A city's bazaar is the most crowded stage of its daily life, and it is known by its sounds. In Amasya's historic bazaar every craft once had a voice of its own: the mallet of the tinsmith moving around the rim of a copper vessel, the bell of the knife grinder passing in the street, the faint tapping from the small shop where the saddler worked with awl and packing needle, the creak of the wheel the rope maker turned as he walked backwards in front of his shop. Industrialization, plastics and mass production, and then motor vehicles, pushed most of these skills into silence. The trades that a few last masters still practice today remain as evidence of how subtle a body of knowledge hand production rested on.

Surveys of vanishing trades list hundreds of crafts, from the printed-cloth seller to the sheep dealer, from the farrier to the carder, from the soft-boot maker to the shoe-upper stitcher. Most of their names are unknown to young people today. Yet many people whose fathers were workers, farmers, engineers or teachers had grandfathers or great-grandfathers who were blacksmiths, tinsmiths, carpenters, farriers or makers of rawhide sandals. In Amasya the trace of this memory survived not only in the shops but also in family names. The city's old records speak of the Kalaycızâdes, the Semercioğulları, families who rose from farriery into the ranks of the notables, and memoirs that walk through the bazaar naming it shop by shop. Tinning, basketry, knife grinding, saddlery, rope making and farriery were among the crafts that lived longest in the Amasya bazaar and withdrew from it most quietly.

The Order of Crafts in the Bazaar

In the traditional bazaar trades did not work independently of one another. Because copper vessels had to be tinned before they could be used, tinsmiths usually kept their shops close to the coppersmiths. By the same logic the farrier who shod pack animals, the master of the pack saddle that sat on the animal's back and the rope maker who twisted the cord that tied the load often worked side by side or in the same street. This neighbourliness also shaped a shared circle of customers. A caravaneer or villager setting out on the road would have his animal shod, his pack saddle repaired, his rope renewed and his copper pot tinned, meeting most of his needs in a single stop.

Craftsmen were at one time organized into guilds. The tinsmiths' guilds regulated the use of the assay stamp so that the maker of every piece would be known. There are also records showing the importance of tinsmiths in the Ottoman period. A miniature in the Surname-i Hümayun shows the tinsmiths passing in the procession of the guilds, and according to the Surname-i Lebib, the Steward of the Istanbul Tinsmiths and the Steward of the Üsküdar Tinsmiths were entertained in the camp of Nafiz Efendi, Treasurer of the Mansure army. With the disappearance of the guilds these trades left an organized structure and became knowledge learned only through the master-apprentice relationship; as needs changed and apprentices grew hard to find, new masters ceased to be trained.

In Amasya, too, the tradesmen belonged to this order. Hüsameddin writes that in the city "every kind of trade had its own kethüda (steward)," and mentions these stewards in the same sentence as the deputy of the naqib al-ashraf, who served as steward of the sayyids. The stewards did not merely handle the internal affairs of their trades; they were counted among the city's representatives whose word carried weight. In the first half of the eighteenth century, when Köprülüzâde Fazıl Abdullah Pasha, inspector of Anatolia, came to investigate the rivalries among Amasya's notables, he stayed in tents pitched in Hacılar Meydanı and, while hearing the city's leading men, its ulema and its sheikhs, also summoned the stewards of the trades, the naqibs of the sayyids and the yiğitbaşıs of the common people one by one to take their statements. The tinsmith, the farrier or the saddler was a craftsman sitting at the head of his shop in daily life, and at the same time a member of a community that could make its voice heard in the government of the city through its steward.

The Old Face of the Amasya Bazaar

The most detailed picture of the Amasya bazaar at the beginning of the twentieth century comes from the memoirs of Osman Fevzi Olcay. Born in 1887, Olcay walks shop by shop through the Mahkeme Çarşısı, the Saraçhane quarter, the surroundings of the Taşhan and the road between Alçak Köprü and the Sultan Bayezid Mosque, writing down as far as he remembers who owned each shop, who rented it and in which quarter its owner lived. Alongside the greengrocer, butcher, grocer, barber, baker and coffeehouse keeper, craftsmen also appear in this account. In the Mahkeme Çarşısı, opposite the large building part of which was used as the Darü'l-Hilafeti'l-Aliyye, there was "a large farrier's shop." Beneath the Mehmet Bey Madrasa beside the Mehmet Pasha Mosque, next to the stairway leading down to the street, stood a shop run by a master named Semerci Abduş (Abduş the Saddler); these shops had been built to provide income for the madrasa. Beside the gate of the Kapancızâde Madrasa, on the left of the road from Alçak Köprü to the Sultan Bayezid Mosque, worked Bıçakçı Sivaslı Garnik (Garnik of Sivas, the knife maker), "famous for his craft."

