Jewelry and Armenian Jewelers during the Ottoman Period

Jewels considered for ages as the symbols of splendor and wealth cannot be easily conceived as the product of history and of concrete human effort. Yet those valuable gems which after being extracted from dust and dirt turn into jewels in skilled hands make a long journey before landing in a palace or in a mansion.

Jewelry and Armenian Jewelers during the Ottoman Period prepared by Arsen Yarman and published by Yapı Kredi Yayınları enlightens, thanks to the long period (14^th-20^th centuries) it covers and the richness of the archives and sources it uses the path precious matters like diamonds and gold found in dust and dirt cross after being handled by bankers and jewelers before ending up in the mansions of the wealthy.

The book which discusses jewelry and jewel-making in a historical context, integrates Ottoman archival documents with visual material within the same framework. The study thus enables the reader to follow, through archival records, the important role Armenians played in the formation of a jewelery-making style proper to the Ottomans and deals with the implementation of the art of jewelery-making in its details.

Yarman who emphasizes the arduous course for the preparation of his book, explains: “In this book, we tried to study such matters as where the gems came from, where they were processed, where and by whom they were designed, who implemented these designs, who in the palace and beyond wore these jewels thus created.”

Jewelry and Armenian Jewelers during the Ottoman Period” contains 2,500 photographs, documents and visual material (pictures and drawings of jewels, stamps and signatures of jewelers). The book which also encompasses lists of jewelers compiled from a number of different records both in Turkish and Armenian is a valuable source of reference.