Greek And Ottoman Financial Instruments

Following the fall of Constantinople in 1453, all of Byzantine empire of which Greece was the dominant ethnicity and culture became part of Ottoman Turkey with the majority of Greeks eventually converting into Moslems aquiring a mostly ‘fake’ Turkish ethnicity.

Nontheless many Greeks and others identifying as Christians/westerners kept their religion and eventually gained independence in parts of the Ottoman empire.

This collection follows the mostly ‘Greek’ commercial experience (often of assimilated Jews) in the Ottoman state and later independent successor state of modern Greece, through the medium of financial instruments up to 1922 .

As Islamic religion was hostile to money lending it was Greeks, Italians, Armenians and Jews who were in charge of finance in the Ottoman empire.