This picture also shows that a large part of the shops in the bazaar belonged to the pious endowments (waqfs) of mosques and madrasas. Olcay relates that the shops beneath the Vakıfhan, which belonged to the endowment of Mehmet Pasha, were let every year by public auction. A similar arrangement appears in Hüsameddin's records: several shops were bought and endowed for the income of the Kâşifiye Madrasa, founded in the middle of the eighteenth century, and earlier still shops in the bedesten had been endowed to small mosques. The craftsman thus often worked as the tenant of an endowment, and the rent he paid went to the upkeep of a madrasa, a mosque or a fountain.

The bazaar was also mixed in its population. Olcay writes that most of the twenty or so drapers' and tailors' shops on both sides of the street leading from the Taşhan to the Saraçhane quarter and the Kileri Süleyman Ağa Mosque were held by Greek and Armenian tradesmen, while Turkish and Muslim tradesmen kept only three or five shops. A compilation based on the memorial book of the Armenians of Amasya gives the same picture craft by craft: most of the city's Armenians were craftsmen, and the most numerous workshops were those of tailors, blacksmiths, carpenters, cobblers, weavers and tinsmiths. According to figures from 1890, there were thirty blacksmiths' workshops, five tinsmiths' workshops and fifty cobblers' shops belonging to Armenians in the city. The deportation of 1915 and the subsequent departure of the Greek population led, in Olcay's words, to "economic occupations" changing hands. Olcay notes separately that he could give no information about the shops of the Armenian cobblers who had been sent away in the deportation. Population figures, however, call for caution. The high proportion of non-Muslims that Olcay gives was corrected by the editors of his book with the lower figures in the yearbooks of the province of Sivas.

The Tinsmith's Fire and Mallet

Copper vessels darken over time and reach a state in which they can harm food. Because direct contact between copper and food could cause poisoning, the inside of vessels was glazed with tin; the person who did this work was called a kalaycı, a tinsmith or tinner. Tin is a very old metal; the first alloys containing tin came into use in Mesopotamia around 3200-2500 BC. Inscribed clay tablets from Kültepe near Kayseri suggest that Anatolia obtained the tin needed for bronze production from Assyria. In the Roman period the method of tinning the inner surface of copper and copper-alloy food vessels was discovered, and tin spread both in bronze making and in vessel coating. The tin-plated can, meanwhile, was first produced in London in 1812.

Tinning follows a set sequence. First the holes, dents or broken parts of the vessel are repaired; if necessary a copper patch is attached with tin solder. Then the vessel is annealed in a hearth fired with coke. Annealing reduces the hardness of the copper and removes coarse dirt from the surface. The hearth was once fed by bellows, later by a hand-cranked blower, and today by electric blowers. Bent or sunken areas are straightened on the anvil with hammer and wooden mallet; throughout the process the vessel is held with tongs called kısaç. In the cleaning stage the vessel is scoured in a sand pit mixed with fine coal dust. With large vessels this was done by apprentices with their feet, turning now right, now left; it is said that in the days when they worked barefoot the soles of their feet would be pierced. Today the sand pit has almost been abandoned, replaced by cleaning with acid or caustic soda.

In the tinning proper the surface is heated evenly, sal ammoniac is sprinkled and rubbed on with cotton, and when thick smoke rises it is known that the surface is ready. The sal ammoniac removes invisible dirt from the surface and makes the tin adhere evenly. A stick of tin is melted by rubbing it on the heated surface and spread everywhere with cotton. Places that have not taken the tin are brushed, and the vessel is heated a second time and treated with sal ammoniac to correct them. Finally the vessel is dipped in water, plunged into sawdust and rubbed dry by hand; the sawdust both dries the surface without scratching it and polishes it. Copper vessels were tinned once or twice a year and were renewed with every tinning.

