A STUDY OF AN OTTOMAN MARBLE ENDOWMENT PRESERVED IN TOPKAPI PALACE MUSEUM IN ISTANBUL

Abstract

The endowments of the Ottoman buildings were distinguished by the diversity of their material between paper and stone. However, the paper endowments were the official legal form of these buildings as they dealt with their financial and administrative affairs, e.g. staff and endowed places, while the stone endowments did not represent the full meaning of the endowment, but they were only a summary of paper endowments. Their decrees were usually inscribed on the stone panel and fixed in one of the walls of the building, including the name of the founder of the waqf and some endowed places without details. These stone endowments decrees have a great importance because of their material, which has not been easily affected by environmental factors. This paper aims to study a marble endowment by identifying its owner, his titles, the ways of spending, the buildings that benefited, the type of endowment and its amount, the cash units used, and the officials responsible for the endowment.