of caves in the same area of Jordan, a pattern ingeniously interpreted
by LaBianca to represent a strategy of local resistance to avoid the
rapacious Ottoman tax collectors). Without the aid of texts, will
the advent of Ottoman rule be self-evident? These studies suggest
otherwise.
This volume clearly illustrates the range of possible approaches
to uncovering the Ottoman past. Documentation takes place in the
rural countryside, in scattered coffeehouses, and in urban workshops.
Local ceramics, Chinese porcelains, ubiquitous tobacco pipes, ship-
wrecks, and elite public architecture are all legitimate subjects of
study and potentially complement one another. Thus, the Chinese
export porcelain found on the Sadana Island shipwreck in the Red Sea
finds parallels in the Topkapi Saray Museum collection in Istanbul and
clearly is relevant for the archaeology of ceramic production and con-
sumption within Anatolia as discussed by Carroll. Likewise, the recov-
ered foodstuffs on this shipwreck originated in areas both within and
beyond the borders of the Ottoman empire; their recovery ultimately
needs to be complemented by archaeological studies of the areas in
which they were produced or, in other words, for more food-systems
approaches in archaeology as advocated by LaBianca. The study of
elite public urban architecture and the role of light as a structuring
principle in major mosques, as presented by Kuniholm and Snyder, are
balanced by the studies of Brumfield and LaBianca on rural settle-
ment patterns and the distinctive, temporarily inhabited metochi, and
water mills and olive presses in the countryside.
11. Diverse Approaches to the Ottoman Past 255
As Baram suggests, objects of large-scale consumption, such as
ceramics or the common but often overlooked tobacco pipes, may reveal
patterns of entanglement in the emergent global economy and the
establishment of habits of modernity. Both Carroll and Baram cor-
rectly argue for an archaeology focussed on the consumption of such
commodities, an archaeology which shows how non-elites chose the
newly available, habit-forming pleasures of coffee and tobacco and, in
so doing, became entangled in processes which were occurring on a
global scale. An archaeology focused on changing patterns of
consumption should not take place, however, at the expense of the con-
comitant analyses of the production and distribution of these com-
modities, a point recognized by Baram when he emphasizes that the
archaeological record contains evidence for the documentation of the
three inseparably related activities of production, distribution, and con-
sumption. Moreover, as Carroll intimates, there are at least two inher-
ent dangers in too narrowly focusing on consumption: (1) the problem
of anachronistically ascribing consumer choice (a choice itself exagger-
ated in the ideologies and marketing practices of contemporary con-
sumer capitalism) to the peoples taking up and adopting these newly
discovered pleasures or addictions; and (2) consumption is not just cul-
turally situated or reflective of groups, such as non-elite peasants,
actively determining their own fate. Rather, as Mintz (1985) has so con-
vincingly demonstrated for the continuous take-off of sugar production
and consumption, consumer choices are inextricably related to chang-
ing work practices and consciously manipulated by producers who are
interested in creating dependent markets for the objects they produce.
An Ottoman archaeology should focus both on what is being pro-
duced for subsistence and local systems of production and what for the
emergent global economy. If during the so-called Late Islamic period
(12001900 CE) Palestine produced sugar, soap, cotton, barley, and
oranges for inter-regional exchange (cf. Baram, this volume, p. 146),
then there should be an archaeological or material culture reflection
of the relative rise and demise of the production of these commodites.
Similarly, for their distribution and exchange. How are older road
systems interrupted and how do the placement and maintenance of
caravanserais break down with the increasing reliance on globally
shipped commodities and the associated encroachment of European
powers and the emergent global economy? Clearly, there are many new
paths to explore in the newly self-conscious and reflexive field of
Ottoman archaeology.
One such path is both necessary and fraught with potential
danger: the needwhen possible i.e., certainto inscribe this past in
256 Philip L. Kohl
ethnic terms. Ziadeh-Seely explicitly mentions the basic assumption of
the direct historical approach in archaeology; viz., that the ethno-
graphically or historically documented culture resembles or does not
significantly differ from its immediate archaeological predecessor and
argues eloquently that future research at Tiinnik (and presumably
other multi-period sites in the area) will systematically and gradually
move back in time to cover the entire cultural history of the site, (Ziadeh-
Seely, this volume, p. 81) noting continuities and detecting changes as