Tinsmiths and the Kalaycızâdes in Amasya

In Amasya tinning was a trade rooted deeply enough to become a family name. Hüsameddin records that an Amasya man named Kalaycı Halil Ağa (Halil Agha the Tinsmith) became bostancıbaşı at the palace in 1164 (1751); the bostancıbaşı was an office close to the sultan, responsible for guarding the palace gardens and shores. The next generation of the family was known as Kalaycızâde, "son of the tinsmith." Halil Ağa's son Hacı Ömer Ağa, on his death in 1174 (1760-61), left a will directing that a madrasa be built from a third of his estate and appointed one of the city's well-known scholars, Següköylüzâde Hacı Mehmed Kâşif Efendi, as executor. The madrasa was built in 1175 (1761-62) in the Eski Kethüdâ quarter, in the street east of the Abdullatif Efendi Library; several shops were bought with the remainder of the bequest and endowed, and the building was named Kâşifiye after the executor. The wooden madrasa was rebuilt in 1244 (1828-29) by Ak Hasanzâde Hacı Hasan Ağa and in 1304 (1886-87) by Ayşe Hanım, wife of Şefik Pasha. Hüsameddin also records that Kalaycızâde Hacı Ömer Ağa built a fountain dated 1179 (1765-66) in front of the Kâşifiye Madrasa. Since this date falls after Ömer Ağa's death, it seems likely that the fountain was built through his will or endowment, but the source offers no explanation.

Ömer Ağa's son, Kalaycızâde Hacı Ca'fer Ağa, was orphaned together with his brother Hacı Abdullah Efendi when his father died, and grew up under the guardianship of Kâşif Mehmed Efendi, mufti of Amasya. Taken into the Enderun, the palace school, in 1188 (1774-75), Ca'fer Ağa rose under the patronage of the sword-bearer Seyyid Abdullah Ağa of Lâdik to the rank of dülbend ağası, was sent to Amasya in 1210 (1795-96) as administrator of the endowment of Bayezid Pasha, and died around 1236 (1820-21) as a member of the council of notables. Hüsameddin counts the family among the notables of the Çeribaşı quarter. That a tinsmith's nickname reached, within two generations, palace service, the endowment of a madrasa and a fountain, and the city council shows that the line between tradesmen and the city's elite in Amasya was not as thick as might be supposed.

In the nineteenth century the same rise was repeated in another tinsmith's family. According to Hüsameddin, Hacı Mehmed Ağa, known as "Kara Hâfız," was the son of Hasan bin Halil of the tinsmiths' guild of Amasya. In his youth he was known as "Kalaycıoğlu" and worked with his own hands. With what he earned he bought the estate, farm and the konak at Köprübaşı of Şeyhzâde Kadı Mustafa Necib Efendi and entered the ranks of the notables. In 1281 (1864-65), during the governorship of Ziya Pasha, the zeal he showed in collecting cash contributions earned him a seat on the administrative council. Another entry in Hüsameddin relates that a historic mansion east of the men's section of the Alaca Hamam passed first to Kadızâde Mustafa Necib Efendi, then to "Kalaycızâde Hacı Mehmed Ağa, famous as Kara Hâfız," and burned down completely in the fire of 1333 (1915). Olcay, too, describing the road between Alçak Köprü and the Sultan Bayezid Mosque, mentions the house of Kara Hafız Ağa and his sons Ali and Necip Efendi; Necip Efendi's son Agâh Bey was Olcay's schoolmate at the idadi. Olcay's memoirs also mention Kalaycıoğlu Bekir Ağa; "Kalaycı oğlu Bekir" was one of the leading cockfighting enthusiasts who gathered in the high coffeehouse between the Mustafa Bey Hamam and its furnace.

Those who actually practiced tinning at the end of the nineteenth century were mostly non-Muslim masters. The compilation based on the Armenian memorial book counts four Armenian tinners in the city. Besides them there were eleven Armenian tinsmiths who made various articles of tin and sheet metal; the most senior, Kapriel Djamdjian, specialized in making tin samovars and is also remembered as the first person to bring window and lamp glass to the city. According to figures from 1890, all five tinsmiths' workshops in the city belonged to Armenians.

