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The Volume of Iranian Raw Silk Exports in the Safavid Period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Edmund M. Herzig
Edmund M. Herzig*
Affiliation:
Department of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Manchester
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Extract

Pre-nineteenth century Iranian history is short on numbers, or at least on reliable ones. Lack of quantitative data is perhaps the greatest obstacle confronting historians of pre-modern Iranian economy and society, and the Safavid period is scarcely better provided than earlier ages. The Safavid archives were destroyed, the Persian histories provide few hard facts, and the accounts of visiting Europeans, though often full of comment on social and economic matters, are generally unreliable when it comes to quantitative information. Safavid Iran thus presents a depressing contrast to its neighbours to East and West, where the earlier and deeper European penetration has left arich record in the archives of several European countries, while in the case of the Ottoman Empire, the survival of extensive state archives can only remind the historian of Iran of how much was lost through the destruction of their Safavid counterparts.

Type
Medieval and Safavid Carpets and Textiles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 1-2: The Carpets and Textiles of Iran: New Perspectives in Research , 1992 , pp. 61 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1992

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References

1 The name may be derived from the city of Aras/Aresh on the river Turianchay near to present day Khalad and Agdash in Soviet Azerbaijan. Ashurbeili, S.B. Gosudarstvo Shirvanshakhov (Baku, 1983), p. 285Google Scholar; Geiderov, M.Kh., Gorodai gorodskoe remeslo AzerbaidzhanaXIII-XVII vekov (Baku, 1982), pp. 108-109.Google Scholar

2 A sixteenth century Italian account mentions “a large fortress named Canar, subject to which are many villages famous for the culture of silk, which from this place is named canarese”, which might perhaps be the same place as the Kenderah (?) mentioned by Evliya Chelebi as an Armenian village across the river Kura from a Muslim village, Mekuchurud, which was famous for its silk: A Narrative of Italian Travels in Persia in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, trans. and ed. C. Grey (London, 1873), 203; Çelebi, Evliya, Seyahatnamesi, ed. Cevdet, A. (Istanbul, 1314/1896), II, p. 287.Google Scholar

3 Meilink-Roelofsz, M.A.P., “The structures of trade in Asia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A critical appraisal”, Mare Luso-Indicum, vol. IV (1980), pp. 36-37Google Scholar

4 Refer to table 1 for figures and sources

5 Mallett, M. E. The Florentine Galleys in the Fifteenth Century (Oxford, 1967), pp. 63-72.Google Scholar, 118-120.

6 For the data taken from Sella I have worked on the basis of a 90 kg bale, as he suggests.

7 N. Steensgaard, Carracks, Caravans and Companies: the Structural Crisis in the European-Asian Trade in the Early 17th Century (Copenhagen, 1973) (also published as: The Asian Trade Revolution of the Seventeenth century. The East India Companies and the Decline of the Caravan Trade, Chicago/London, 1973), p. 162.

8 As early as 1609 it was described as a big port with numerous Europeans, ships from distant ports, and a sizeable Armenian population. Lehatsi, Simeon, Ughegrut ‘iwn, tarngrut'iwn ew yishatank', ed. Akinean, N. (Vienna, 1936), pp. 37-38.Google Scholar

9 Steensgaard, op. cit., p. 161.

10 Ibid., p. 162.

11 Gy. Káldy Nágy, “Dannye k istorii levantinskoi torgovli v nachale XVII sloletiya”, in Vostochnye istochniki po istorii Yugo-vostochnoi i Tsentral’ noi Evropy, vol.II, ed. A.S. Tveritinova (Moscow, 1969), p. 333.

12 Ibid., p.330.

13 According to J. Savary, Le par fait négociant (Paris, 1742-1749), vol. I, part 2, book 5: 1 bale = 20 batman 1 batman = 6 oqqa 1 oqqa = 3.125 Marseille pounds

13 IBID., p. 441.

15 Refer to table 2 for figures and sources.

16 On Irano-Russian trade in the seventeenth century, and on the agreements of 1667, 1673 and 1676 see: Kukanova, N. G., Ocherki po istorii russko-iranskikh torgovykh otnoshenii v XVII-pervoi polovine XIX veka (Saransk, 1977)Google Scholar; Sh. Khach'ikyan, L., Nor Jughayi hay vach ‘arakanutyunë ev nra arevtratntesakan kaperë Rusastani het XVII-XVIII darerum (Erevan, 1988).Google Scholar

17 de Bruyn, C., Voyages de Corneille Le Brun par la Moscovie, en Perse, et aux Indes Orientales (Amsterdam, 1718), vol. I, p. 76.Google Scholar

18 Ferrier, R.W., British Persian Relations in the Seventeenth Century, D.Phil. dissertation, Cambridge, 1970, p. 171, n. 55Google Scholar; Glamann, K. Dutch-Asiatic Trade 1620-1740 (Copenhagen/ The Hague, 1958), p. 126Google Scholar.

19 Archives du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Paris, Correspondence politique, Perse, vol. VI, f. 44b

20 Refer to table 3 for figures and sources.

21 Refer to table 4 for figures and sources

22 His memorandum included the equally improbable statistic that Iran had a Christian population of seven million: Shéfer, Raphaël du Mans, Estat de la Perse en 1660, ed. , C., (Paris, 1890) (reprinted Famborough, 1969), p. 346.Google Scholar

23 Sources as for tables

24 Chardin, J., Voyages de Chardin, ed. , L. Langlès (Paris, 1811), vol.IV, pp. 162-163.Google Scholar

25 Certain contemporary commentators noted the exaggeration in estimates of Iranian silk production: Raphaël du Mans, op. c i t . , p. 12; and, possibly following him, Tavemier, J. B. Les six voyages du Chevalier Chardin en Perse, et autres vieux de l'orient (Paris, 1682), vol. I, p. 542Google Scholar.

26 The East India Company directors were well aware of the difficulty of accurately estimating the level of Iran's silk production, noting on one occasion that estimates ranged from 5,000 to 30,000 bales. Calendar of State Papers, colonial series, East Indies…, 1622- 1624, ed. Sainsbury, W.N. (London, 1878), p. 184.Google Scholar

27 Ferrier, R.W., “An English view of the Persian trade in 1618”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol. XIX/2 (1976), p. 191.Google Scholar

28 Ibid., pp. 191-194

29 Bronnen tot de Geschiedenis der Oostindische Compagnie in Persië, ed. Dunlop, H. (The Hague, 1930), p. 612.Google Scholar

30 Meilink-Roelofsz, M.A.P., “The Earliest Relations between Persia and the Netherlands”, Persica, vol. VI (1972-1974), p. 38.Google Scholar

31 Overschie was not alone in underestimating the continuing trade via the Levant Compare van Oostende's assertion that only 50 bales had gone overland to Turkey in 1638: Bronnen tot…, p. 654.

32 Ibid., pp. 638-639.

33 Ibid., pp. 665-666

34 See note 17 above.

35 They reckoned the bale at 6 pud or 98.28 kg