one proceeds backwards from the recent historically known into earlier
periods. Whether one begins the Ottoman clock in the 13th or in the
16th century CE, one remains safely within a period in which written
documents complement the archaeological record. Such historical evi-
dence can inform usat times unequivocallyof the ethnic groups cre-
ating the monuments and sites of archaeological investigation. Such
information should not be somehow overlooked or ignored. Why?
Because ethnicity matters, as any student of the modern Middle East
must realize. The point is not to put contemporary ethnic labels on
archaeological cultures nor romanticize ethnic groups as primordial
unchanging entitiesan approach which may engender its own set of
problems, but rather to use the additionally available historical infor-
mation to reconstruct the past more fully and more credibly. In doing
so, one possible desirable outcome, in my opinion, is the political empow-
erment and incorporation of peoples whose histories in many cases con-
tinue to be effaced or denied for contemporary political reasons.
There is a paradox here. Ethnic reconstructions of the prehistoric
past are not only uncertain and always problematic, but also may
constitute a hazardous and politically dangerous exercise (Kohl
1998:239241). Different groups who claim to have occupied an area
since time immemorial may run up against other groups dipping into
the ethnically ambiguous prehistoric record to assert their rights to
the same parcel of real estate, and such claims and counter-claims in
turn may aggravate tensions among these neighboring groups and
even stoke the fires of ethnic conflicts. Consequently, contra some the-
orists (e.g., Jones 1997), archaeologists should eschew nearly all such
prehistoric ethnic identifications or treat them with extreme circum-
spection by emphasizing their necessarily provisional and tentative
character.
The archaeologist working safely within recent historic periods
faces a markedly different obligation: the need to recognizewhere the
evidence permitsthe prior existence of contemporary peoples whose
very reality may be denied or minimized by contemporary states
erroneously claiming or aspiring to ethnic homogeneity. This recogni-
tion necessarily confronts some delicate and even potentially nasty and
volatile political issues. An archaeologist working on the later his-
torical levels of a site in eastern Anatolia should identify obviously
Christian remains as Armenian (when inscriptions confirm this iden-
tification or when they cannot plausibly be related to other Christian
groups, such as Georgians and Assyrians, who also have lived in
certain parts of the region) and not gloss them over as Byzantine or
later Ottoman period remains. The reality of Armenians who lived in
eastern Anatolia throughout the Ottoman period must simply be
acknowledged and not implicitly denied.
The archaeology of the Ottoman Empire is clearly the archaeol-
ogy of a multi-ethnic polity, and this fact should be celebrated by
directly addressing it. Returning to eastern Anatolia for a hypotheti-
cal example, a future archaeology focused on rural settlements in the
area may detect many material markers of ethnic diversity, some of
which might be plausibly identified as specific to a particular group.
Utilizing the direct historical approach and working backwards in
time, an archaeology of the Ottoman Empire could potentially distin-
guish Kurdish remains from those of other peoples and document their
long, uninterrupted, if ever-changing, presence in the area.
It is easy to contemplate comparable examples throughout the
ethnically diverse area once under imperial Ottoman sway. When are
obviously Islamic Arab remains regionally specific enough to suggest
some form of distinct cultural, if not proto-national, identity? An
Ottoman archaeology in todays Israel is at some very important level
an archaeology of Palestine and the Palestinians, an empowerment of
the people who dominantly occupied the area in the recent historical
past. How distinctive are their material remains and settlement
patterns from those found in todays neighboring countries of Syria,
Lebanon, or Jordan? The political geography of the modern Middle
East was largely compiled after World War I and the collapse of the
Ottoman state. Will a future Ottoman archaeology confirm and natu-
ralize the borders of the nations that emerged at this time or will it
reveal the arbitrary nature of the divisions which were then erected
and which separated groups whose previous identity or close similar-
ity is reflected in their material remains? It can be predicted that an
Ottoman archaeology which proceeds thoroughly and exhausively will
confirm the historical record and demonstrate the continuous existence
of Jews, Christians, and Muslims throughout the area. It also holds
the potential for revealing new aspects of their co-existence and even
268 Philip L. Kohl
conceivably how inter-ethnic relations changed during the course of
Ottoman rule.
The recent political history of the regions once controlled by the