The story of tinning in Taşova illustrates this retreat well. After Taşova became a district in 1944, tinsmiths who came from the Black Sea coast with their bellows on their backs began practicing bellows tinning here and stayed in the villages for weeks or even months. Among the district's first master tinsmiths are named Yusuf Günaydın, Gafur Karaismailoğlu, Dursun Ali Karaismailoğlu, Salih Kuşdil, Ali Rıza Günaydın and Mustafa Gündoğdu. Apprentices trained beside them, such as Hasan Fehmi Karaismailoğlu, Saadettin Şahin and Şaban Yıldırım, carried on the work between 1970 and 1990 and gave it up when demand fell. During the research carried out in 2009 by students of Taşova Anatolian Imam Hatip High School, the only master still practicing tinning in the district was Sebahattin Günaydın. In general tinning declined in parallel with the decline of coppersmithing, and most tinsmiths' shops closed between 1950 and 1960. Itinerant tinning continued for some time longer as an ethnic occupation.

Coppersmith, Tinsmith and Samovar Maker

The tinsmith's work cannot be separated from the coppersmith's. Coppersmithing is the art of making vessels such as cauldrons, jugs, basins, bowls, pots, pans, dishes, buckets, braziers, ewers and trays by hammering and spinning techniques. Repoussé is used to work shapes and motifs on the vessels, with chisel and punch. Production of household articles has declined and copper work has largely turned to ornaments; even so, it continues on a small scale in many parts of Anatolia. Since tinning copper also required the vessels to be repaired, the tinsmith often served as a kind of ancillary trade.

In this field Amasya lagged behind the cities around it. According to the compilation based on the Armenian memorial book, nearby Tokat and Merzifon had far more coppersmiths; Amasya had eight coppersmiths' workshops in all. Among the known coppersmiths were the Mavian brothers and Kazancı Hovhannes, who specialized in making European-style stills. Two Armenian bell makers also worked in the city, melting copper and other metals to cast small and large bells and making candlesticks and censers of yellow brass.

One of the crafts in which coppersmithing and tinsmithing met is samovar making. Olcay lists Russian samovars among the valuable wares of a shop in the Mahkeme Çarşısı, and Kapriel Djamdjian's tin samovars were being made in the city in the same period. This craft has survived to the present around the Taşhan. Built according to its inscription in 1110 (1698-99) by Hacı Mehmet Pasha, the two-storey Taşhan, with its shops opening onto the street, is a typical example of the Ottoman urban inn; it was restored by the Regional Directorate of Foundations in 2008-2010. According to a news report from 2025, Hamdi Küçük had made samovars with his father in the Taşhan since childhood; when the workshops were emptied for the restoration, he went to Istanbul about twelve years earlier and became a taxi driver, and after his father's death he returned to Amasya and to the trade. Now the city's only remaining samovar maker, since the other masters have died, Küçük makes samovars assembled from twenty-seven pieces of cut sheet metal as well as copper samovars bearing a geographical indication. In the same report the 76-year-old tradesman Osman Zengin says that there used to be five samovar makers in the area of the Taşhan and that, because no new masters are being trained, trades such as coppersmithing and samovar making are fading into oblivion.

Before plastics, metal vessels replaced earthenware in the household economy. The solderer or tinker was an itinerant tradesman who repaired small household utensils; he soldered the handle of a tin mug, the spout of an ewer or the tear in a zinc pail, and usually formed a side branch of the blacksmith's trade. The potter who sold earthenware declined as middle and upper income groups turned to tinned copper vessels, although earthenware is still used in rural areas today. At the end of the nineteenth century Amasya had four potters' workshops, three belonging to Armenians and one to a Greek. The same bazaar also had itinerant traders such as the peddler (çerçi), who sold haberdashery from village to village; as he approached, the sound of his wares knocking against one another announced his arrival.

