About the Dates of Ottoman Documents
Mübahat S. Kütükoğlu
Istanbul University, Department of History, Retired Faculty Member, İstanbul/TÜRKİYE
Keywords: Ottoman Documents, Chronology, Day, Mounth, Year.
Abstract
Ottoman documents are dated in different styles depending on their types. In some, Arabic language is used. While some bear full dates, some others only have 10-day periods indicated. Some documents have the day and year as numbers but the month name is given as an abbreviation.
What requires more caution are the ones where the year is not written in full. Some documents lack the thousands digit; some others lack both thousands and hounderds digits; there are even occasional ones lacking the tens digit as well. For such documents, the transaction records at the back side of the document should be checked and the document should be evaluated on an organizational and institutional history perspective as well as a diplomatic one.
Various dating practices of Ottoman documents are discussed in this article.
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