Ottomans has hardly been peaceful. In the Balkans and in regions of
Transcaucasia which were under Ottoman rule until the early nine-
teenth century, historical monuments of other ethnic groups-mosques
and churches, most notablyhave been deliberately and systemati-
cally destroyed. A future Ottoman archaeology will have to determine
what is still preserved and what has forever been lost as a result of
these deplorable attacks on the cultural heritages of others. Silberman
refers to the myth of the Golden Agethe birth of civilization and
Biblical timeswhich will continue to beset efforts at focusing on the
historical archaeology of the Middle East. This problem is compounded
by the converse myth which he also mentions: the Ottoman period is
perceived by many peoples who were once its subjects as an Age of
Desolation, a period of dissolution and decay in which local cultural
developments were arrested. How real or fanciful is this perception?
Here too is a knotty problem which a future Ottoman archaeology
must address. As we have seen, some areas witness little change and
others are abandoned with the advent of Ottoman rule. Still others
obviously flourished under the protection and patronage of the
Ottoman state. An Ottoman archaeology holds the potential for objec-
tively assessing the effects of its imperial rule.
Such an assessment will encounter and, in some cases, have
to correct for this myth of the Age of Desolation. Herzfeld (1991),
for example, has documented how the inhabitants of Rethemnos
in western Crete confront their Ottoman past: essentially, they
disparage it, while glorifying their ancient Cretan, Greek/Byzantine,
and even Venetian past. Nevertheless, their Old Town, including
its Turkish monuments and architectural features, are restored as
part of their heritage in order, of course, to attract tourists. As
Herzfeld (1991:57) notes, hostility with Turkey and even rehabilitation
of the long dead and gone Venetians fits the rhetoric of modern Greek
nationalism. Yet their desire to preserve the Old Town and promote
tourism necessarily means the conservation and preservation of
Turkish remains. The problem is not only in the existence (and attrac-
tiveness) of the Turkish buildings, but also in the inability of the local
residents at times to distinguish the Turkish from the Venetian
remains:
Certainly the perception that some of the antiquities are of Turkish date
does not increase peoples respect for them. Official historiography falls
victim to decades of its own derision of anything Turkish and is hard put
to defend its position, given the absence of a uniformly clear break in domes-
tic architecture between the Venetian and Turkish periods (italics added,
Herzfeld 1991:226).
If it is conceded that the material remains of the Ottoman past
which can be positively identified in terms of their ethnicity should
be, then the converse is also true: the archaeologist should refrain
from making such identifications when they are not certain.
Rather, the very ethnic ambiguity of these remains should be empha-
sized and celebrated. That is, the numerous peoples of the
Ottoman Empire willingly or forcibly came into contact or were
connected at some level with each other as subjects of this domain;
as a result, they necessarily borrowed from each other, and this
mixture of customs, beliefs, and institutions clearly will be reflected
in the hard material reality of the archaeological record. One
important task of Ottoman archaeology will be to document this assim-
ilation and borrowing of styles and technologies throughout the
imperial realm. The task will not typically be to distinguish Turkish
from non-Turkish remains, to note, for example, how churches were
transformed into mosques, but rather to show how the constant
mutual borrowings and sharings of material culture elements
produced something both recognizably Ottoman and ethnically
ambiguous.
The editors of this volume have explicitly and persuasively argued
for an Ottoman archaeology which is self-consciously part of a global
historical archaeology concerned with the rise and spread of capital-
ism and all that that process entailed. There is no reason to reiterate
their compelling reasons for promoting such an approach. Ottoman
monuments and traditional Turkish material culture have long and
exhaustively been studied by art historians, folklorists, and ethnogra-
phers (e.g., Glassie 1993). Even archaeologists, whose primary inter-
ests have lain in earlier periods, have had to detail the materials found
in the later levels of their sites; most certainly have not bulldozed them
away. Even if understudied and undervalued, an Ottoman archaeol-
ogy, the description and explanation of material remains dated to the
Ottoman period, has long existed. Nevertheless this volume 'breaks
new ground' by insisting on an historical archaeology of the Ottoman
Empire that relates the remains found throughout that empire to
materials produced, distributed, and consumed in other regional his-
torical archaeologies spread across the globe. That is a new and worthy