Baskets Woven from Reed

In the days before plastics, baskets were the most practical way to carry fruit, vegetables and loads. Basket makers wove willow branches, reed and cane into sturdy baskets, panniers and carrier bags. Each basket took shape loop by loop in the master's fingers. In work stretching from the grape harvest to market shopping, these baskets were indispensable helpers of daily life. Porters who carried vegetables and fruit in the markets were called küfeci; the porters' trade had strong guilds, and the occupation often passed from father to son. As plastic crates spread, the basket maker's place shrank.

In a city like Amasya, known for its vineyards, orchards and fruit, the basket held a large place. In the bazaar Olcay describes, greengrocers' shops stood in rows, and the cream, milk and yoghurt of the Ziyere summer pastures and the finest vegetables and fruit of the vineyards and gardens came to these shops. Goods sent out of the city needed sturdier containers: at the end of the nineteenth century the Armenian carpenter Krikor Djurian made crates, used for exporting shelled walnuts and misket apples, from cedar logs he had floated down the river from the forests near Tokat. The basket remained the vessel of the short road between bazaar and vineyard, home and market. Basketry also finds a place in official lists today. In the list of vanishing trades of traditional, cultural or artistic value prepared under the regulation on shopping centres, basketry and basket weaving are counted, together with mat weaving, broom making and straw weaving, among the crafts made from animal and plant materials.

The Grinder's Stone and the Knife Maker's Anvil

When the bell of the knife grinder passing in the street was heard, housewives would bring their dulled knives and scissors to the door. The grinder sharpened cutting tools on a stone he turned with his foot, and the sparks flying from the stone became a small show that children watched in admiration. Today knife grinding is less a separate livelihood than a trade left behind. One collection tells of a knife grinder from Malatya working in Pendik who sharpened ten to fifteen knives a day, taking one or one and a half liras each and earning twenty or thirty liras. These figures show how the trade has narrowed. Knife grinding and cutlery appear in the list of vanishing trades within the metal group.

The grinder's work complemented that of the knife maker who made the blade in the first place. At the end of the nineteenth century five Armenian knife makers worked in Amasya. Besides knives they made penknives, shears and the shuttles of weaving looms; the best known were the Panosian brothers. Making shuttles shows how closely cutlery was intertwined with the city's weaving. Bıçakçı Sivaslı Garnik, named in Olcay's memoirs, was a master "famous for his craft" who worked beside the gate of the Kapancızâde Madrasa. The shops beneath the same madrasa were also the scene of an incident Hüsameddin relates: Kofuoğlu Ahmed Ağa, who had risen from farriery to wealth, was struck from behind with an axe in 1320 (1902) while sitting on a stool in front of these shops, and died five days later.

The Saddler's Needle

The pack saddle (semer) is a traditional piece of harness placed on the backs of pack and riding animals such as donkeys, mules, horses and camels, usually made by wrapping felt, leather and straw around a wooden frame. Since a poorly balanced one would wound the animal's back, great care is needed in making it. The frame is prepared from durable woods such as hornbeam, oak, plane or poplar; the front and rear arch pieces are joined with side boards. The pad is sewn from sacking or burlap and stuffed with reed or straw. Felt or carpet is sewn on the upper surface, and soft felt on the lower surface for the animal's comfort; the frame is placed on this pad and fixed. Riding saddles could be decorated with pompoms, beads and coloured threads.

Measurements are usually taken by eye. This is a skill acquired only through years of experience, and according to the masters, making a pack saddle is not something that can be learned by being told; it must be experienced one-to-one beside a master. There are small differences from region to region. In the villages of Konya two kinds of donkey saddle are made, long-necked and short-forked; in Bursa saddles are produced with hornbeam frames and goatskin, and today miniature saddles are also sold as souvenirs. Saddlery, too, appears in the same list of vanishing trades, together with harness making, tack making, riding-saddle making and padded-saddle making, in the group of crafts using mixed raw materials.

In Amasya pack-saddle making was intertwined with leatherwork and riding-saddle making. According to the compilation based on the Armenian memorial book, three saddle makers, one Circassian and two Armenian, kept workshops in the city's bazaar. They made the Circassian-style horse saddle called eğer and silver horse tack, the saddles known as "Osmanlı," harness for pack horses and belts for people. Among the masters Mardiros and Hovhannes Adzigian are named; they were known for decorating saddles and carriages with silver ornaments called savatlı. The Saraçhane quarter and Saraçhane Mosque, which Olcay mentions often, recall by their names the old place of leatherwork (saraçlık) in the bazaar.

