Inventory estates and change in the Ottoman material culture (1785-1875 Istanbul example)

Material culture constitues all kinds of goods, objects and tools that people own due to their necessities, obligations as well as their choices. By examining the goods owned by a society during a defined period in history it is possible to understand and give a meaning to the choices and inclinations of a certain social group as well as the life style, the effect of social identity on owning certain goods and the consumption practices.In every culture while there is a re-production of the goods within the realm of the traditional material culture there is also a change parallel to the social changes that took place in time.This dissertation examines the Ottoman material culture during the era of1785-1875 by examplifing İstanbul. The subject matter is studies under the dimentions of continuity and change. Material culture is a very broad concept.Goods and objectsused for clothing, sheltering, culinary aims, entertainment and for other practices of the daily life constitute different topics of the concept of material culture which makes it hard to study the material culture of a certain culture in full dimentions. Thus, this dissertation is limited to the domestic goods and the culinary goods used daily by the inhabitants of İstanbul.Inventory estates, which have a rich content, are very important sources for the studies of Ottoman material culture. Since khadı registers include great number of inventory estates related to various groups of the Ottoman society such as Muslim-non-Muslim, askerî-reaya, women-men, poor-rich, enables an indebt study of the Ottoman material culture. The inventory estates are the registers that enlist all kinds of estates, goods and objects of a death person such as the clothes, domestic goods, books and goods used for culinary aims. This makes the inventory estates sources that open a window for the researcher to see the material world inwhich the Ottoman society lived. In addition to their being sources of material culture the inventory estates are sources of the studies of wealth, social groups, family, demographics, death and inheritance, which makes them attract primaryly historians as well as other researches studying in the field of social sciences. The inventory estates are the main sources of this study, however since there are limited information about the characteristics, diplomatic writing principles, the reason of issuing, points to be careful about, the differentiation in style during time of the inventory estates, these subjects are highlyevaluated and tried to be answered within the compass of this dissertation.19th century is the era when important changes took place in the Ottoman Empire. The study of the material culture of the process of Westernization and modernization will add to the understanding of the social change in the Ottoman Empire. The main aims of this dissertation are, by keeping the differences in the tastes and inclinations of the different social groups in the society, to determine the introduction of the goods of Western origin creating the Western life style into the daily life of the inhabitants of İstanbul and to determine how the use of these goods spreaded in the society.Almost eighthundred inventory estates are chosen in order to determine the traditional material culture goods used for sheltering and culinary aims. During the study of the defined era, a great attention is paid to analysis of the continuity as much as determining the elements of change. The results obtained from the study of the inventory estates reveal that the usage of traditional goods continued for a long time while the spread of Western style goods is not realized until the mid of the 19th. century and there is a differentiaon of the inclination of owning Western style goods between the Muslim and non-Muslim social groups of İstanbul.