vision.
260 Philip L. Kohl
REFERENCES
Glassie, H.
Herzfeld, M.
1993 Turkish Traditional Art Today. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
1991 A Place in History: Social and Monumental Time in a Cretan Town. Princeton
University Press, Princeton.
Jones, S.
1997 The Archaeology of Identity: Constructing Identities in the Past and Present.
Routledge, London.
Kohl, P. L.
1998 Nationalism and Archaeology: On the Constructions of Nations and the Recon-
structions of the Remote Past. In Annual Review of Anthropology 27:223246.
Mintz, S.
1985 Sweetness and Power: The Place of sugar in Modern History. Viking Penguin,
Inc., New York.
1996 Introduction: Images of the Recent Past. In Images of the Recent Past: Read-
ings in Historical Archaeology, C. E. Orser, Jr. ( ed.), Altamira Press, Walnut
Creek, CA. pp. 913.
Orser, C. E.
Chronology for the
Ottoman Empire
Some Key Dates in
Ottoman History,
12601923
Appendix A
12601300
1326
13521354
13601389
1361 Conquest of Adrianople
13631365
1368
1385 Conquest of Sofia
1389 Victory at Kossovo-Polje
13941413 Construction of Ulu Cami in Bursa
14001403 Timurid conquests in Anatolia
1402 Battle of Ankara between Beyazid and Timur; Beyazid I defeated
14031413 Civil war among Beyazids sons for sultanate
1413 Mehmed I reconsolidates power in Ottoman Empire
14231430 Ottoman-Venetian war over Salonica
1453 Conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed II, Fatih (the Conqueror)
1459 Conquest of Serbia and the Morea
1461 Conquest of the empire of Trabzon
1468 Conquest of Karaman
1475 Conquest of Genoese colonies in the Crimea
14851491 War with Mamluks of Egypt
14971499 War with Poland
14991503 War with Venice
15161517
1520
1521 Conquest of Belgrade
1522 Conquest of Rhodes
1526 Battle of Mohacs
1529
Formation of gazi principalitiesOttoman principality founded
Conquest of Bursa; Bursa becomes first Ottoman capital; acces-
Conquest of Ankara and Thrace
Construction of Murad I Mosque in Bursa
Ottoman expansion into Bulgaria and Thrace
Ottoman capital moved to Adrianople (Edirne)
by Osman Gz
sion of Orhan, son of Osman Gz
Selim conquers Syria and Egypt
Kanuni Sleyman (Suleyman the Magnificent) becomes Sultan
Conquest of Buda, siege of Vienna
261
262
1534 Conquest of Tabriz and Baghdad
1537 War with Venice
15371540 Construction of walls around Jerusalem by Siileyman
1538 Seige of Diu in India
1539 Sinans appointment as Master Architect
15481549 War against Persia, conquests in Georgia
15501556 Construction of Sleymaniye Mosque and Klliye in Istanbul
15551561 Construction of Rstem Pasa Mosque in Istanbul
1565 Siege of Malta
1569 First Ottoman expedition against Russia
15691575 Construction of Selimiye Mosque in Edirne
1570 Tunis captured; fall of Nicosia
15701571 Conquest of Cyprus
1571 Ottoman defeat at the battle of Lepanto
15781590 War with Iran; annexation of Azerbaijan
1589 Janissary revolt in Istanbul (continued uprisings 15911592)
15931606 War with the Habsburgs
1596 Celali rebellions in Anatolia (Celalis suppressed in 1609)
1621 Invasion of Poland
1622 Assassination of Sultan Osman II
16301638 Ottoman Persian War
1631 Insurrections in Yemen, Egypt, and Lebanon
1633 Murad IV bans coffee, tobacco, and coffeehouses
1638 Ottomans recapture Baghdad
1683 Siege of Vienna
1699 Treaty of Karlowitz; withdrawal from Hungary, Dalmatia, and
1740 Zahir al-Umar al-Zaydani in Acre, creates an alliance with Ali
17681774 Russo-Turkish War; shelling of Jaffa, Acre, Sidon
1776 Defeat of Zahir al-Umar and his sons by Pasa Ahmed al- Jazzar
17981799 Napoleon conquers Egypt, races up the coast of Palestine, halted
at Acre by Ahmed al-Jazzar and the British fleet under Sir
Sydney Smith
Appendix A: Chronology for the Ottoman Empire
Croatia
Bey of Egypt
1805
1818
18211829 Greek War of Independence
1827 Battle of Navarino
1831
1834
1839
Muhammad Ali viceroy of Egypt
Muhammad Ali defeats Wahhabi in Arabia
Muhammad Ali conquers Syria, Ibrahim Pasa ruler of Palestine
Palestinian revolt against Ibrahim Pasa
Start of the Tanzimat with the Hatt-i Sherif (Illustrious Rescript,
also known as the Hatt-i Humayun) of Gulhane by Sultan
Abdlmecid
British open consulate in Jerusalem (Prussia follows in 1842,
France and Sardinia in 1843, Austria in 1849, United States
in 1856)
1839
Appendix A: Chronology for the Ottoman Empire
18531856 Crimean War
18541869
1856
1858 The Ottoman Land Code
1860 Massacres in Damascus
18601861 French intervention in Lebanon
18611865 American Civil War and the Cotton Boom in Palestine and Egypt
1864 Provincial Law/Law of the Vilayets enacted (part of the
1867 Foreigners permitted to own land in Ottoman Empire
18761877 Constitution proclaimed for the Ottoman Empire, then revoked
18771878 Ottoman-Russian War
1878 British control Cyprus; Berlin Conference
1881 Establishment of the Public Debt Administration
1882 British in Egypt
18831914 Germans construct Baghdad and Hejaz railroads
18961897 War with Greece
1908 Young Turk Revolution; restoration of the Constitution of 1876
1911 Ottoman-Italian War
1912 First Balkan War
1913 Second Balkan War
1914
1920
1923
263