In Olcay's memoirs, the names of the masters who made pack saddles appear within the life of the neighbourhood. Semerci Abduş ran the endowment shop beneath the Mehmet Bey Madrasa. Near the Bimarhane, close to the Mustafa Bey Hamam, stood the house of Semerci Bekir Ağa; it faced the simit bakery, and Olcay spent the first four years after his marriage in this house as a tenant. It is also recorded that Bekir, son of Semerci Mehmet Ağa, lived in the same quarter. The index of Olcay's book gives separate entries to two masters named Semerci Bekir and Semerci Yahya. Examples of the trade name turning into a family name are older. Hüsameddin mentions Semercioğlu Hüseyin Ağa and Semercioğlu Hacı Hasan Ağa among the Janissary officers of Amasya in the eighteenth century, and the Semercizâde family, which supplied muftis, in the nineteenth; there is, however, no record that these men themselves made saddles, and the name merely reflects a nickname the family took from an ancestor.

The Girth Maker and the Rope Maker's Twist

The woven or leather strap used to fasten an animal's pack saddle or riding saddle was called a kolan (girth). Since Ottoman transport relied heavily on animals, girth making was one of the ancillary industries of the transport sector, and girth makers opened shops especially along travel routes.

Urgan is the name given to a thin rope made from textile fibres such as flax, hemp and cotton. It was widely used both in the household economy and in the crafts. The rope maker did the braiding himself and sold his goods directly to the consumer; he usually had a fixed shop, and an itinerant rope maker was rarely seen. Fibres stretched along a long path were twisted tightly with a spinning wheel, and at the end of this process came sturdy ropes able to bear the binding of an ox cart, the halter of an animal and the rope of a well. A loosely twisted rope comes apart at the first load; its strength therefore depends on the regularity of the master's twist. In the list, rope making is counted within the group of traditional carpet and kilim weaving.

At the end of the nineteenth century six Armenian master rope makers worked in Amasya, and the way they twisted rope has been recorded in detail. A wheel fixed to the ground stood at the entrance of the workshop. A bundle of combed hemp was tied around the master's waist, and its other end was fastened to the two screws of the wheel. As the master walked backwards, the wheel and its screws turned, and the master, constantly rolling the hemp with his fingers, turned the fibres into strong cords. By the time he reached the back of the workshop, a rope thirty metres long had been made. This rope was called kınnap and was used for tasks such as tying the mouths of sacks. The kind twisted from three strands of hemp instead of two was called sicim, and thicker ropes were made by joining several kınnaps. Reins for pack animals and girths for securing loads were also produced from kınnap. The rope maker's work thus met the saddler's and the farrier's on the back of the same pack animal. That one of the city's exporting merchants was a certain Garabed bearing the surname Ourghandjian (Urgancıyan) shows that here, too, the trade had become a family name.

The Farrier's Anvil

The farrier is the craftsman who rasps the hooves of pack and riding animals and nails shoes beneath them. The iron, reddened in the fire blown by the bellows, takes shape on the anvil and is fitted to the animal's foot. Farriery requires both a blacksmith's knowledge and an instinct for reading an animal's behaviour; calming a frightened animal is the most delicate part of the work. In the Ottoman world the horseshoe served a function similar to today's car tyre, and farriers usually established themselves along transport routes. As motor vehicles spread, the need for farriery declined rapidly. Farriery is counted in the list of vanishing trades in the metal group under a separate number.

The iron the farrier used passed largely through the hands of the blacksmiths in Amasya. Armenian blacksmiths working in the city numbered up to a hundred and fifty including apprentices; they made plough blades, axes, hoes, weapons, shovels and similar tools. The same compilation names only one Armenian as a farrier. This suggests that farriery in the city was mostly in the hands of Muslim tradesmen. The large farrier's shop in the Mahkeme Çarşısı described by Olcay and Nalbant Abdullah Usta (Master Abdullah the Farrier), son of Mehmet Hafız, known as Anaç Hoca, of the Gümüşlü quarter, are examples of these masters preserved in memory. Olcay remembers Abdullah Usta, like his father, as "a devout man." The index of his book lists two more masters under the names Nalbant Halil and Nalbant Şükrü.