Opening of the Suez Canal
Proclamation of Hatt-i Humayun, equal treatment of all creeds
Tanzimat)
Ottoman Empire enters World War I
French Mandate over Syria and Lebanon; British mandates over
Proclamation of the Republic of Turkey
Iraq and Palestine
Note: Page numbers in italics refer to figures.
Aalto, A., 220
Acun, H., 106, 114, 123
Adosidis, K., 64
Afyon (Turkey), Cay, Yusuf bin Yakub
Medresesi (Sultan Aladdin
Camii), 123125, 124
Afyon (Turkey), Demirtaspasazade Umur
Bey Camii, 118119
Afyon (Turkey), Emirdag, Amorium, 114
Afyon (Turkey), Sincali, Boyaliky
Medresesi, 128, 129, 130
Afyon (Turkey), Ulu Cami, 123
Agricultural technology, in Crete, 46, 47,
48, 6069, 71; see also Food systems
approach; Foodways, Ottoman
Agriculture
in Crete, 34, 3740, 4146, 5469
defined, 205206
Aksaray (Turkey), anli Kilise, coffin lid,
Aksaray (Turkey), Ihlara, Bezirhane (oil
Aksehir (Turkey), Nasreddin Hoca
AkSehir (Turkey), Tas Medrese Camii,
Alaeddin Keykubad, sultan, 127
Alcohol, 144; see also Stimulants
Aletri (wooden plow.), 46
Altun, Ara, 222, 223
Anatolia
114115
factory), 100
Trbesi, 117118
126,126127
ceramics recovered in, 35
dendrochronology of, 35, 93136
non-elite consumption patterns in,
Ottoman Empire established in, 8
traditional mode of production in, 168
161180
Ando, T., 220
Architecture, see also Cami
dating of, 35
of Tiinnik (Palestine), 84, 85
Arel, A., 104, 105
Arik, R., 127
Armatoles (Christian militiamen), 50
Artifacts: see Material culture
Asari (Crete), 54, 60
Asari (Crete), chapel of St. George, 54
Ayverdi, E. H., 95, 117, 122
Bakirci, Naci, 109
Balkans, Ottoman legacy in, 10
Baram, U., 17, 35, 169, 253, 255
Barbour, P., 248
Barley, in Crete, 42, 45, 46, 54
Beer, 144; see also Stimulants
Belluschi, Pietro, 220
Beysehir (Turkey), Kubadabad Sarayi,
Biblical archaeology, in Palestine (Israel),
Biblical past, conceptualization of, 5, 10
Bilecik (Turkey), Vezirhan (Kprl
Mehmet Pasa), 111, 111, 112
Bioarchaeology, of Sadana Island ship-
wreck, 197198
Black Sea oak, dendrochronology of, 99
Bolak, O. 222, 224
Bon, A., 116
Bone or ivory artifacts, from Sadana Is-
Bosnia, Ottoman legacy in, 10
Braudel, F., 21
Brumfield, A., 34, 254
Buildings: see Architecture
Bulgarian ceramic wares, 175
Buondelmonti, Christophe, 61
Burckhardt, J. L., 83
Burdur (Turkey), Koca Oda, 110
Burdur (Turkey), Tas Oda, 113114
Bursa (Turkey), I. Murat Hdavendigr
127
10, 79, 8182
land shipwreck, 196, 197
Camii, 122
265
Index
266 Index
Bursa (Turkey), I. Yildirim Beyazit
Bursa (Turkey), Ulu Cami, 227, 228, 229,
Bursa (Turkey), Yesil Cami, 119, 119120,
Darssifasi, 120, 120122, 121
231
122, 230232, 232
Cami, see also Mosques
archaeology of, 19
critique of previous studies of, 222
transformation of, 182183, 219240
anakkale (Turkey): ceramics from, 170,
173, 174
anakkale (Turkey), Cezayirli Hasan
Pasa Ksk , 104, 104105, 105
anakkale (Turkey), Kilid ul-Bahir
Kalesi, 116117
Capitalism
224
typology of, 225226
archaeology of, 17
penetration of, 166, 167, 207, 208
209
Carobs, in Crete, 54
Carpenter, R., 116
Carroll, L., 17, 35, 254, 255
aykara (Turkey), Dernek, Gney Ma-
hallesi Camii, 96
aykara (Turkey), Dernek, Kondu Ma-
hallesi Merkez Camii, porch, 96
Celebi, E., 22
Celebi, Ktip: Cihannuma, 111
Celebi Mehmet Han, sultan, 230
Ceramics, see also Chinese export porce-
lains; Tobacco pipes, clay
from Anatolia, 35, 166, 170175
Ottoman production and consumption
from Sadana Island shipwreck, 185,
from Shaarm el Sheikh shipwreck, 187,
from Tiinnik (Palestine), 83, 8687
in Anatolia, 171, 172, 173, 174, 176n. 1
in Sadana Island shipwreck, 182, 185,
186, 188193, 190, 191, 192, 199,
200, 254
189, 191, 254
patterns, 170175
186, 188189, 193, 193195, 194
188
Chinese export porcelains
in Topkapi Museum (Istanbul), 188,
Chronology, see also Dating; Dendro-
of Ottoman clay tobacco pipes, 153
of Ottoman Empire, 3435, 261263
of Ottoman mosques, 225226
iftlik (estate) system, in Crete, 38, 39,
Cigarettes, 152
Cizye (head tax), in Crete, 3940, 49
Classical past, conceptualization of, 5
Coffee, see also Stimulants
chronology
40, 4546, 7072
cargo from Sadana Islands shipwreck,
186
166, 255
consumption of, 144, 145, 151, 154,
importation of, 199
from Anatolia, 175
from Israel, 147, 154
Coffee cups
Coinage, 208
Columbus, Christopher, 248
Commodities, see also Consumption pat-
terns; Material culture
Consumerism, development of, 165
Consumption patterns, 35; see also Mate-
of banned stimulants, 143, 144145,
among non-elite groups in Anatolia,
defined, 144145
rial culture
148, 151, 154155, 156
161180
study of, 164166
Copper wares and utensils, from Sadana
Island shipwreck, 185, 186, 196
197, 197
mosque, 116
Dede Trbesi, 106107
Corinth (Greece), Acrocorinth, unnamed
orum (Turkey), Eski Yapar, Hseyin
Cramer, J., 101
Crete
agricultural technology in, 46, 47, 48,
agriculture in, 34, 3740, 4146, 5469
destruction of Ottoman legacy in, 258
independence of, 51
land-owning patterns in, 3839, 55,
Ottoman censuses of, 4950, 51
Ottoman conquest and control of, 37,
6069, 71
7072
40
Index 267
Crete (cont.)
population of, 51
rebellion during Greek War of Inde-
pendence, 51