In Hüsameddin's biographies farriery appears as one of the first steps toward wealth and standing in the city. The father of Firari Seyyid Hasan Pasha, Çırçırlı Hacı Abdullah Ağa, belonged to the farriers' guild and later entered the ranks of Amasya's notables. Because he came from Gerger, the old name of Kirkuk, he was first called Girgirli or Gergerî, and because he lived in the Gökmedrese quarter near the Çırçır spring he came to be called Çırçırlı. The history of Silahdar Mehmed Ağa states that Hasan Pasha was "the son of a farrier from Shahrizor"; according to Hüsameddin, Abdullah Ağa rose while a farrier under the patronage of the Bağdatlıoğulları. The story of Kofuoğlu Hacı Ahmed Ağa is darker. Descended from Kofu Abdurrahman Ağa, one of the Janissaries of Amasya, Ahmed Ağa was first a farrier, then became the ringleader of the sieve makers and the Gypsies and grew rich on their earnings, and by entering tax farming came to own houses, vineyards, gardens, fields and inns. Hüsameddin describes him as both pious and generous with alms and cruel and foul-mouthed. The name of farriery passed into place names as well. Among the quarters of the town of Köprü (Vezirköprü), then part of the sanjak of Amasya, was a Nalbandlı quarter, and the town had a madrasa of the same name.

Caravan, Drover and Wool Carder

In the age when transport depended on animals, camel drivers, girth makers and drovers were also part of the same network. Before the railway the camel was the most common animal in overland transport, and camels were mostly in the hands of nomadic Yörüks. Tradesmen who brought sheep and cattle to the towns to sell were called celep; herds were driven over long distances accompanied by shepherds, and some perished on the way. The carder (hallaç), who fluffed wool stuffing with a bowstring and mallet, was regarded as a kind of forerunner of today's upholsterer. In Amasya cart making was also a link in this network. Olcay relates that the municipality sold a derelict site to Arabacı Şükrü Usta (Master Şükrü the Cartwright), who had a large building put up there and founded an establishment called the Şark Araba İmalathanesi (Eastern Carriage Works). In time all these tradesmen were replaced by motor vehicles, ready-made goods and factory products.

Efforts at Documentation and Remembrance

The loss of these crafts means the loss not only of an occupational group but also of a manual skill, a way of passing on knowledge and the discipline of master and apprentice. Under Article 17 of the Regulation on Shopping Centres, issued pursuant to Law No. 6585 on the Regulation of Retail Trade, a list was drawn up of vanishing trades of traditional, cultural or artistic value. The list includes all the crafts named here, such as coppersmithing, tinning, knife grinding, farriery, basketry, rope making and saddlery. For trades not on the list but regarded as vanishing, the approval of the Ministry is decisive.

The importance of transmitting knowledge within the master-apprentice relationship is emphasized for keeping these trades alive. Studies of tinning point out that if masters cannot be trained, the trade will have no future. Schools, municipalities and researchers record the methods of the last masters by interviewing them, so that the silenced sounds of the bazaar are at least turned into writing and documents. A high school project in Taşova that had the last master tinsmith perform the tinning process again and recorded it is a small but concrete example of this effort. The search of the last samovar maker in the Taşhan for an apprentice is the present-day face of the same concern. For Amasya the old sources carry a value of their own: Hüsameddin's biographies, Olcay's memoirs written shop by shop, and the memorial book of the Armenians who were forced to leave the city are the principal documents that together preserve the names and work of masters no longer found in the bazaar.

Chronology

3200-2500 BC: The first alloys containing tin come into use in Mesopotamia.

1698-99 (AH 1110): According to its inscription, the Taşhan of Amasya is built.

1751 (AH 1164): Kalaycı Halil Ağa of Amasya becomes bostancıbaşı at the palace.

1760-61 (AH 1174): Kalaycızâde Hacı Ömer Ağa dies, leaving a will for a madrasa to be built from a third of his estate.

1761-62 (AH 1175): Under the will the Kâşifiye Madrasa is built and shops are endowed for its income.

1765-66 (AH 1179): A fountain is built in the name of Kalaycızâde Hacı Ömer Ağa in front of the Kâşifiye Madrasa.

1774-75 (AH 1188): Kalaycızâde Ca'fer Ağa is taken into the Enderun.

1812: The first tin can for preserving food is produced in London.

1864-65 (AH 1281): Kara Hâfız Mehmed Ağa, who came from the tinsmiths' guild, becomes a member of the administrative council.

1890: Thirty blacksmiths' and five tinsmiths' workshops belonging to Armenians are recorded in Amasya.

1902 (AH 1320): Kofuoğlu Ahmed Ağa, who had risen from farriery, is attacked in front of the shops beneath the Kapancızâde Madrasa and dies.

1915: Deportation and the great fire; the shops of Armenian tradesmen change hands, and the historic mansion that had passed to Kara Hâfız Mehmed Ağa burns down.

1944: Taşova becomes a district; tinsmiths with bellows from the Black Sea coast begin working in the surrounding villages.

1950-1960: Most tinsmiths' shops close.

1970-1990: In Taşova the apprentices of the master tinsmiths carry on the work, giving it up when demand falls.

2008-2009: Students of Taşova Anatolian Imam Hatip High School research tinning; the only master still practicing the trade in the district is Sebahattin Günaydın.

2008-2010: The Taşhan is restored by the Regional Directorate of Foundations.

2025: Hamdi Küçük works near the Taşhan as the city's only remaining samovar maker.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Hüsameddin, Amasya Tarihi, vol. 1, e-book pp. 109 and 175 (Kâşifiye Madrasa and the Kalaycızâde fountain); vol. 4, e-book pp. 540, 642 and 653 (guild stewards, Kalaycı Halil Ağa). https://amasya.bel.tr/uploads/e-kitap/kitap/1-4/files/basic-html/page175.html
  • Hüsameddin, Amasya Tarihi, vols. 6-8, e-book pp. 240 (Kofuoğlu Ahmed Ağa), 516 (Kalaycızâde Ca'fer Ağa), 560 (Kara Hâfız Mehmed Ağa), 611 (Firari Seyyid Hasan Pasha). https://amasya.bel.tr/uploads/e-kitap/kitap/6-8/files/basic-html/page560.html
  • Hüsameddin, Amasya Tarihi, vols. 9-12, e-book pp. 235 (Nalbandlı Madrasa) and 372 (the mansion that passed to Kara Hâfız); vols. 1-4, e-book p. 199 (quarters of the town of Köprü).
  • Osman Fevzi Olcay, Amasya Hâtıraları: Bildiklerim-Gördüklerim-İşittiklerim ile Amasya, simplified by Turan Böcekçi and Mehmet H. Seçkiner, Amasya Municipality Cultural Publications No. 8, Amasya 2009 (sections on Çevikçe, Gümüşlü, Mahkeme Çarşısı, Taşhan and Alçak Köprü).

Official sources

  • "Kalaycılık ve Tombakçılık", Ministry of Trade of the Republic of Türkiye, Geleneksel Meslekler Ansiklopedisi, vol. 1.

Other sources

  • Lory Tashjian, "Amasya: Trades and Commerce", trans. Simon Beugekian, Houshamadyan, 2022 (based on Kapriel H. Simonian, Houshamadyan Bondagan Amasyo, Venice 1966, pp. 628-670). houshamadyan.org
  • Selim Ural, "Amasya halkı, son ustasına sahip çıkıyor: İstanbul'daki işini bırakıp memleketinde usta oldu", Karar, 25 August 2025. karar.com
  • "Amasya Taş Han Restoration", Atelyemim (2008-2010, Regional Directorate of Foundations). atelyemim.com
  • Taşova Anatolian Imam Hatip High School, "Proje: Kaybolan Meslekler: Kalaycılık" (Şirin Yağmur and Esmahan Uysal, 2009).
  • "Geleneksel ve Kültürel Kaybolmaya Yüz Tutmuş Meslekler Listesi", Regulation on Shopping Centres under Law No. 6585, Article 17.
  • "Kaybolan Meslekler", Edebiyat Meraklılarının Sitesi, 2009.

Online sources