rural settlement of, 34, 3740, 4654,
55, 5660
Cyprus, sugar production in, 145
Dacus fly, 5556
Dafter mfassal (tax records), 8283, 84
Danisman, H. H. Gnhan, 130, 131
dArvieux, Chevalier, 83
Dating
by dendrochronology, 35, 93136, 253
by inscriptions, 95
of Tiinnik(Palestine), 86
Dede, H., 106107
Deetz, J., 245
Dendrochronology, 35, 93136, 253
De Soto, Hernando, 248
Didymoteichon (Greece), I. Mehmet
Diffusionism, 142
Dionysios, Metropolitan of Crete, 53
Direct historical approach, 81, 256
Doumani, B., 141, 155
Drugs: see Hashish; Opium; Stimulants
Durukan, A., 106, 114, 123
Dutch, introduction of tobacco by, 149
Eakins, J. K., 24
East India Company, Chinese export por-
celains purchased by, 188, 189
Ecosystem theory, 212
Edirne (Turkey), Eski Cami, 227, 231
Edirne (Turkey), Selimiye Cami, 237
Edirne (Turkey), Uc Serefeli Cami, 231,
Camii (Vayazit Dzami), 117
233234
Egypt
historical archaeology in, 17
Ottoman conquest of, 144
and agriculture in Crete, 42
Islamic, 19
Ottoman, 8
Elites
Entanglement, of material culture, 147
Erken, S., 123
Erzen, J., 222, 223
Erzurum (Turkey), ifte Minareli
148, 154155, 165, 255
Medrese, 109
Eski Yapar site (Turkey), 106
Esmahan Sultan, 234
Ethnic identity
in Crete, 51
diversity of, 68, 248, 257
stasis and change in, 139
of Cretan agriculture, 5569
critique of, 22-23
defined, 2123, 81, 181
of Ti'innik (Palestine), 8081, 84
Ethnographic analogy, 22
Ethnographic present, limitations of, 21
Eurocentrism, 15
Fabrika (olive mill), 6466, 65
Fakhr-al-Din, 140
Faroqhi, S., 15, 167168
Feminist archaeology, 214
Foa (Turkey), Kaleburnu Castle, 102,
Food systems approach, 203, 204206
Foodways, Ottoman, 20, 182, 203217
Foster, N., 220
Friedman, J., 165
Gabriel, A., 121, 122, 123
Giyasettin Keyhsrev I, sultan, 132
Glass bottles, from Sadana Island ship-
wreck, 185, 195196, 196
Glassie, H., 23, 175
Globalization, 22, 144145, 154155, 156
Glock, A. E., 16, 79, 141, 245, 249
"Golden Age" myth, 246247, 258
Goodwin, G., 121, 220, 222223
Goodwin, J., 138
Grain cultivation, in Crete, 4243, 4445,
Grain mills, in Crete, 6064, 71
Greece, Republic of: Ottoman legacy in,
23
Greek War of Independence, 51
Gregory, T., 116
Hamilton, A., 199
Hara (agricultural) tax, in Crete, 40, 46,
62, 67
Hashish, 144; see also Stimulants
Hellenism, 5
Hemingway, E, 9
Hero of Alexandria, Mechanics, 67
Ethnoarchaeology
102104, 103
5469, 71
268 Index
Herzfeld, M., 258
Historical archaeology, viiviii, 4, 1618,
33, 141, 162164, 181, 243251,
253260
Hitier, M., 4546
Hoca, N., 117118
Hodgson, M. G. S., 142
Holl, S., 220
Homeland territories, fluidity of, 210
Honor, solidarity fostered by, 211
Hospitality, reciprocity of, 210211
Hourani, A., 142
Housing: see Architecture
Human-environment interactions, 206,
Hurgada shipwreck, 188, 200
Ideology, imperial Ottoman, 221
Iliatiko (Leatic) wines, 69
Incense, from Sadana Island shipwreck,
186
Incorporation into world systems, cri-
tique of, 14, 148, 166, 167
Indigenous resistance, means of, 209212
Inscriptions
212213
dating by, 95
from Sadana Island shipwreck, 186,
196197, 197, 199
Islam, conversion to, 3940
Islamic archaeology, 1820
Islamic court records (sijillat al-
mahkama al-shariyya), for Pales-
tine, 83
Israel, State of, see also Palestine
clay tobacco pipes recovered in, 35,
historical archaeology in, 17
Ottoman legacy in, 910, 138142
Istanbul (Turkey), Altunizade Ksk
Istanbul (Turkey), Haghia Sophia, 233
Istanbul (Turkey), Karaky Vapur
Istanbul (Turkey), Kariye Mosque
Istanbul (Turkey), Sokollu Mehmet Pasa
Istanbul (Turkey), Suleymaniye Cami, 237
Istanbul (Turkey), Topkapi Museum, Chi-
146, 147, 149154, 150
(villa), 100101
Iskelesi, 99100
(Chora), 230
Cami, 234237, 236
nese export porcelains, 188, 189,
191, 254
iznik (Turkey): ceramics from, 170, 171
175, 232
iznik (Turkey), andarli Kara Ali
Trbesi, 109110
iznik (Turkey), near Elbeyli, [so-called]
Mara Camii, 114
iznik (Turkey), Seyh Kutbeddin Mosque
and Trbe, 105106
izzeddine Keykvus I, sultan, 127
Jabal Nablus, production in, 141
Jaffa oranges, 145
Jerusalem, Ottoman legacy in, 10, 140
Jiddah (Jeddah) shipwreck, 188
Johnson, M., 17
Jordan
Ottoman foodways in, 20, 182, 203-
sugar production in, 145
217
Justinian, Holy Roman emperor, 233
Kahn, L., 220
Kalo Chorio (Kako Chorio, Crete)
defense of, 50, 51
olive crushers and presses in, 64
population of, 5152
settlement of, 48, 51
watermills at, 61, 62, 63, 71
Kapudan-i Dery Yakub Bey, 117
Kardulias, P. N., 23
Kasaba, R., 13
Kastamonu (Turkey), Kasabaky,
Kavousanida hamlet (Crete), 60
Keyder, ., 164, 207
Kiel, M., 113
Kilburn, R., 188
Kiliarslan II, Ottoman sultan, 132133
Kizilcahamam (Turkey), Hidirlar Camii,
110
Kohl, P. L., 241
Konya (Turkey), Ince Minareli Medrese,
Konya (Turkey), Karatay Medresesi, 101,
123
Konya (Turkey), Mevlana Msei,
Semahane, 108109
Konya (Turkey), Sahipata Mescidi (Tahir
ile Zhre Mescidi), 127
Konya (Turkey), Seluklu Sarayi, 132,
Mahmut Bey Camii, 122
123, 125126
132133, 133
Index 269
Kuban, D. 220, 222, 223, 234
Kuniholm, P. I., 35, 253, 254
Kuran, A., 95, 109, 122, 123, 127, 128,
Ktahya (Turkey), ceramics from, 170,
Kutbeddin, Mehmed Muhyiddin, 106
LaBianca, . S., 20, 254
Land-owning systems, see also Settle-
220, 222, 223
172, 173, 174
ment patterns
in Crete, 3839, 55, 7072
Ottoman, 38
Land reform, Ottoman, 85, 8788n.3
Land use patterns: see Settlement pat-
terns
Lapp, P., 79
Late Islamic period, 139, 253, 255
Lechevalier, travel accounts of, 105
Le Corbusier (Charles-douard
Jeanneret), 220
Legoreta, Ricardo, 220
Leone, M., 24, 245
Levy, T. E., 147
Lewis, B., 137, 138, 154
Light, architectural use of, 220221, 225
Lightfoot, Christopher, 101, 114
Lincoln, A., 17
Linguistic identity, diversity of, 68
Liquor, 144; see also Stimulants
Madaba Plains Project, 182, 207
Magy (French consul, Crete), 45
Mamluk Empire, 139, 140, 144
Manisa (Turkey), Ulu Cami, 227, 228,
Marxist theory, 214
Material culture, see also Consumption
patterns
entanglement of, 147148, 154155,
156, 165, 255
globalization of, 144145
of modernity, 142144
238
234
Mazraa (farm), in Palestine, 84
Mehmet I, Ottoman sultan, 117
Mehmet 11, Ottoman sultan: tomb of a
Melos, millstones from, 64
Meri, A.., 118
daughter of, 118
Meseleroi (Castel Messelerus, Crete)
defense of, 5051
olive crushers and presses in, 64, 65,
population of, 49, 5152
watermills at, 61
66
Metochia (seasonal residences), 53, 55,
Michalis of Prina, 50
Middle East: see Egypt; Israel, State of;
Jordan; Palestine; Syria
Middle Eastern studies, 2021
Millets (religious communities), 6
Mintz, S., 255
Modernity
5660, 57, 7071
and globalization, 144145, 154155,
material culture of, 142144
and modernization, 244, 249
163164
Monasteries, in Crete, 5254
Monastiraki (Crete)
mills at, 61, 62
olive crushers and presses in, 63, 64,
65, 66
Morosini (Venetian commander), 70
Mosques, see also Cami modern, 238
Boliimlu, Mithatpasa Camii, 97
double-domed, 225, 226, 229232
multi-celled, 225, 226, 227228
Sugeldi Ky Camii, 97
Uzungl Filak Mahallesi Camii, 97
Multiresource economy, 210
Murad I, Ottoman sultan, 122
Murad IV, Ottoman sultan, 85
Napoleon, 140
Nationalism
in archaeological research, 139, 241
and formation of national identities, 7
8
Necipoglu, G., 222, 224
Niebuhr, C., 188, 200
Nol Hume, I., 247248
Nouvel, J., 220
Ohrid, Sv. Sofija, 110111
Olive crushers and presses, in Crete, 63,
Olive oil production, in Crete, 42, 4344,
Olivier, G. A., 45
6469, 65, 66, 67, 71
54, 6469, 71
270 Index
nder, M., 127 Palestinian archaeology, 79, 8182, 145-
Opium, 144; see also Stimulants
Oral history, of Palestine, 84 Pasha, H. (Ottoman commander), 51
Ordu (Turkey), nye, Ikizce, Eski Cami , Pasha, M.(governor of Candia, Crete),
Orientalism, 25, 33, 139, 144, 154 Paynter, R.,17
Otto-Dorn, K., 106, 109, 127 Peasantry, conception of, 169
Ottoman archaeology
Pekak, S., 106, 114, 123
Pekin, F., 122
Perantonis of Meseleroi, Captain, 51
Pest control, traditional, 5556
Phaneromeni, monastery of the Virgin of
(Crete), 52, 71
Philip 11, king of Spain, 113
Plant disease, defenses against, 55
Post-medieval archaeology, 4, 17, 241,
Pottery: see Ceramics
Primordialism, 8, 10, 139
147
115, 115116, 116 50
advocacy for, 4
contexts for, 58, 245246
defined, 1213
in global contexts, 1315
ignorance of, 34, 910, 140, 143, 146
purpose (goals) of, 11, 33, 213215,
types of, 1525
uncovering changes in Ottoman Em-
pire through, 25
unpopularity of, 5, 6
advoidance of, 5, 9
chronology of, 3435, 81, 261263
establishment of, 8
ethnic and cultural diversity in, 6-8,
extent of, vii, 3, 6, 7, 166
foodways in, 20, 182, 203217
government records of, 8283, 84
imperial food system in, 206209
incorporation of, 14, 148, 166, 167
indigenous resistance to, 209212
legacy of, 811
political economic geography of, 14,
political economic history of, 14, 166
170
stasis in, 25, 35, 137138, 140, 143,
247, 249, 258
unpopularity of, 5, 6
241, 255, 259
242
Ottoman Empire Prina (Crete)
defense of, 50
olive crushers and presses in, 64, 65
population of, 49, 5152
viticulture in, 68
248, 257 watermills at, 6162
Pulak, C., 113
Qulal (clay water jars)
from Sadana Island shipwreck, 188
from Shaarm el Sheikh shipwreck, 187,
189, 193, 193194, 194
188
20, 42, 144
Quran, condemnation of alcohol in, 19
Qusur (qasr, residential compounds),
257258
207208
Raban, A., 187, 188
Raki production, 69
Rast, W. E., 147
Raulin, V., 52
Red Sea trade, 187188, 199
Religious identity, diversity of, 68
Republic of Turkey: see Turkey, Republic
of
Residential flexibility, 210
Robinson, E., 83
Robinson, R., 86
Rodanthi (Cretan heroine), 52
Rothaus, R., 116
Ottoman period artifacts and sites, de-
tken, S. Y., 106, 114, 123
zosma, H., 131
Palestine, see also Israel, State of
Islamic court records for, 83
modern material culture in, 142143
Ottoman artifacts from, 145147
Ottoman legacy in, 910, 81, 138142
Ottoman tax records for, 8182, 84
traditional commodities of, 145
struction of, 11, 82, 146, 258
Index 271
Saarinen, A., 220
Sadana Island (Egypt) shipwreck, 182,
185202, 254
location of, 185186
preservation of, 186
and ship construction, 186, 198199
Safavid dynasty, collapse of, 187
Sahibata, Vezier Fahreddin Ali, 125
Said, E. W., 25, 141
St. Johns, Simpson, 86
Samsun (Turkey), Bekdemir Camii, 97
99, 98
Samsun (Turkey), arsamba, Mezarlik
(Gkeli) Camii, 130132
Samsun (Turkey), arsamba, Yaycilar
Camii, 128
Schilcher, L., 209
Selim, Ottoman sultan, 140
Sellin, E., 79
Settlement patterns, in rural Crete, 34,
Sfakolaggada hamlet (Crete), 60
Sharm el Sheikh shipwreck, 187, 188,
Ship construction, 186, 198199
Shipwrecks
3740, 4654, 55, 5660
200
Hurgada, 188, 200
Jiddah (Jeddah), 188, 200
Sadana Island (Egypt), 182, 185202
Sharm el Sheikh, 187, 188, 200
Yassiada (near Bodrum, Turkey), 113
Sijillat al-mahkama al-shariyya (Islamic
court records), for Palestine, 83
Silberman, N. A., 1718, 139, 241, 258
Sinan, 117, 222, 223, 224, 226, 234
Sinopoli, C., 12, 13
Sivas (Turkey), Sifaiye Medresesi, 127
Sivas (Turkey), Divrigi, Ulu Cami,
Sivas (Turkey), Gok Medrese, 101102
Smith, Capt. John, 247248
Smoking: see Tobacco; Tobacco pipes, clay
Snyder, A. B., 19, 254
Socit de la Rgie cointeresse des
128
Hnkr Mahfili, 107, 107108, 108
tabacs de lempire ottoman (Rgie),
152
South, S., 2
Soyturk, I., 114
Spices, from Sadana Island shipwreck,
185, 186
Spina Longa fortress (Crete), 50
Stimulants
archaeological investigation of, 1920,
Ottoman ban on, 1920, 42, 144
149154
Stoianovich, T., 10
Stratton, A., 222, 224
Striker, C. L., 96
Structures: see Architecture
Subsistence: see Food systems approach
Subsistence agriculture, in Crete, 4146,
Sugar, 145, 154, 255
Suleiyman (Sleyman) the Magnificent,
10, 137, 140, 181, 248, 249
Surahi (water bottle), 23
Srmene (Turkey), Karacakaya Camii, 97
Syria
5469
abandonment of villages, 85
indigenous resistance in, 209
Ottoman conquest of, 140, 144
Tabak, F., 207
Tagkalakis, Ali Aga, 53
Tagkalakis, Hussein Aga, 53
Tanzimat, 167
Taxes, see also Dafter mfassal (tax re-
Cretan cizye (head tax), 3940, 49
Cretan hara (agricultural tax), 40, 46,
on exported tobacco from Palestine,
Ottoman tax records for Palestine, 81
cords)
62, 67
151
82, 84
Tel el-Hesi, 24
Tell el-Umeiri, 216n.3
Tell Hesban, 211, 216n.3
Tell Jalul, 216n.3
Tell Taanach; 79, 245; see also Tiinnik
Temizer, R., 106
Tenant farming, in Crete, 40, 4546
Territorial boundaries, fluid, 210
Thermoluminescence dating, 86
Thessaloniki (Greece), Frourio Vardari,
113
Thomas, N., 148
Tiinnik (Taannak, Palestine)
dating of, 86
ethnoarchaeology of, 8081, 84
excavations at, 34, 79, 8485, 245
272
Tiinnik (Taannak, Palestine) (cont.)
location of, 8586
map of, 80
Timar (fief) system, in Crete, 38
Tobacco, use of, 144, 145, 149151, 152,
154, 165, 255; see also Stimulants
Tobacco pipes, clay
from Anatolia, 175
from Athens and Corinth, 155
from Israel, 35, 146, 147, 149154, 150
from Istanbul, 155
from Kerameikos, 155
mass production of, 152
from Sadana Island shipwreck, 194, 195
Tokat (Turkey), Gk Medrese, 122123
Tournefort, J. P. de, 69
Trabzon (Turkey), Boztepe, Ahi Evren
Trabzon (Turkey), Ottoman mosques
Trade networks, 182, 187188
Tradition, and non-elite consumption pat-
terns, 169
Transjordan: see Jordan
Travel accounts, of Palestine, 83
Tree-ring dating: see Dendrochronology
Tribalism, 209210
Trigger, B. G., 139
Trikala (Greece), Kursun Camii (Hg.
Tristram, H. B., 83
Turkey, Republic of, see also Anatolia
Dede Camii, 96
near, 9697
Konstandinos), 117
ethnography of, 21
formation of, 8
national identity in, 164
Ottoman legacy of, 89
Turkocretans, conversion of, 3940
Twain, Mark, 9
Tzamaki hamlet (Crete), 60
nsal, B., 121
Index
Vakif (religious) property, in Crete, 39,
40
Vasiliki (Crete), olive crushers and
presses in, 64, 65, 66
Veneto-Turkish war (1645-1669), 42, 43
Venice, eclipse of, 37
Vessels: see Ceramics
Viticulture, in Crete, 42, 54, 68, 69
Vrokastro site (Crete), 41
Vrokastro Survey Project (Crete), 41
cultivation studied in, 5469
duration of, 73n.9
extent of, 48, 49
Vyromenou, monastery of the Virgin of
(Crete), 52
Wallerstein, I., 13
Watermills, in Crete, 6064, 71
Water sourcing, small-scale, 210
West Africa, tobacco use introduced from,
Westernization, 142, 164, 167
Wheat, in Crete, 46, 54
Wine, use of, 144; see also Stimulants
Wine production: see Viticulture
Wolf, E. R., 145
World systems theory
149
critique of, 1415, 167168
defined, 1315, 166, 167, 214215
Yalman, B., 114
Yassiada (near Bodrum, Turkey), ship-
Yetkin, S. K., 95
Yildirim Beyazit I, Ottoman sultan, 120
Yugoslavia, Ottoman legacy in, 10
Zade, H. ., 106
Zahir al-Umar, 140, 152
Zawiye mosques, 230
Ziadeh-Seely, G., 34, 254, 256
wreck, 113

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A Historical

to open a dialogue about archaeology of the

fered challenges for a global framework; the Ottoman Empire was

global historical archaeology

Owen 1981; Quataert 1983).

102 Peter Ian Kuniholm

4. Dendrochronologically Dated Ottoman Monuments 103

108 Peter Ian Kuniholm

4. Dendrochronologically Dated Ottoman Monuments 109

4. Dendrochronologically Dated Ottoman Monuments 111

210 ystein S. LaBianca

families and tribes. These kin-based networks have provided

come in handy. Also, by means of hospitality, information

9. Transformations, Readings, and Visions of the Ottoman Mosque 223

9. Transformations, Readings, and Visions of the Ottoman Mosque 225

234 Alison B. Snyder

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